“Yeah. He’s Jewish. Only Kosher food.” And he ran off to play.
Mummy remembered the little boy Jason and would often tell the story to her friends in Pakistan.
That holiday season, I didn’t have to explain the whole “why we are different” bit. Menorahs did the explaining. What comfort being a minority among a minority. And I didn’t even plan it that way.
I had started homeschooling Saqib in Islamic teachings, which I will get to later. I knew this was a start, and I also knew that it wasn’t enough. But I didn’t have an answer. One evening, I was hanging out with my neighbors on the sidewalk, when one of them took her leave saying that she had to pick up her child from Hebrew school.
“You have a Hebrew school?” I asked, feeling envious and deprived.
“Of course. Don’t you have a religious school for your children?”
A meek “no.”
“You need to start one. Don’t do it for yourselves; do it for your children.”
Embarrassed, I tried to make excuses—we were new, didn’t know many Muslim families on Staten Island, not many with children, definitely no teachers, where are we going to get a place, how would we get started, etc.
Even as I heard myself, it was clear to me that all that stood between a Muslim school and me was me. She was right. I had to get started.
It didn’t happen the next day, but it did happen. Khalid and I would go on to become part of a team that established a mosque and Sunday school on Staten Island. Our children grew up to become devout Muslims, bridge builders, and torchbearers. My Jewish neighbor ignited the spark in my mind, but it was the American spirit of pluralism that provided the fertile ground for our efforts to take root and flourish.
As I embarked on finding the pathway to Islamic teachings, I realized that I was no longer the girl who had grown up in Pakistan. I had become Americanized big-time. Would the two go hand in hand?
12.
The Americanization of Yours Truly
Would You Like Something to Drink?
Here is how it goes in Pakistan:
You go visiting—it could be anybody—family, friend, stranger …
You are immediately served a drink—juice or soda.
The host never asks you if you would like a drink. It is a given that you will be served a drink.
A little later, the help will wheel the trolley in, and you are served tea, mithai, or cake, and some kebabs, samosas, or fruit chaat. Again, the host didn’t ask if you wanted some.
“Have some cake,” the host says.
“No. No, thank you,” you say. You have to say, “No, thank you,” or you will appear to be greedy.
“Oh, please, do have some,” the host insists.
“No, I really am fine.”
“I insist. Please have some.”
“Oh, well. OK, if you insist.” Then, and only then, will you take a small piece or helping.
“Please, have some more. Take another kebab.”
“No. One is fine.”
“Just one more,” and she puts it in your plate.
Once you are done eating, she insists that you have seconds, and the back and forth starts all over again.
Here is what happened in New York in 1971:
I pay my first visit to an American friend.
“Would you like something to drink?” the host asked.
“No. No, thank you.”
“OK,” said the host.
And that was that.
I had not eaten all afternoon, thinking: I am going visiting, surely she will be serving tea and snacks, and I don’t want to end up overeating. I was also thirsty. Now what? I couldn’t backtrack—what’s done is done. She had asked me an honest question, and I had given a not-so-honest but Pakistani-culturally-appropriate answer, and I got what I asked for. I stayed hungry and thirsty, feeling rather stupid.
Did I learn fast.
Here is what happened in New York in 2015:
Some friends from Pakistan were in town, and we met over coffee at a café. Later we walked over to my apartment, and I asked them.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you,” they said.
“OK.”
You Look Lovely
In Pakistan, when someone offered you a compliment, humility required you to decline it very politely so as not to sound self-assured or flattered. One responded with a gesture that conveyed: I am not worthy of your generous compliment.
“You look lovely.”
“No, I don’t,” with a shy smile, I would demure.
“You have a beautiful voice.”
“No, no.” I’d wave my hand. “You are very kind,” was my standard response.
Got it?
Transplant to the US. Picture the look on someone’s face when she praised my dress: “What a pretty outfit!”
“No, it isn’t.”
Accepting commendation was hard. It took years, maybe more, for me to recalibrate my thinking—that accepting a compliment was an indication of pride or superiority—and say, “Why, thank you.”
1980s Working Girl (Home-Ec or Homework)
My mother was a housewife, and that was the norm in Pakistan in the fifties and sixties. Among working women, the leading professions were teacher and doctor. And that is because of the segregation of the sexes. All-girl schools had to have women teachers, and women wanted a “lady doctor.” I was raised to be a housewife—the perfect housewife—like my mother. Mummy taught me to sew, embroider, knit, and cook. By age twelve, I was sewing my clothes and knitting my sweaters. In Pakistan, all clothing was custom-tailored at home or at the tailor’s. We shopped for the fabric after the shopkeeper had unrolled reams of fabric for our perusal, picked out the trimmings and buttons, had the dupatta dyed in matching color, and then stitched the clothes at home. I was in high school when my maternal uncle, Jedi Mamoon, who was an engineering student in Lahore, told my parents of the perfect college for me: “The College of Home Economics in Lahore will groom her to perfection.” Just eleven years my senior, we were best friends; he was my surrogate elder brother, and his opinion, in my opinion, was paramount. So I was going to Home-Ec. Mummy bought into it, the rationale being that if my career was to be a homemaker, then my college education should be along those lines. I had done well in high school and could have gone anywhere, including a career in medicine. But Mummy was against my becoming a doctor. “Lady doctors do not make good housewives,” she would say. Daddy wanted me to pursue a career in medicine, and he tried. He took me to visit Kinnaird College, a prestigious college in Lahore. They wanted me, but I was hung up on Home-Ec, and he let me have my way.
