And when she answered; “No, My father would never agree to this”, that whole night I cried and prayed for any miracle to happen and she be mine. Solution, solution, solution, what can be the solution to convince her family and especially her father, I continued thinking for days but I never thought of taking the step back. And how could I step back, how could I even think of letting her go from my life when I started to smile and life starts looking like a spectacular blessing and I almost found the true love of my life.

It would not be suitable to say that she was my love at first sight, but Yes I saw her very first time when all this started. No, probably we had met at some marriage ceremony when we were below the age of five but who could think, we are gonna be lovers in future. And the second time we met when it was destined to.

It had been just six months when I started my professional education at the age of 18 and our initial exams were recently ended when few of my friends came with an idea, “Why shouldn’t we plan a trip before commencing next classes”, and it was fabulous idea, we immediately convinced our teachers to arrange such a trip. Exact scenario I can remember, few of our friends couldn’t get permission from parents because they were feared due to the dangerous tracks towards our itinerary but I was the one who taken an oath to convince their parents and so did I by continuously arguing about and assuring them the safety of their beloved child and finally they showed the green signal. All were excited, activities’ plans were on way, each was busy shopping for the trip and finally the day our departure came and guess what, I couldn’t go.

Marriage of one of my cousins was planned during the same days as were my trip’s and while I was busy preparing for trip, my family was getting ready for the marriage. My whole family was supposed to travel to another city for attending function and I was supposed to have fun on trip those days. Our societal norms don’t allow our women to travel alone and my Dad was supposed to escort my family during the travel but unfortunately he got sick just a day before and I was compelled to go with family and to just forget about trip thing. That was the first event after my Mom’s marriage when she was about to visit her aunt’s home and I couldn’t let her compromise for me.

Sitting calmly in train and receiving exciting messages from friends about trip’s enjoyments was really painful until we reached there. Aarzu was looking amazing in bright purple dress, standing in front of the door to welcome us, I almost forgot about trip, sadness etc. after looking at her pretty face. We all met each other, had a great dinner, and gossiped till late night. Aarzu is the middle sister; Jannat is elder whereas Kainat is the youngest one. Quite opposite of what I thought earlier, that was not another boring function and I enjoyed a lot, talked a lot and gathered many memories there.

During the whole function, I captured hundreds of pictures with my camera and among those, few were funny pictures of Aarzu and I made a lot fun with her funny and absurd pictures by showing those to her friends and sisters and in the end, unwillingly I made her so angry that she even didn’t come to see off. On way back, I was again sad and thoughtful, but this time, not for trip, rather on annoying her and suddenly my sister told that today is Aarzu’s birthday which made me more tensed with feeling that I destroyed her mood on her special day. I was feeling so sorry that I took her contact number from my sister and immediately sent a text message for apologizing on making fun of her but I didn’t get any response.

“It’s Okay, Brother”, she replied after two days, “Woah… Brother, please don’t…” I thought. And then I started to talk with her, she seldom replied and in her absence, Jannat used to reply, saying she was not available. Her rude behavior and ignoring attitude took me no more than a week to stop because it was not going the way I wanted to and as words have far more impact than facial beauty, so that was the end to it.

“Is Faheem’s marriage’s movie ready? Can they send a copy for us to watch?” my Mom asked me to confirm from Faheem (my cousin; groom), and I sent a text to inquire this on the only contact number I had. Jannat replied and promised to courier a copy of movie’s DVD as they get one (Google drive was not common those days) and then I followed up for the movie and pictures few times and coincidently got replies from Jannat each time. Jannat’s way of talking was so impressive and attractive which compelled me to talk to her again and again and age’s factor was prominent those days because at 18 every boy wants to have a girlfriend or girl as a friend ;-).

For hours, we started to chat daily and sometimes on call when she had nobody at home. We were good friends and there was nothing which we didn’t know about each other. Time flied and two years passed but we never expressed the feelings for each other until her parent’s decide to marry her. I can’t describe the feelings I had, in the moment when I realized that we were about to be separated. Without wasting more time, I immediately expressed my feelings to her and finally I proposed her for having a beautiful life together.

Unlike western culture, consent of boy and girl is not enough for marriage; consent of each family member of both families is required to obtain in order to proceed further. Her family is so conservative that they couldn’t think of marrying their daughter out of city especially with such boy they just met once and don’t know anything about. Another major problem was, she was amongst my maternal relatives and agreeing to my marriage with her was not less than a sin for my paternal relatives.

