Sample

A: Adopt Arranged Marriage But Avoid All Atrocious Alaaps

My name’s Maya Malik, and I’m a twenty-eight year old SLAAG. That would be the ‘Single Lonely Aging Asian Girl’ brand. And if there’s one thing worse than a slag in the British Bengali community, it’s a SLAAG. I buy every issue of Asian Bride in preparation for my imminent yet all-too-distant wedding, I hide when my mother meets someone, knowing that her first question will be ‘do you know of a good boy?’ and I sit through patronising pep talks from well meaning friends who tell me that I will find a man one day. For a professional Bengali woman, my biggest fear isn’t being overlooked for promotion to Lead Consultant with Chambers Scott Wilfred International. It’s the realisation that I have to find a husband from a diminishing stock of eligible bachelors that increasingly consists of mommy’s boys, closet gays, and the emotionally disturbed. Now I know that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The Bengali community has consigned me to the spinster league, the bitch called Age will continue to whore for Time and I will pay extortionate Fitness First gym fees to bribe Age to buy me Time’s favour. So I’m going to give this sophisticated cute as a button, family oriented, sidda sadda girl a break. I’m going to find me a husband, at any cost, using any means and that includes having arranged introductions.

Arranged marriages are for most families a legitimised, and free, dating agency. They also provide our under-worked, overweight, and hyper-vigilant aunties with an endless supply of gossip. Take, for instance, my latest alaap or wedding proposal that my auntie, Chachijhi Fauzia, delivered to my mother a few weeks ago. She in turn instructed my married twin sisters to prepare me for this suitable boy.
“We’ve found you another victim.” That’s how they broke the news to me.
“Put on a decent shalwaar kameez and not the short sluttish ones you like.” Meet Jana and Hana, my silhouette slim sisters. Both are model beautiful, practise medicine and, with doctors for husbands, have the ultimate status symbol in the community.
“Abu Ahmed’s a stock broker trading in commodities, the older of two boys and he drives a Z3,” Jana listed, walking across to my wardrobe where Hana rummaged through my shalwaar kameez collection. Ummm, he sounded scrummy. Would this be my super confident man who could fill a pair of CK boxers like Markie Wahlberg and have a taste for sophisticated living?
“He lives with his parents…”
“…so you’re going to have to seduce him into buying you a separate home.”
“And he’s so loaded you don’t have to worry about keeping that job of yours.” Goodbye career, hello sex untapped! This stockbroker sounded better by the minute.
“So what does he look like?” There’s always a set back, but when the twins turned to look at me with wide white grins, I knew his looks wouldn’t be it.
“Like someone you need to make an effort for.” Both laughed at Jana’s comment, but I was already imagining my Devdas-inspired wedding to the designer accustomed Bengali broker.
“Amma insisted that we prep you for this alaap since you messed up the last two.” Hana explained, shaking her head at two of the outfits Jana held up. She replaced those and brought out my matt bronze trouser suit in raw Japanese silk. Jana squealed with delight.
“You bring me a dwarf and then a man known only as ugly, and you say I messed up?” But they weren’t interested in my reasons, they were already accessorising.

That’s how I ended up in my parent’s bedroom, crouching by the bay window to peek through the net curtains to see Abu Ahmed’s arrival. My entire kandan had turned up for this promising alaap, which is why my parents sat in the living room with my eldest brother and his wife, along with my three sisters and their respective husbands making polite conversation. I, on the other hand felt super elegant in the designer bronze outfit and black stilettos that made the most of my Wonderbra amplified 32B boobs, slim waist and legs that could do with being longer. Jana had blow-dried my hair into a black silken curtain and Hana went light on the make-up to give me sultry brown eyes. I was to put it simply, a sophisticated woman ready to impress and end my stint at spinsterhood. And then I saw them arrive. Only there weren’t four family members as expected. Instead five adults carrying gift stuffed fluorescent ‘Everything for

View Synopsis View Reviews View Information Purchase Options