Short Story

TROLLEY PARADE
Dr. Shamyl Khan Mehreen woke up with a start. Her cell-alarm was chiming who let the dogs out like crazy. She turned on her side with a groan, shutting off the intruding alarm. And then she remembered that it was Sunday, and she had to get ready for the dreaded trolley parade. She found these trolley parades demeaning and humiliating. All marriagable girls had to go through this routine, ad nauseamtill they get selected as a potential bride. These so-called trolley parades comprised a ritual, where a girl, who was a potential bride, would have to trot out in front of the parents/ relatives of the boy, who were looking for a suitable bride for their son. The girl was supposed to be dressed up in her finery, like a prize cattle in the Horse and Cattle Show, lumbering a teatrolley to serve the guests--- like so many spectators,viewing an exhibit. The girl in this pantomine was required to serve the guests, so that they could look her up close---for any flaws, observe her gait and mannerism; because in this jaundiced society physical looks were prefered over intellect and other traits. Mehreen have been through these rituals half a dozen times, and she simply hated being the object of half a dozen pair of eyes, watching her every move intently---like observing an insect under a microscope in a lab. But that was not all, Mehreen reflected; the real ordeal would begin, after she would finish serving the tea. Any number of old aunties would start interviewing her with a callousness of a foreign immigration officer. Most of these ladies would be highly uncouth, arrogant and supercilious in their mannerlike audit inspectors; Mehreen reminiscence wrly. Apart from being afflicted with a wide generation gap, the aunties would be humiliatingly direct in their questioning; and relentless too. It was akin to being a product in a buyers market, reflected Mehreen, who was a masters student of economics. Yes, it was a buyers market; an intrinsic attribute of a male-dominated, chauvinistic and partiarcal society, feudal to the boot; where women were treated as a commodity, reflected Mehreen morosely. Mehreen was a born-rebel. And she felt strongly rebellious towards the mores of the tribal-feudal society, which were overwhelmingly biased against the women. A decade of religious-ideological regimentation by a

hypocritical military dictator, who wore religiousity and pseudo-piety on his sleeve; had entrenched the forces of orthodoxy more strongly than ever in the society. Although, it was a society, already steeped in the dark, rigid dogmas of the mediveal era. In this closed feudal mindset, women had no value more then that of a cattle, thought Mehreen; as was evident by a spate of regular news about honor killings, vani, and jirga mandated rapes; and horrendous domestic violence perpetuated against women. Mehreen, who was a volunteer with a human rights NGO, monitoring transgression against women, thought that even the government machinery like the police and judiciary were thoroughly misogynist. But then so were, even the so-called educated urban males, to a large degree. The state of affairs was aggravated by the continuously indoctrination by the mullahs; who pontificating vociferously; frothing at the mouth, would implying as if, all sins and moral decay in the society was due to women. In their exalted opinion, the antidote to preserve the purity of the society was to keep women leashed indoors. And that a womans basic purpose was to produce childrenand that too males. Mehreens mind was a kladeiscope of such thoughts, when the mild rebuke of her mother, disintegrated her train of thought: Mehreen, you need to get up and prepare for the guests, there is a lot to do. Yes mom, I will be starting off in a few minutes, Mehreen assured her mother. Mehreen loved her mother dearly, but these trolley parades were an inevitable occasions of friction, between the two. Mehreen was the eldest off-spring of her parents; all three off-springs being girls. Mehreen was 23 years old, Neha was 20 and Fiza was 18. Mehreens mother Samina was perpetually worried to find a good match was her eldest daughter, who had only a few months left to complete her masters; so that she could then start looking for a match for Neha. Mehreens parents were both highly educated; whereas her mother was a home-maker, her father was an engineer. Both the parents were enlightened, and they had brought their daughters in a liberal-middle class atmosphere. Unlike most people of their social strata, they never felt burdened with their three daughters, They had given them reasonable liberty in the social sense. But nevertheless, they were worried about finding a suitable match. Because with the rampant materialism prevailing in the society; escalating divorce rates and increasing domestic violence, their worry was justified. They were looking for a family, which would match their modest social status and enlightened thinking. Mehreen! Do you know what time is it ? Neha called out from the door to Mehreens bedroom. Do you remember that you have to cook Chinese food for your potential inlaws, today, giggled Fiza, behind