I came to the States, all committed to being a homemaker. One of the first items on my shopping list was a Singer sewing machine. I started stitching my pantsuits, and when pregnant, knitted a newborn-sized yellow sweater, but cooking stressed me out. Home all day, going to kiddie movies, reading kiddie books, and playing kiddie games—after a few years I yearned for adult company and some life outside the home.
When Khalid left his job at the medical group to set up his private practice in Hematology/Oncology, a colleague advised him: “Have your wife manage the office,” and I leaped. The colleague’s office manager trained me, and a week later, I had donned a white uniform and was answering the phone, “Dr. Rehman’s office.” I enrolled Asim at the Alphabetland Nursery School and went to work part-time. Mummy was tickled; she thought my being Khalid’s secretary was rather romantic. Just like the movies.
Back to School
Two years later, I was yearning for more. Other than new patients coming in, it was the same work, day after day: reception, scheduling, billing, and that was the extent of it.
Maybe I will be a hospital administrator. I know enough of healthcare to give me a jump-start; and I do have some leadership and people skills. Actually, I would like that.
Khalid thought it was a great idea. As soon as Asim started kindergarten, I went back to sc
hool, enrolling at the New School for Social Research in the master’s program in health services administration.
Only in rare circumstances did married women in Pakistan go back to school—at least in my day. Domestic responsibilities and child-rearing took precedence. Besides, there was an age limit for enrollment.
Mummy wasn’t happy. She was visiting when I announced my plans.
“You won’t be able to handle it. It’s a long commute into Manhattan, and at home you will busy with homework. Your children, your husband, and your home will be neglected. Don’t forget, you also tire easily. You have been out of college for nine years. It won’t be easy to get back into a school routine. Why can’t you continue to work in Khalid’s office?”
I didn’t have an answer. But I didn’t budge either. So Mummy went to Khalid and repeated the same script, adding, “The only thing working for her is her strong willpower. She may be able to muster the energy. But, practically speaking, she cannot do it all.”
Back in our bedroom, I was in tears. Mummy was right, but I wanted to do this. Khalid was smiling. “Your mother knows you.”
That evening, I saw Khalid pondering over some bills, checkbook in hand.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Paying the bills. You won’t have the time, and I can take this over.”
And that was just the beginning. He took charge of all my duties: finances, children, shopping, parent-teacher conferences…. All I did was commute, attend classes, and study. When I had an exam, he would take the children to the park. When I started working on my thesis, he bought me a then-state-of-the-art typewriter, with memory and auto-correct. (I had taken evening typing classes at the community college when pregnant with Asim.) When I did well, he beamed with pride and broadcast it to the world. When I graduated two years later, he took the day off, and looking at him, you would think it was he who was getting the degree.
Mummy, after casting her nay vote, got behind me. She stayed with me to babysit the children until I could find someone. I couldn’t. We had moved again, to a four-bedroom house on Lighthouse Hill, across from a working lighthouse, on a cliff overlooking the valley, with a living room that had a southern exposure bringing in the light and a view to brighten your day even on a cloudy, rainy morning. Problem: no babysitters. Khalid wrote to his mother and asked if she could send his sister Farhana to live with us for a year. Auntie Hameeda agreed. Farhana was engaged to be married in a year, had completed her education, and was free to take an extended leave of absence from home. She would play with Saqib and Asim, help them with their homework, and I would walk in from school to the aroma of chicken curry and steaming rice. Bless her. Getting me through school had become a family project, extending from New York to Pakistan.
When Farhana left to get married, Khalid’s parents agreed to send his youngest sister, Nyla, to get me through my second year of college. The American embassy turned down her visa request, and that was that.
I panicked.
“Don’t worry. I will change my office hours to be home when the children come home from school,” Khalid said.
That is how I got through. Bless him.
Hospital Administrator
In 1982, at age thirty, I started my career as a hospital administrator at The Brooklyn Hospital. Mummy would later say, “If I’d known you would become a career girl, I would have sent you to medical school.” But then, it was my Home-Ec background that Khalid had been attracted to.
Hospital administration was a man’s world. At management meetings, the director of nursing and I were the only two women present. Sometimes it was just me. In fact, at the weekend planning retreat, it was just the guys and me. For cost-saving purposes, they all had to be paired in rooms; I, being the only female, had a room to myself. Did I feel intimidated—the only woman in the presence of these high-powered men? Not for a moment. The age of Mad Men was history, and though Anita Hill had not yet surfaced, I was among a cadre of polished and sophisticated professionals. The staff welcomed me, supported me, mentored me, and, as their resident, took me under their wing. That I spoke with a foreign accent, looked foreign, and was a woman was not an issue. They had hired me—how could it? If I never felt conscious of my gender, it was because of the corporate culture. They knew what it took to groom a professional. I completed my residency feeling comfortable in my skin and ready and equipped to slash the Emergency Room waiting time.
