Chapter 1

Farzana Siddiqui was almost out of her house and onto the street, when her mother’s voice rising from the other end of the verandah ambushed her.

‘Be back on time... Shabana Baaji is coming over today, remember?’ 

Even the clamour outside, of the famous Chittli Qabar Bazaar of Purani Dilli waking up, couldn’t drown out the unyielding authority in Najma’s calm voice. Shutters were being rolled up. Streets were being swept with the broad strokes and disinclination that brings mere noise, but hardly any tidiness. Rickshaw-pullers carrying school children were negotiating leeway with pedestrians; the request to move aside always coming a few seconds too late, resulting in puddles being disturbed and the contents splashed on to people's clothes. A few arguments were exchanged and abandoned too soon in the morning rush. From the far end of the lane a tea seller was calling out to the customers to taste the tea which he claimed to have the power to make their day magical; as he swatted the flies away from the various stacks of homemade biscuits and snacks. People were walking past his tiny, soot-covered shop and his tall claims, like neither of them existed.

An involuntary cold sigh escaped from Farzana’s lips.

‘Ji Ammi. I will try my best. Allah Hafiz.’ She just shot back an absent-minded confirmation, turned around and left. There was some objection to the word ‘try’ from the verandah, but she had already turned on to the main street by then.

It’s not like Farzana needed that reminder, anyway. She had sensed it coming for over three weeks now. It was hard to miss with all the frantic cleaning, changing of the drapes, rearranging of the frugal furniture they had and brainstorming over the lavish menu they couldn’t afford, which had been going on for the last one week. One could easily deduce that that either the Queen of England or Shabana Parveen was coming over. Perhaps, the Queen’s visit would have triggered off lesser panic. Farzana had been hoping against hope though, that the visit would be called off. She didn’t have it in her to go through another one of those ‘meetings’ again. But the fact that her mother was up long before the fazr namaaz that morning, made it evidently clear that Shabana’s visit was pretty much on schedule.

Shabana Parveen was the ‘Number 1’ matchmaker in all of Purani Dilli. She had a hundred percent success rate. All the boys and girls she had been entrusted to find a potential match for, were in her own words ‘saattled and heppy, Alhamdulillah!’. Farzana Siddiqui was the only black mark on her record, an anomaly Shabana was ever so determined to correct with commendable perseverance for the last many years. Farzana did a quick count in her head. This would be the thirteenth time Shabana would be bringing over a potential suitor for Farzana in the last two years alone. And she had no reason to believe that it would go any different than the previous twelve.

Farzana looked at her watch. The bus would be arriving on the main road any moment now. She hastened her steps as she turned the corner towards Ahmed Khan Road that led to the historic Golcha Cinemas; where the bus would halt to pick her up. She needed to get away from there as fast as she could. From Ammi, Shabana Aunty, the meeting, the inscrutability of this whole act—everything. The next few hours were her refuge. The eight hours that gave her the strength to endure the rest of the sixteen, day after day. She needed to run to them as quickly as possible.

The bus was waiting for her on the main road. As she stepped inside a cheerful ‘Good Morning, Miss Farzana!’ from her sixty odd co-passengers gave her troubled mind a momentary relief. She smiled back at the children, waved her arms wide in a hello, and took her usual seat. The school bus whirred into motion, speeding Farzana away from one world to another.

*********

The school was as much of a relief as Farzana had hoped it would be. She taught English to senior classes in the Spring Valley Public School. Its principal, Dr (Mrs) Kavita Desai had met Farzana at one of the academicians’ conferences eight years ago. And a fifteen-minute conversation with Farzana is all Dr Desai had needed to make her a job offer. She said she had never seen a young girl so talented and driven and yet so grounded; a combination Dr Desai had always felt was fast disappearing amongst the newer generations.

‘So, I take it this is one of those meetings, eh?’ Kavita read Farzana’s disinclination in the deadness of her tone while requesting permission to leave a little early that day.

Farzana merely sighed and nodded in response.

‘Of course, you can leave early, my dear. But if you’d rather not, feel free to lay the blame on me…the barbaric boss who wouldn’t let you leave, although you begged and begged and begged!’

Farzana chuckled. ‘Thanks, Ma’am! There’s no point, though. If I manage to dodge this one, they will just schedule another. We might as well just be done with it. Twelve down, and I am sure not many more left to go. How many men after all, would consent to consider me?’ She laughed again, this time a little louder. The pain in that self-deprecating humour made Kavita’s heart char.

‘Besides, it’s too late to cancel now…  Ammi would have already started marinating the kebabs!’