I was astonished when she asked for time to think, instead of just saying “Yes” on my proposal. While thinking about the family differences and likelihood of denial from parents, she cried the whole night, couldn’t sleep, got fever, didn’t even respond the next day and I was drowning with negative feelings and tried to contact her. And then I got a reply late night, “Sorry, My answer is No, my father would never agree on this and I can’t even think of going against him”, It was like the last moment of my life, I didn’t want to cry but tears were dropping seamlessly, I couldn’t get the strength to reply her or to convince her in any way, I cried till sunrise with bombarding of negative thoughts.
Mom was staring at me when I told her about my feelings for Jannat, Yes, I decided to give my relation at least one try and couldn’t stop myself to share my feelings with my best friend, my Mom. She got tensed on hearing my wish and she repeated the words, “Your Dad would never agree to this, but I will surely try to convince him when he’ll be in good mood”. My Dad is kind of strict man who takes all the decisions in more of dictating way and none of us can even think of arguing with him over his decisions. It was a little satisfaction to convince Mom but there were many hurdles to cross.

“Which father in this world would like to see his son unhappy? If he loves her, I’m fine with it”, said my father on my Mom’s saying. What? Literally? Nothing else? Woah… , these were my responses while Mom was telling me about Dad’s response. So, my family was agreed, we had won almost half the battle and now our life’s decision was in her parents’ hand. Immediate next day, Mom made a call to her aunt and offer this proposal on which she became happy but answered with the words; “I would be happy if it happens but her father has already decided some other guy for his daughter, but surely I’ll tell him about this proposal and his decision would be final”.

Weeks passed but we didn’t get any call, I asked Jannat about what was going on but she was not aware of her father’s intention but she managed to confirm from her mother that they were planning to visit us. Obviously, the only purpose of their visit wasn’t just to meet us but to observe our status and environment of living and this was a drastic shock to me because there was a big status difference between both families, their standards of living were far better and surely they wouldn’t agree after visiting us. We were living in ancestor’s ancient home which looks more like a haunted house as I’ve shared few pictures of my old home in this post (https://steemit.com/jerrybanfield/@faizan-ashraf/believe-me-they-exist-yes-they-do-swc-or-jerrybanfield)

Need of that hour was to change home, but how? Dad neither had enough savings to buy a new home nor would he agree to take one on rent. “Do you even know what are you saying? It would be another burden on us. At least we have our own home irrespective of its current condition” said my father, as expected, on my suggestion for renting another house. Without it, how could Jannat’s father agree, I continued thinking and then another idea clicked into my mind, Yes, it would work.

“Good interior and decoration, Ali’s father must be a successful businessman”, Dad responded, while sitting in my friend Ali’s drawing room, I forced him to take me to Ali’s home so that I could get notes from him. On his curiousness, I told a little lie that his father actually works somewhere on reasonable wage but for his family’s comfort; he took that house on rent, Dad was astonished. I applied this trick by taking him with me at 2 other friend’s homes and made him realized that there is no harm in renting a big beautiful house because he had his own business, when others did the same even being an employee somewhere ;-).

May 5th, our first day in new (rented) home, Yes, Dad agreed after few months and Mom had requested Auntie to wait unless we change our home and fortunately everything happened exactly as per my plan and they came to visit us just after a few days of our transition to new home. I thought I had crossed another barrier but they didn’t give response even after their satisfying visit, but why? I asked Jannat and her response was even more shocking. Now her father was worried about our future as I had just taken start of professional studies which would take at least five years to complete and they were worried, whether it would be feasible to say ‘Yes’ when there would be a long gap between engagement and marriage. I didn’t had any solution to this situation but Aunt’s persistent arguments over the matter made him accept this.

Okay, now they would call for confirming engagement’s date, when they would call? It had been three more months, I requested Mom to call and confirm and once again, I had to face another bad news. “How much would he earn even after completing his degree, especially in this country where unemployment is so high and private companies hire at less than the minimum wage”, these were Uncle’s words in the end which were pointing the decision towards denial. What to do now?

I couldn’t focus on my studies during those days and was desperately looking for an idea to convince him. Later, I found that Uncle’s younger brother Rehmat is also an employee in Insurance Company and getting quite handsome salary, I immediately sent a friend request to Uncle Rehmat on FB, started chatting him, he gave compliments on my courage to pursue most difficult accountancy degree and ultimately my reputation became good in his eyes. I and Jannat made a plan to convince Uncle Shaukat (her father), she forced her Mom to meet Uncle Rehmat and request him to try to convince his elder brother for this relation. He did exactly the same, praised about me a lot, tried to convince him by saying, don’t worry; he would be earning good money after qualifying degree and so on. It happened to be the last barrier and finally we succeeded and got engaged within a few months later.

Seven years have already been passed since the day I met her first and there wouldn’t be any 24 hours when we didn’t talk. I’ve completed the degree, got a rewarding job abroad and now planning to get marry within six months hopefully. After a long wait, finally we are going to be together forever. Another important thing to mention, during the past 7 years, we had little fights but we never broke up even for a day as I mentioned earlier, because our mutual understanding is best and that’s the key to any happy relationship. You might be thinking about Aarzu, she is married now and they were blessed with a beautiful angel who is so dear to me.