Neha. Mehreen grabbed a pillow to throw at her sisters, but they had fled at the first sign of trouble, after delivering their incendiary remarks. Mehreen looked at the wall clock, and was horrified to see that at was nearly 11am. She had wasted valuable time at pondering over the social problems of the society; no not that of the society, but only those of the females. Because males had it too good. They were pampered and given preferential treatment, first by their doting mothers, and then they expected and extorted the same from their hapless wives. They were used to behave like Pharaohs. But then there were exceptions too, Mehreen thought, like her own father and few others in her family and social circle. With these thoughts, Mehreen eased her svelte body out of her bed and still groggy with the after-effects of sleep, walked groggly to her washroom. Mehreen was a lissome girl, with an above average height, a winsome face and an athletic body, tuned to fitness due to her love of sports. She had dark, thick and long hip-hugging hair. Her eyes were large and intense with dark brown pupils. She was soft-spoken, but firm in her views. She had been brought up by her parents to be courteous but with resolve to stand up for her rights. Samina had also trained all her daughters to be adept in all aspects of household. And all three girls were good cooks and could cut and sew their own clothes, reasonably well. Mehreens culinary forte was Chinese food, and thats why Samina had asked her to prepare a few Chinese dishes for the inspection team. Rashid, Mehreens father and Samina had brought fresh vegetables from the Sunday bazaar. Now concentrating fully on the job at hand, Mehreen started the cooking process. Fiza had been co-opted as her cooks assistant; and Neha was deputed to set the table and prepare the drawing room. Rashid had volunteered to do the vacuuming of the house. It was typical of Rashid to help his family in the household chores on weekends. Samina was supervising the janitor, who was cleaning the front porch and the driveway. It was now nearly 1 pm, and the guests were expected at 2 pm. The food was nearly ready, just requiring the last few minutes of frying etc, before serving. So, Mehreen went to her room to change. She had selected a pale green suit of krundi with exquisite embrodiery; which she had purchased last month from Breezee and had stitched it herself. It went along nicely with her fair complexion. Neha helped her apply a light make-up and dashed a spray of Hugo Lady on her neck. Mehreen woren no jewellry, except a thin gold pendant, which her father had brought for her from Thailand. Wow! said Fiza, walking in and observing Mehreen. You look like Cleopatra! Shut-up Fiza! Retorted Mehreen. You know that I hate these occasions, so please dont aggravate me. Sensing Mehreens

sensitivity, Fiza made an about-turn and scrammed from the room. And not a moment too late, because her movement coincided with he chiming of the entrance bell. The horse-traders have arrived, thought Mehreen on hearing the bell. By the time Mehreen had rolled in the trolley, with the cold drinks; the small mob comprising of three women with Amazonian proportions, a girl in her early twenties, a teen-aged boy and a huge man in a safari suit had made themselves comfortable in the drawing room. Mehreens entry stopped all conversation and six pairs of eyes swivelled as if operated by remote control and focused on her, with the intensity of paparazzis incessantly flashing bulbs on a celebrity discovered on a nude beach. Mehreen felt suffocated with the bile of anger rising in her throat. She admonished herself to play it cool, since she knew that any adverse reaction or an anomalous facial expression would reflect negatively on her parents. So with a superhuman effort, she pasted a modest smile on her countenance and tried to look suitably demure, as she had been advised on several occasions by Samina. Assalam-oalakium, intoned Mehreen to the room in general, in a voice barely above a whisper, not addressing anyone in particular. Mehreen started serving cokes in smart crystal glasses, which were slightly smaller then common tumblers. She could sense the senior Amazon wince while taking the glass from her. This specimen turned out to be her putative mother-in-law. The remaining two Amazons were her sisters. The girl and boy were her off-springs and the gentleman in the safari suit was her husband. No sooner had Mehreen finished serving and was about to sit down, that the girl whose name was Tania, turned towards her and said: I would like to see your room. Mehreen was taken aback slightly by this request, but once again reminding herself to play it cool, she replied: yes of course. Please come with me. For Mehreen the redeeming aspect was a short respite from the parade. Your room is nice, commented Tania. Where did you get these bedcovers from? She inquired. Probably from Habitat, replied Mehreen. She was feeling uneasy by the way, Tania was scrutinizing each and every item in her room. Do you speak Anglish , abruptly Tania queried her, in a Punjabi-laced accent. Now Mehreen was taken aback by this line of questioning. Yes, I do speak a bit. Replied Mehreen, which was a gross understaement, because she was an award-winning debater both in Urdu and English. Well me and my brother are learing French, volunteered Tania. No doubt, in Punjabi accent, thought Mehreen. What sort of boys do you like? Now this was too much for Mehreen; deciding to quash firmly, this new line of questioning, Mehreen said: Let go now, its time for lunch. And she ushered the offending girl out of her room.

