I follow her motions, bending, kneeling, and bowing my head as she does, Nana’s key on the chain around my neck hitting my forehead as I prostrate myself on the floor. It is a deeply comforting rhythm, and I am taken aback at my attraction to the ritual. But would I do this five times a day, as this branch of my mother’s family does, rising at five-thirty every morning to offer their prayers to God? I wonder if it would give my life a direction, as I’ve read converts to Islam argue it does. I wonder if I have to choose one religion above all others. I wonder what my Pakistani family would think if they knew that the real purpose of my work in India is to forge a connection with the Jewish community.
At the conclusion of the prayer, we carefully roll the prayer mats up, and I thank Aliyah for guiding me.
“Sadia Apa?” she asks. “What’s that around your neck?” She lifts up Nana’s key and turns it over in her hand, looking at it.
“It’s something that belonged to my grandmother,” I say. “I wear it as a kind of reminder of her.”
Aliyah nods, looking serious. “I was wondering if I could ask you something. Is it true that she embraced Islam before her death?”
The question catches me off guard. I wasn’t prepared to speak of Nana with Aliyah, and I didn’t realize that the younger generation of my family thought of Nana as anything different from the rest of the Siddiqis.
“She was Muslim from the time of her marriage,” I say, almost defensively. “She converted when she married my grandfather.”
“Really?” Aliyah says, looking surprised. “Well, that’s wonderful. I really didn’t know that. I thought she was . . . was she . . . Jewish?”
“She was, originally, yes,” I say. “Until she married.”
I pause on my way to the kitchen, halfway down the stairs, with my hand on the railing, thinking about what Uncle Waris said about conversion. I have always believed that Nana converted to Islam, but I suppose that it’s entirely possible that she might not have done so formally, much as I have always suspected that her marriage ceremony to my grandfather was never made official. There is no way of knowing which religion Nana considered herself. But if her greatest desire was for me to study the Bene Israel, surely she must have ultimately considered herself Jewish?
I brush these private thoughts into a corner of my mind and join the family in the kitchen, where Aliyah is helping her mother to prepare dinner.
THE NEXT DAY, all of my cousins, those who are from Karachi as well as a contingent of Pakistani American cousins from Michigan, Los Angeles, and Staten Island, gather at an uncle’s home for a joint mehndi or henna ceremony, to bless the bride and groom. Though both bride and groom grew up in New York, they have opted to have their wedding in Karachi, and are using their two-week vacations—the bride’s from law school and the groom’s from his job as a financial analyst—to get married in Karachi. The mehndi has been organized by the bride’s and groom’s mothers, who in this case are sisters and presiding over the function like jeweled birds, equal in pride and glimmer. Family friends have lent their front yard for the occasion; it is decorated with strings of marigolds and roses. Folding chairs have been set up to face a decorated, gilded love seat where the couple will sit to receive blessings from their friends and family. The guests sit in the chairs, sipping Sprite and Fanta and a bright green soda called Pakola, chatting among themselves about what the other guests are wearing, comparing the starched and embroidered outfits decked with heavy gold thread.
Traditionally, families held separate mehndi ceremonies for the bride and the groom. In recent years, wedding functions have become more streamlined and slightly more Westernized, and it has become fashionable to have joint mehndi ceremonies, for both the bride and the groom. In a marriage like this one, where the two sides are related, a joint ceremony makes sense, but Aliyah tells me that her branch of our family still prefers single-sex mehndi celebrations, because her mother and father believe that men and women who are not related should not socialize with one another, that to do so is haram, forbidden. I try to not look shocked when she tells me this. Gone, too, are the choreographed dances, usually performed at the mehndi by the bride’s sisters, friends, and female relatives.
“I used to love to plan them,” Aliyah explains as we settle on our folding chairs, sipping our sodas. “But then my mother pointed out that it was not perhaps such a good idea.”
“Why not?” I ask, feeling a familiar sinking in my stomach.
“Well, by my teaching dancing to young girls, other people might look at those girls, and the girls might teach the dances to other girls. . . . The more that I thought about it, the more I realized that it was not Islamic for me to be teaching dancing. It’s just better that I don’t do it.”
“But we’ve always had dances at family weddings,” I say, remembering that just yesterday I had joked that if I got married in the U.S. I would fly Aliyah out to teach my American friends the steps.
“I know, Sadia Apa. But it’s better this way. It really is.”
I remind myself that traditions like this one were never part of Islam to begin with. Dancing at weddings, wearing red and gold to your nikaah ceremony, decorating your hands and feet with henna, marrying a first cousin— these traditions are indigenous to South Asia, regardless of what religion you are. But it’s the cultural traditions that are associated with faith, not the faith itself, that I feel the strongest connection to, and it’s their loss that I miss. I am reminded of my conversations with the Bene Israel in Bombay. I admire their resolve to become more observant Jews in Israel, but it is the customs of the Bene Israel in India that have pulled me to India. The more time goes by, the more I believe those are the traditions that Nana wanted me to learn about, to feel connected to.
“Don’t worry, Sadia Apa,” Aliyah adds cheerfully. “I’m going to be a choreographer in heaven.”
