Zaheer's Wedding

  Preamble: For the  Blogchatter's A2Z challenge during the month of April 2024, I am writing mini stories on various subjects and characters on each day of the month except on Sundays. The name of the protagonist shall begin with the alphabet assigned for the day.  

"Hey Majeed, do you know me? " asked an aged stranger at a wedding at his native place. Although his ancestral village was Valanchery in Malappuram district, Kerala, 15 year old Majid  grew up in Ernakulam where  his father had migrated in 2002 to start a shop in the Broadway area of kochi. Majid visited the hometown now and then with parents but was not familiar with the local residents. 

The stranger continued " I am Abdul, a childhood friend of your grandfather, Zaheer. Go ask him what was special about his wedding" he guffawed. Majid's uncle who was accompanying him, merely smiled, patted him on the shoulder and led him away to the dining area for food. 

Majid's grandfather had lived in the UAE for many years but returned in his old age to home town to spend remaining days with his people . Grandmother Razia was very happy that he returned for good. During the major part of their marriage, it was just periodic visits to hometown for a few weeks. However, the visits had the feel of celebrating a festival! Everyone looked forward to the presents that Zaheer would bring, particularly in the olden days when many foreign items were not locally available. 

  As soon as they reached home Majid ran to his grandmother and said "We met Abdul Muthappan  (Grandpa) at the wedding. He said he was grandpa's friend. Why did he say your wedding was unique grandma?  Razia smiled shyly and asked "He told you that?" 

Zaheer who overheard the conversation called out to Majeed. When he came in he said "That fellow Abdul hasn't changed . He is always up to some mischief. There was nothing unique about the way our wedding happened. It was quite common in the 70s, amongst us Gulf guys." 

"What happened grandpa" asked Majid, curious.

" Oh nothing extraordinary. It was just that we got very few days of leave while visiting hometown. A prolonged process of seeing girls and finalizing the match was a luxury we could not afford. So what we did was see 6 to 7 girls during the visit, approve of one of them and get married, before returning to Dubai. Abdul used to make fun of us saying that we were selecting a bride like selecting a saree or shirt. Perhaps he was right in a way. But we were all victims of our circumstances".

After Zaheer had told his grandson the background story of his wedding, it suddenly struck him that he had left out something. "And the next time you meet that Abdul, you tell him that grandpa liked and approved of the first girl he saw and that was your grandma. It was only because of pressure from relatives that I saw four more girls. But my mind was already made up!"     

Razia listening to his words from the adjacent room smiled. 

NB: This post is a part of  challenge #BlogchatterA2Z