Mehreen had prepared chicken masala rice, hot and sour chicken, beef with green chilles, finger fish and green salad. She had also prepared lemon souffle. She noticed with satistaction, that all the guests eat heartily and partook two or three helpings. Samina and Rashid kept them engaged in conversation. At the end of the meal, the man let out a large, obnoxious burp and getting up from his chair said: Rashid sahib, let her now discuss the matter of dowry. We do like your girl very much. The whole Rahid family was taken aback at this uncouth remark. But the girl is a bit skinny, she needs to put on some weight, Samina, remarked one of the Amazons. Struggling to keep a straight face Samina could only utter:Jee, actually she exercises regularly. Mehreen could not believe what she was hearing. As far as she was concerned the party was over. And so was any match-making! Clearing the table with the help of Neha and Fiza, Mehreen returned to the drawing room after 15 minutes. The blurper was smoking a thick vile-smelling cigar, and emitting an intense mushroom of smoke in the room. Mehreen almost gagged at the intensity of the smoke, because her home was virtually smoke-free; since all their family friends were well-aware of Rashid familys aversion to smoking. Beti, did you prepare the lunch? The burper-smoker, asked Mehreen in an inquisitors tune. Mehreen, the excellent cook that she was, had expected to be complimented. But what followed, she could have never imagined. The rice was not properly cooked and was hard. And perhaps you did not put enough tomatoes in the chicken dish either, the burper-smoker gave his expert analysis. Mehreen was too dumbfounded to reply at this uncalled for chastisment. Then the burper detonated the second salvo of atrocity: You need to learn to cook properly, because in our house nobody eats half-cooked food. Mehreen was incredulous at what she was hearing. She looked around and found all her family members stupified; whereas the Amazons were grinning slyly. The look on Amazons face reminded Mehreen of what had happened to one of her friends. Her friend Mehr had gotten married a year back. And as soon as she was married, her in-laws, summarily dismissed their household help comprising a cook and a factotum; on the pretext that with the coming of Mehr, there was no need to waste money on help. It was as if the bride was being brought in only to do menial jobs. As soon as this incident crossed the threshold of her memory, Mahreens rebellious nature rose up. It cracked her composure. It reminded her of all the previous humiliating trolley parades. It also bursted the pent-up emotions, accumulated over the years; of reading of incidents of honor killings and tribal-sanctioned rapes; and hearing stories of atrocious domestic violence during her work with the NGO. All such explosive thoughts fused togather in her mind and erupted spontaneously as a hot lava, scorching her innards.

No girl should get married in this tribal, male-dominated jungle, where women are treated worse then pariah dogs! People like you have no respect for women, she hissed facing the blurper. You forget that you were conceived by a woman. It means that you have no respect for your mother! And as for you ladies, when you become mothers-in-law, you betray your own kind. And you also forget that your own daughter would also be one day somebodys daughter-in-law! That night the Rashid family had a long discussion to determine ways and mean to get around the abominable cultural rituals, involved in getting a desirable match for a daughter. The consensus was in favor of a change. Samina was of the view that it was imperative to educate the daughters, so that they acquire the wherewithal for critical thinking and faculity to discriminate. Neha opined that, in our culture, it is not that only a couple gets that married; but in affect it is a marriage of two families, with all the obvious aggravations. Rashid clinched the issue by saying that, for starters, whenever a proposal would be received; he would alone initially interview the boy, to elict his mindset and thinking. Subsequent to Rashids tentative approval, he would let Mehreen go out for lunch/ dinner with the proposer, for her to get to know him better. This measure, Rashids thought would at least obviate the humiliating ritual of trolley parades. But papa what you are proposing is very radical, commented Fiza. We do need a paradigm shift in our thinking. We cannot continue clinging to ossified dogmas, which only tend to subjugate a girl, make her matrimonial life miserable and force her to adopt an attitude of abject servility towards her inlaws. Never again will a daughter of mine shall be humilated by a trolley parade.