Wedding season

Recently I got a call from female Pakistani friend of mine...

K: hi Katya, what's up? What are you doing tonight?

Me: i am going for a dinner with my colleagues from work. Why?

K: I am delivering methai to my relatives and friends, was hoping to meet you at the apartment.

Me: What is methai?

K: These are pakistani sweets that we deliver on engagement. You see I am getting married in March..

Me: Really? You never told me..

K: You know Katya I found it out a few weeks ago myself..

***

Many girls here in Pakistan do not have a problem of finding their husband.

According to Islam, one of the main duty of parents is to ensure that their daughter got married to a good guy.  Its called arrange marriage.

That's what my Pakistani friends shared with us about arrange marriages during one of the discussions on the roof.

Sana: First the family of the guy goes to the family of the girl but without the guy or girl. They don’t talk about them but try to find out if they are economically or cult

urally on the same level. The girl’s family is very concerned that the girl moves in to a similar family as their own one so that she doesn’t have to adjust.

Faisal: The girl isn’t marrying the guy but the family.

Sana: In the cities the two have the chance to meet and go out with frien

ds to get to know each other.

Umar: But obviously it is arranged, you cannot get to know each other too much. But then one is more open for compromise because the expectations are lower as for love marriages. I asked my mom about that. She said it’s different. If you know you have to spend the rest of your life with this person, so you take an extra effort.

Sana: My parents are in love even though it was arranged.

Umar: Here love starts after marriage because you spend so much time with each other. If I like a girl I can tell my mom and ask her to get to know the family and do it the arranged way. By the way, in the Quran it says that you cannot marry a woman without her consent.

Sana: I am in the favor of arranged marriage if both are completely ok with it without pressure. There is a difference between arranged and forced marriage.

Katya: What about the love that happened before you get married?

Sana: Either there is an ‘arranged’ love marriage or you ‘date’ when you are engaged. Often these engagements brake apart. The way we are brought up is different. I girl is brought up to be a good mother in law. To fall in love is too sinful and too strange and only fall in love with their husbands after marriage.

Interesting thing is how a girl and a guy meet for the first time. Guy and his family come to girl's family. They sit in the living room and talk about business, politics, weather etc. At some point, a girl (who was in her room during all these) is coming to serve tea. While she is serving tea, guy's mother is checking whether she is worth for proposal or not :)

At first I couldn't really get all these. How can it happen that love comes after marriage?!

Yet I understood it when I got to know Pakistani society a little better.

Everything here is built on networks. If you are from the good family and have connections with business and government authorities, and know the right people, you will find your way everywhere. That's why marriage is not about love (too vague to be considered!), but about connections. And.. in the end of the day, its not that bad if mom finds you a husband - why to struggle if there is an easier way?

***

So a girl and a guy decided to get married... What's next?

Wedding process in Pakistan consists of several events:

Mayoon is a custom of the bride entering into the state of seclusion eight to fifteen days before a wedding. Mayoon is usually taking place at bride's house, guests are singing songs and girls are putting henna on each others' hands.

Mehndi happens in 2-3 days prior to the wedding reception. Friends and family feed bride and groom with sweets, give money and out henna on their hands.

Dholki is another ceremony of singing traditional wedding and other popular songs, and dancing dances.

Nikah is the name of official wedding ceremony in Islam. Nikah usually happens in groom's house with only close faimily and friends present.

Shaadi (or Wedding reception) is the main wedding day. Shaadi is being hosted by bride's family and takes place in a brightly decorated tent or a hotel.

Final ceremony of the wedding is called walima. Walima is organized by groom's side and where a couple is treated as a husband and wife.

***

I remember how I was preparing for the first wedding to attend.

The most important part of preparation is the dress. Wedding dress should be made either of silk or thick cotton, with decorations and embroidery of different types.

2 weeks before the wedding Kaukab and Wardah went with me to the shop to help me choose the right material. We found extremely beautiful orange cloth with circles, which I gave to the designer for stitching and making design. 

After that, Kaukab and me went to choose bangles. Out of 1000 different types we choose organge-red churia which covered half of my hand...

In a day before the wedding I went to put henna on my hands - you already know that they call it mehndi. 

And the last task in the list was to find matching shoes. All shops in Zamzama (street where I live) were closed, so I went to Sunday bazaar with Biya to have a look for shoes there. Haven't found anything nice, I decided to borrow Biya's shoes instead.

After everything was bought and I got ready - so pretty! - Fahad came to pick me up.

Wedding lasted for 2 hours: all what we did is eating, taking pictures with bride and groom, and gossiping about dresses of other girls.

The funnyest thing happened on the next day when Kaukab called and said that I am invited for Walima in the evening - "And.. remember that you should wear a new dress!" ... :-)

***

Eid Mubarak!

Word 2003 doesn’t recognize the word Eid and marks it red even its one of the main holidays for Muslim society.