“In heaven?” I repeat, confused. “Why are you going to be one in heaven?”
“Because in heaven, Sadia Apa, everything that is forbidden on earth will be provided. Allah mian has promised to make all of our dreams come true.”
I notice a group of people in their mid- to late twenties, four or five young men in suits and a handful of young women in salwar kameezes, standing at the back of the gathering, talking and laughing, and go to join them. As I near them, I hear the reassuring sound of their American accents.
“Sadia!” one of them says, and I recognize my cousin Rehana.
Rehana and her sister, Ameena, grew up outside of San Francisco. I have met them only a handful of times, at other family weddings, but I find them interesting. Instead of following the paths that most Pakistani Americans pursue—medicine, law, or finance—Rehana works in a graphic design studio, and Ameena as a real estate developer. Both are stylish, always outfitted in the latest Pakistani wedding fashions, and seem completely comfortable both in the U.S. and in Pakistan. Rehana strikes me as a thoughtful sort, whereas Ameena comes across as spunky. She is the only Pakistani American I have ever seen who wears her hair in a pixieish, close-cropped style, which suits her. Hair is considered to be one of a woman’s finest attributes here, and when I compliment her new look she jokes that all of the Pakistani aunties are staring at her head, wondering why she would do such a thing.
As I enter the conversation, I gather that the group is teasing one of the young men, Asif, who has expressed some interest in a young woman who is sitting on the other side of the room.
“If we were back home, I’d go talk to her, you know? But here it’s like, sheesh, everyone is looking at you, and then you talk to a girl, and—boom— you’re married!”
The group laughs, and an older boy claps him on the back.
“Oh, don’t pretend you’re not looking for a wife, Asif !” he says congenially. “Don’t pretend your dad isn’t doing the rounds right now, finding out about all of the single girls at this function!”
I look over at the buffet table and see Asif’s father filling up a plate with samosas. As
if on cue, he walks toward the group and offers us the plate.
“So,” he says, in Asif’s general direction, “see anyone you like?”
The group laughs again.
“Here we go again.” Ameena rolls her eyes. “Another wedding, another HMM.”
“HMM?” I ask.
“Halal Meat Market,” Ameena says with a smile.
“Happens every time,” Rehana adds.
I look around at the group and am reminded of my teenage resentment at my mother because we didn’t live in a Pakistani American community. Many of my cousins went to Sunday school in their local mosques, fasted for all thirty days of Ramadan each year, socialized with other Pakistani families on a weekly, even daily basis. Some of them are more religious than others; one cousin, Aadam, has become a kind of unofficial youth leader in Islamic societies along the Eastern Seaboard. I wonder if he finds time during his day as a banker in Boston to pray. I wonder about how my cousins’ teenage and college years and young adulthoods have been different from mine, and why. I am drawn to the sense of belonging I feel as I stand with and near my cousins; for a little while, I am part of the club—Pakistani American,Muslim American, and nothing else—but only as long as I am standing here.
Aliyah doesn’t join me in spending most of the evening joking with my cousins.
“Why don’t you come and meet them?” I ask her toward the end of the night, and she walks over to exchange a few greetings with some members of the group. I can’t tell if she’s shy or reluctant to join in the conversation for other reasons.
“They’re your cousins, too,” I say.
I TELL MY MOTHER on the telephone that her family in Pakistan no longer approves of socializing between men and women who are not related. The picture I paint for her in my descriptions is a culture she doesn’t recognize, far removed from the pluralism of Karachi in the 1960s, when she was a teenager. Hearing my stories exasperates her.
“My father used to recite a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad: ‘Difference of opinion is a mercy for my community.’ That’s the way we were raised. He put his children in different kinds of schools—Catholic schools, British schools—just so that we would have different opinions. So that we could debate! That’s the way that I was raised. That is the faith that I know, that my father practiced. . . .”
“I know, Mama,” I say. “But it’s different now. It’s different here.”
“Have you been to Siddiqi House?” she asks. “Have you seen Nana’s flat?”
“Not yet,” I say. “I’m going tomorrow.”
“Remember to visit Bibi first—she’s the eldest, so that’s protocol. Then Zaitoon.”
“Right. Thanks.”
BATH ISLAND, once a desirable residential district for British officers, became prime real estate in the late 1940s for wealthy families, many of whom had recently relocated to Karachi from India. The houses of my grandfather’s Parsi friends remain, isolated oases behind tall gates, but gone are many of the grand villas that transplants like my grandfather built to replace the homes they left behind in India. Siddiqi House is now a relic, an anachronism, and people say it’s only a matter of time before it, too, is sold and demolished, and a tall, lucrative tower built in its place. My mother hopes that her family will hang on to the house, but she knows it is not practical. Though there is still a flat in Siddiqi House in Nana’s name, it is only one-sixth of the property, hardly even a voting share. People say that, by virtue of its location, the house might sell for as much as two million pounds sterling.
