Illustration: Himal Southasian
Illustration: Himal Southasian

Instructions for surviving shaadi season

A short story.

Jawziya F Zaman is a lawyer and writer based in Karachi.

Published on

1. Find the girls with the Rapunzel hair and the strawberry lips. It won't be difficult; they cluster and twirl through the hall in hundreds, like starlings. Don't let them see the seam ripper in your sleeve. When they sweep past you in shimmering swathes of silk and chiffon, use the blade edge to snip off as many sequins as you can. Be stealthy. Be sudden. Bead the sequins together in a noose-shaped necklace or a necklace-shaped noose. Either is sufficient. It'll be the prettiest thing you ever made, winking flecks of orange and red and purple and blue. Save it for later.

2. Turn all the clocks forward by three hours so they serve dinner at nine, not midnight. The birth certificates of all the babies born that evening will bear the wrong time, and a generation of astrologers will produce inaccurate natal charts and give people the wrong advice about future professions, future spouses, and future children. But this is not your problem. By the time the mistake is discovered and corrected, you'll be too old to remember or care.

Loading content, please wait...
Himal Southasian
www.himalmag.com