Eid in Pakistan started today :-) it’s the second Eid this year (first one was in October). I did morning exercises on the roof, ironed my new shalwar kameez, agreed on final celebration plan with Hassaan, closed laptop and went downstairs...

In the night before Eid people usually go for last minute shopping (churiya – bangles, clothes) and for putting mendi on hands. So we did take the opportunity to become more Pakistani :)

After we had finished with shopping, we went to the house of one of new AIESEC members, Hassaan, to celebrate Eid with his family. We all were extremely happy with such an invitation from Hassaan: what else can the foreigner in Pakistan dream about on Eid?! :) yet honestly I was not surprised – the hospitality of Pakistanis is something that I have never ever experienced before!

With our chand raat shopping we were late for a dinner, but it was very good anyways :)

Some games after food... And me and Jana went to sleep earlier than others – next day was expected to start at 7.30am.

When we woke up in the morning, men were already out for morning prayers. Women can go there as well, but they usually prefer staying at home. While men were gone, we got dressed in our made-for-Eid clothes and went to see the sacrifice of the animals…

Oh this is an interesting story :) Once upon a time (loooong time ago), God gave a son to Prophet Ibrahim when the Prophet was 70 years old. God did this to show that He exists and help people who have faith. 9 years passed, son became a young man, and God told The Prophet that if he’d got faith, he’d need to sacrifice his son by killing him. Many people asked Ibrahim not to follow these instructions, but his beliefs were so strong that he went with his son to a far away place, covered own yes and put the knife up in the air… When Ibrahim touched the body with a knife, took the scarf off and saw that his son was standing alive right near him, and there was a lamb that was killed. The reason is that God intervened and instead provided a lamb as the sacrifice. This is why today all over the world Muslims who have the means to, sacrifice an animal (usually a goat or a sheep), as a reminder of Ibrahim's obedience to God. The meat is then shared out with family, friends (Muslims or non-Muslims), as well as the poor members of the community.

I was very surprised to find out that Muslims usually buy an animal in advance, play with them, care about them, try to connect, and when they eventually start loving this animal, they need to kill it. The rational behind this is that Muslim should sacrifice the loved ones for obedience to God. God gives, God takes away…

So coming back to what happened in the morning today…

Everyone went on the street to see how people sacrifice goats and cows. When I came one cow was already lieing on the ground, and two goats were about to be sacrificed.

It’s definitely not an easy thing to watch… I could barely see it at first…

Yet after two goats I even went to see the same processes with a cow… Cow is obviously a lot bigger than a goat, so it’s tough to make it patient in order to cut the throat properly. Only professional can deal with a cow. A man takes a rope, puts it across legs of a cow and makes it lye on the ground until it gets calm. After that he takes a knife, finds the right place and cuts the vein.

My Pakistani friends told me that this vein connects brain and body thus cutting the vein the one cuts this connection, and an animal doesn’t feel anything.

Wanna see how the process goes? No way, that I will upload it here, pictures are more than enough for now :)))

Sacrifice of the animal is the main thing during Eid. Having experienced this, we went… to have breakfast :S Food as usual is amazing! Chken biryani, liver, kheer and my favorite paratha! Mmm!!! The rest of the day was long and lazy – I haven’t had similar kind of rest for a looong time, exactly what I needed!

Yeah, experiencing Pakistan is NOT an easy thing :-) but... so much fun!

Зима в Карачи

У меня в Пакистане началась зима.
Я знала, что пакистанская зима обычно начинается в ноябре. Но вот пришел ноябрь, мы вернулись в Карачи, а тут такая же жара, как и летом! Через несколько дней я спросила свою коллегу:

- Марьям, как узнать, что началась зима?

Марьям ответила:

- Когда ты замечаешь, что начала выключать вентиллятор в комнате, или что закрываешь окна на ночь, значит пришла зима.

Я так смеялась :)

Если в России зимой расходуется намного больше энергии, чем летом, то в Пакистане совсем наоборот - вентилляторы выключены, а значит электричества расходуется меньше.

Я даже забыла, что такое power cuts. Летом у нас отключали электричество по 2-3 раза на день на 2 часа каждый раз. Было весело :)

С наступлением зимы в Карачи усилился запах города... Тут и так очень своеобразный запах (я нигде до Пакистана такого запаха не чувствовала), а с зимой он стал еще сильнее, заметнее. Он везде - во дворе моего дома, в подъезде, в комнате.

А еще солнце стало другим. Таким, как ранней московской весной - в марте, когда только-только начинает сходить снег, но солнце брызжет во всю, так, что свет вокруг без конца и края, и люди снимают шапки, и смеются... Вот такое здесь солнце в начале зимы.

Но прячется солнце очень быстро, так что на ночь достаю шерстяной плед и грею молоко с медом. Готовлю зимний shalwar kameez (с длинными рукавами :) - для поездки в Лахор и Исламабад в конце декабря.