I ask my hired driver to drop me at the one of the two main entrances, and look up at the house, shielding my eyes from the sun with one hand. I had expected Siddiqi House to appear diminished, to exist in contrast with the magnitude of how large it seemed to me as a child. To my surprise, it feels as big and impenetrable as it always has; as tall and wide as it exists in my memory. But when I move closer, I can see where a recent paint job was started and then abandoned, where the two shades of yellowish cream don’t match. Cracks in the exterior have been filled in with plaster but are not yet smoothed over. I think of all the people who used to live here and have long since departed for other houses, other countries. There is no longer the sound of music coming out of the windows, my aunt Farida’s dogs barking and playing in the yard. There are no children growing up here. Outside each front gate of Siddiqi House, according to my grandfather’s standing instructions, a large clay urn was to be filled constantly with fresh drinking water, so that any thirsty traveler could find refreshment. Instinctively, I peer inside, expecting a deep, reflective pool, and find nothing but dried mud.
All six flats have separate doors on separate floors, large imposing blocks of wood with brass knockers, and brass plates bearing the name of each flat’s owner. Which door you consider the main entrance of Siddiqi House depends entirely on whose child you are, and whom you have come to visit. Two open stairwells where servants run up and down between flats form the axis of communication—that is, between the residents of Siddiqi House who are talking to one another. There always seems to be some kind of strain in the house between different factions of the family. These feuds hang like uneven strings from my grandfather’s children, even now, more than forty years later. I have heard the stories. During my grandfather’s lifetime, the different branches of the family lived peacefully together, maintained harmony. In the years since he died, it has been harder and harder to remember a time when the Siddiqis were one united family.
“Joint property,” I can hear Nana saying in my mind, by way of explanation. “Joint family.”
As a child, I thought the fault lay with the word itself; I thought the “joint” Nana referred to was a faulty junction between multiple parts. Now I understand that Nana was trying to make sense of how she ended up where she was, the young widow with five small children, trapped in a crowded, jealous house, with no resources of her own.
While my grandfather was alive, Nana was the favored wife. She had three more children in Karachi and enjoyed a special status in the house. It was Nana who shared a bedroom with her husband, who accompanied him when he attended formal functions, who oversaw the construction of his real estate holdings. Nana carried the keys to his properties on a chain around her waist; my mother remembers the announcement of her mother’s step by that unmistakable jingle. Each day, Nana visited the properties and made sure that construction was proceeding according to plan. Her husband built her Rahat Villa, near Siddiqi House, to replace the house she had lost in Bombay. This tall concrete structure looked nothing like the original; it was meant as an income property, something that she would keep in her name and pass on to her children. He was building others—he had an empty lot in Housing Society, a large duplex on Tipu Sultan Road. He was constantly investing in new schemes and new businesses. Then he had a heart attack.
In the hospital, he held his three wives’ hands together on his chest.
“I have left a property of equal value in each of your names. Promise me that you will divide the assets equally. Promise me that you will live as one family, united, and act in the common good of our family, of all of our children.”
The women nodded, quietly sobbing, and Ali asked for a moment alone with each of them. When it came time for him to see Nana alone, he touched her cheek briefly.
“I had always planned to give each of you two flats in Siddiqi House, for your children—”
“Never mind, never mind,” Nana said.
“No, listen, sweetheart—the house remains in Choti Amma’s name. But you have the new Rahat Villa; it’s a property of equal value. I haven’t given you the life you wanted,” he said quietly. “And I have not been able to provide for you in the way that I had hoped to.”
“Shh-shh—” Nana said.
“Promise me that you will help the family to stay united, to stay together. They will need your strength.”
“I will. I promise.”
What had been assets while he was alive—her yout
h, her beauty, and her five bright children—were liabilities for Nana once he was gone. Suddenly the financial situation of the family had changed, and with it the rules. Everything Nana had came now out of a collective pot, which was managed by Bari Amma, my grandfather’s first wife. The household duties were divided among the three women; Choti Amma managed the grocery shopping and food preparation, Bari Amma supervised the funds and the household staff, and Nana’s job was to get all of the children ready for school and organized when they came home. But without a breadwinner, there was no car and driver so she could visit her family on the other side of Karachi, no extra money for music lessons or new clothes. Not long after Ali’s death, it became clear that the family was in debt. If they were to retain Siddiqi House and keep the family together, something had to be sold. It was decided that it made the most sense to sell the new Rahat Villa, and there went the first of Nana’s properties. Though the other wives retained their holdings, Nana willingly ceded hers, acting in the common good as she had promised her husband. In compensation for Rahat Villa, Choti Amma gave her one flat of Siddiqi House in her name, and Nana leased it to a Parsi family, the Mehtas, painstakingly saving the rent. Each month, she put aside a small amount of money. Once a week, she walked to the market at the end of the lane to buy fruit, eggs, and imported luxuries. She kept these things safely in her bedroom, her private stash. When her five children came home from school, she prepared thin slices of apple, cold milk with Bournvita chocolate drink, toasted sandwiches made with Kraft cheese from a can, and they pretended for an hour or two that nothing had changed. She dreamed of living in her flat by herself, with her own children, a modest approximation of the life she had lived in Bombay before Partition. But with her other properties sold or held collectively, she was reliant on the meager income of the rent to have some degree of financial independence.
The Girl From Foreign: A Memoir Page 28