A Special Place

Let me clarify - As one of my friends said, waiting for the next next next step, this is not the story of that step, coz that hasn't happened yet. Then why I am I doing this now ??? I have no clue.

Does every girl go crazy before the marriage? Do they fret on every single aspect of every single happening ? Well, if the answer is no, then something is really wrong with me. 

Right now at this moment, when I am writing this I am worried about my wedding dress. Should I wear an Arabic Lacha or a gown. I went to 4 shops today. Thinking back, I don't know what I was searching for exactly. From a salesgirl viewpoint, we looked liked  3 anada prethangal roaming around several boutiques. I can't blame them, Choosing the wedding dress and several other of them is such a big event over here. Usually, it happens this way, a bunch of relatives and family crowd around a girl who is trying on several dresses. And then there was US, we looked like people who had landed from 5 centuries back, and I am sure they weren't expecting 3 girls trying to pick a dress. I have to thank Baps for that, he had given me an absolute freedom to go pick dress from anywhere I want with anyone I want(that means I don't have to please a lot of eyes and get approval nods from several others)(And another aspect of this is that I miss my Ummi in all this, who is the person from whom I crave an approval nod from, yeah and my grandma(well, she is a part and parcel)). So that's the story of a Sunday well spent(not in all terms). 

I don't know why but I am getting really emotional these days. Its not that I don't cry usually, its just that I don't do it this regularly. Maybe, there are worries and concerns burned deep inside my heart. I don't know. And I miss Ummi. But there is this specific thing I get emotional about way tooo quickly, and that is shifting from my room. Don't get your head clouded with ideas that I don't wanna go to my future husband's place. Its not that. My room is a special place. For others, its one of the two biggest rooms, and for me, its my den, its my library, its my refuge. Generally in an Indian family, when a girl gets married and makes way for another to get married, she has to move out from the big room. I don't know if this is happens only here, or several other parts of the world. This is something I can't bear to think about. 

It all started out as a joke for somebody. She laughed and tried to pester me about a lot of things and among all that this also came along. This idea was there boiling and burning up my head for so long that when me and my dad was talking I just burst out crying. To be fair, he was shocked, and then he burst out laughing. He said whenever you come home, the room shall be waiting for you and that is why I built such a big house. I was pacified by every laughing face in the room, including my sister, brother and grandmother. After giving all this some thought Baps asked me, it is true that everyone has a room over here, but don't you think after 10 or so years when you decrease your number of visits here, you should move out to the next room? 

And that started another war, a big big one. Now, it was not just about me, I brought in mostly all of the relatives and their stories (all those times I stared open mouthed when my aunts moved out when unlces married, I don't know why it hurt me so much(I have a feeling those aunts weren't hurt), but there I was sitting and contemplating when this was happening to me). And my worst fears just came true when Baps asked that. I asked why is it that always girls have to sacrifice? Yeah there are instances where the house is small and there is a lack of number of rooms, and that's when they do that. But over here, that particular issue does't rise. Oh yeah, the next room doesn't have a wash basin (seriously, that the reasoning they gave me). This answer irritated me more. And again out of no where my brother called me his bad word he reserves only for me: Feminist. 

I don't walk away, I stand there and give my father the epic ZAINABU STARE. He hates that, I am sure. (Well, yesterday's one definitely had determination, boldness and pleading altogether). He laughed again and said fine. In between all this my siblings keep asking me why I am so attached to that one room. I answered that because I designed it and planned it and executed every bit of it with all my heart. Well, the truth is that, this is the first room I got where something was permanent. It was there and I am not gonna lose it. Maybe, all this emotional attachment is due to the fact that we kept moving, Saudi Arabia, India and in Saudi Arabia, We moved across the west and east innumerable number of times. I love traveling. It's there in my blood, but like any traveler, I need a base that's permanent. And that's that room. Its not like I use that room permanently, no, but when I am too sad, I go there and when I am too happy I go there. When I want to listen to music I go there, and when I wanna read a book, I go there and when I wanna write something I go there. I don't know if somebody else associates with a non- living thing like the way I do with my room. I don't know.