Skirts, Pants, or Shalwar Kameez
Somewhere along the line, I crossed the cultural divide. In donning a business suit, as in skirt and blazer, I committed the first violation. Mummy was not just upset, she was angry. “Muslim girls don’t reveal their legs,” she told me. I retreated into my bedroom and burst into tears. I dealt with it the only way I knew how. I started leading a double life. When Mummy visited, the skirts were packed away and out came the pantsuits. Eventually, Mummy came around. I faced the same dilemma with the Muslim community. With my liberal friends, we would go to the beach in beach attire and blend in, but the conservatives would stare me down if they caught me wearing skirts. One of them confronted me. I had stopped by her house on my way home from work to pick up something.
“You should not wear skirts,” she said.
I said nothing. I did not want to get into an argument.
The next time she met me, she asked, “Have you stopped wearing skirts?”
There are people who believe that “enjoining good and forbidding evil” is not just their calling, it is their responsibility.
“No, I have not,” I said. “I don’t believe my attire is immodest.”
“Your legs should not be visible.”
“I wear long skirts, way below my knees, and colored stockings. A few inches of colored-stockinged legs is not indecent.”
Defensive?
“Just wear pants.”
Gloves off, I argued. Our religion requires us to dress modestly. Aren’t pants more revealing than a flared, long skirt? Aren’t the contours of hips and thighs more visible in pants?
“No, no, no,” disarmed, she was protesting.
Seeing that I had her cornered, I plugged away and attacked the sari blouse. Was revealing the midriff acceptable, I asked?
“No. No. No. Just stop wearing skirts.”
We left it at that. But I knew that she spoke for many who didn’t have the nerve or were too polite to confront me. So, I applied the same technique. When in their company, I avoided wearing skirts, and it saved everyone the discomfort.
Double life.
Friends: Women—and Men?
That wasn’t all. I had male friends. Students from school, colleagues from work. Khalid welcomed them all; the boys loved playing with them, and our home became the place to get together for my “single” friends. This was highly unusual for a woman of Pakistani origin. You know by now that women in Pakistan did not have male friends; and even after marriage, when couples got together, men and women would gravitate into separate parts of the room. One-on-one man-woman relationships, however platonic, were nonexistent—at least in the public eye. And here I was, hanging out with the boys. Bob and John, my classmates, would walk me to the bus stop after classes at the New School and wait with me on 14th Street until I was safely on the bus. One day, class ran late, and Bob and John insisted on driving me home, from Manhattan to Staten Island. They didn’t want to risk me riding the bus at night. Remember, this was Union Square in 1980—not a pretty place. I remember Bob telling Khalid, “We can’t trust Bia to be standing alone at the bus stop. She is so gullible that if a mugger asked her, ‘May I please see your wallet?’ she would say, ‘Here.’ ” Another time, walking out after class, I looked at my watch and muttered, “Oh, dear! I missed the bus.” A gentleman walked up to me and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing. I can drive you home.” I walked off with him. He was a classmate, and I knew that he lived on Staten Island. I saw Bob give me this look, but I made nothing of it. No sooner had I got home than the phone rang. It was B
ob.
“Who was that guy you went off with?”
“Oh. That’s my classmate in my hospital administration class.” Bob was not in that class.
“Why did you take a ride with him? Do you know him well enough? Do you realize how scared I was? It’s the oldest trick in the book: ‘I couldn’t help overhearing. I can give you a ride.’ You know, I followed you to the car, just to make sure. Do you realize the trouble you could have gotten into?”
“Oh, you shouldn’t worry. I was fine.”
“Let me talk to Khalid.”
I put Khalid on.
“Do you know what Bia did? She took a ride with a stranger. And she doesn’t realize the risk she put herself in. Talk to her. Make her understand.”
“Well, I don’t have to worry; I have you looking out for her.”
Didn’t I just make you fall in love with Bob? I loved my friends. That some of them were of the male gender was irrelevant. Khalid liked them, my children got to know them, and together we built friendships that endure to this day. When they married, we were at the weddings; when their children were baptized, we were there; and when Saqib and Asim got married, they were there. But at the time, knowing that some would frown upon my friendship with members of the opposite sex, I had to keep my American social life separate from my Muslim community social life.
Double life?
A Handshake, a Hug, and a Kiss
Now I was really crossing the line. Worse, it didn’t feel that way. In Pakistan, women did not even shake hands with men. A hug and a kiss would be scandalous! You just don’t do that. Period. I remember the first kiss: I had just given birth to Saqib and was in the hospital bed. A colleague of Khalid’s and his wife came to visit, and the colleague walked over to me and planted a kiss on my cheek.
A fleeting moment of awkwardness—for me.
This is their culture. There is nothing more to it. It’s OK. Relax.
The moment passed. Years later, when I started entertaining Khalid’s colleagues in our home, they would greet me, shake my hand, and give me a kiss.
Threading My Prayer Rug Page 11