Summary
Chapter 1
There are 15 days until Asghar’s marriage, and the house is starting to fill up with guests. The women of the family are hard at work cooking and preparing clothes. They talk as they work, and reminisce about their own marriages.
3 days before the wedding, they send Bilqeece her wedding dress and various other gifts and items, including jewelry, scents, and sweets. Then, the women visit Mirza Shahbaz Beg’s house, dress Bilqeece in red clothes, adorn with her jewelry, and give her a purse with 101 rupees. There is singing throughout.
The bride’s family send Asghar toiletry with which to bathe. From now until the wedding, he is supposed to rest and will receive a massage every day. When he receives a soap case, some of the women are confused, since they have never seen it before. Someone explains, and they curse the Farangis and their funny inventions.
Ahmad Wazir, the family barber, and Ghafoor sit together, smoking hookah. Ghafoor has accepted the proposal of Mir Nihal’s friend who wanted to marry his niece off to him. They joke about their respective women.
Dilchain feels merry, and decides to dress like a man as a joke. Everyone laughs, and she begins to dance, at which point there is more laughter. She is laughing too. There is a lot of singing and shouting, and hardly anyone can hear each other.
Some members of bride’s family, including cousin Ashfaq and his older brother Mir Ejaz Husain, come around 1 or 2 am to give Asghar gifts, including his engagement ring. They also give him paan and sugar, but playfully, give him too much for him to handle; as he politely nibbles at the one or the other, he’s handed some more.
Habibuddin, seeing this, suggests to Sharfullah, a cousin in charge of the cooking, that they too should play a lighthearted joke. Sharfullah presents Mir Ejaz Husain with sherbet, and when he finishes, Sharfullah wipes his lips, as per custom. However he continues wiping well past the point where it is necessary. Mir Ejaz Hussain tries to maneuver out of the situation, but Sharfullah holds his head, and begins rubbing his lips much harder. Everyone begins to laugh, but the bride’s family are offended. Ashfaq breaks custom and speaks up for his affronted brother, and suggests that his father-in-law is much wealthier than their family. The insult causes some argument, but Habibuddin plays peacemaker. Asghar is embarrassed, not wanting to choose between the two sides.
Later, Asghar sits on his bath stool, and is surrounded by his most closely related family. His father cannot hide his happiness, nor can Begam Nihal or Begam Waheed, who both know how difficult it was to arrange this marriage. Asghar, too, is happy to be marrying the woman he loves. He is presented with more sweets and his younger girl cousins tease him by giving him big sweets, so big they can barely fit in his mouth, in hopes of getting a neg, some money meant for younger sisters and cousins. He playfully tries to bargain with them, ultimately giving them seventy-five rupees. He is presented with more money, each person giving according to their status.
At the end of the ceremony, ubatna, a mix of herbs and drugs, is mixed with water to create dough, and the family begins to smear each other with the dough. No one is safe from the ensuing chaos, and even the older women get smeared. Everyone is laughing and joyful.
Chapter 2
It is the day of the wedding. Asghar’s clothes come from the bride’s house in the morning. He is dressed by Ahmad Wazir, and Habibuddin helps him with his turban.
The wedding starts 90 minutes late, since there are so many little things to get done before it starts. Asghar rides a horse adorned in gold, and is followed by a procession of guests and musicians. The bride’s family meets them at the corner of the lane where they live. A struggle ensues between the two families over which side will overtake the horse first once Asghar dismounts. Sharfullah once again represents the groom’s side, while Chunoo represents the bride’s. Sharfullah initially has the head start, but is knocked down when Chunoo tries to get on from the other side. Eventually, Chunoo gets to the front of the horse and Sharfullah is relegated to the back. The bride’s family says this outcome means Bilqeece will have the upper hand in the marriage, while the groom’s family says Sharfullah having gotten to the horse first means the opposite. They call it a draw, and the wedding proceeds.
The marriage ceremony commences, with Asghar and Bilqeece’s father both giving their consent to the union. Asghar is asked three times if he will take Bilqeece to be his wife, and as he accepts, he feels a strange sadness grip him. Mirza Shahbaz Beg cries as he gives away Bilqeece, looking as if he is in mourning. After they finish the ceremony, the guests pray for the couple to have a happy married life.
A few hours later, after his friends read him some poetic verses, Asghar is brought by a procession to meet the bride in another room. He is received by his now mother-in-law and some other close relatives of Bilqeece, while Bilqeece herself is sitting in the middle of the room, with her face covered by a head-cloth. Singers accompany the ceremony with verses relating to the uncovering of the veil. Asghar first looks at her face through a mirror, and then Bilqeece in turn does the same. It is near impossible for them to see the other’s face, however, because the room is dark and they are covered by cloth. Finally, he takes off her veil, and when their eyes meet, Asghar and Bilqeece feel a spark, and they are both filled with desire.
It is now time for Asghar to take the bride away. It is getting late, and Begam Shahbaz is told to hurry up the vida, when the bride is sent off. However, it is very painful for Begam Shahbaz and the rest of Bilqeece’s family to say goodbye to her. There are many tears, and even some of Asghar’s family find themselves moved, not only by the strength of their in-laws emotions, but also by the power of the singers accompanying the vida. Asghar too feels sad, mostly due to the general atmosphere of sadness, but when he picks up Bilqeece he is again gripped with desire, Bilqeece is shaking with sobs as he carries her to the palanquin. The procession home begins, with the musicians at the front, followed by Asghar on horseback, and then the palanquin and a trousseau carried by menial workers at the back.
They are greeted at home by the women of the household, who in all the commotion of the day, have yet to eat. The men, meanwhile, were given a meal at Mirza Shahbaz Beg’s, where the bride’s family got back at Sharfullah and the groom’s family by mixing the water they used to wash their hands with kerosene oil. Sharfullah got the brunt of the prank, having his beard smeared with oil, and everyone laughed at him. The women receive food in huge pots from the bride’s family, and they finally are able to eat. Another ritual ensues: Asghar must try to eat rice pudding from the palm of Bilqeece, while the young boys of the family are meant to stop him at all costs. They get to the pudding before he can, or Begam Waheed pulls Bilqeece’s hands away before he can get to it.
The women take Bilqeece aside, and her face is revealed to them, though it is before the official ceremony where the bride’s face is revealed to her new family the next day. They marvel at her beauty, and Begam Nihal is especially overjoyed at her daughter-in-law’s appearance.
Meanwhile, the men take Asghar aside, and discuss the intricacies of sex with him. He goes to see his bride around 1 am, as the long day finally comes to a close.
The next day there is the official reveal of the bride’s face, and she is given many rupees. Habibuddin organizes some color-throwing, using dyes mixed with water, and no one is spared. They even return to Mirza Shahbaz Beg’s house, and tensions are briefly stoked again between Sharfullah and Ashfaq, but the day ends in merriment and fun. The guests stay on for a week before leaving.
Analysis
The start of Part III provides a very detailed look at the rituals and traditions associated with marriage in Muslim culture at the time in Delhi. Though the chapter is largely defined by a joyous, excited mood, there is also tension between the families which speaks to the class divide separating Asghar and Bilqeece. The exchange of practical jokes begins with an endearing moment in which Asghar's soon-to-be in-laws playfully inundate him with sweets, and it's unlikely the situation would have escalated had Asghar's family seen themselves as equal to Bilqeece's family. However, since they see themselves as superior in status to the family, they feel a need to one-up the joke, perhaps to reaffirm their superiority. Similarly, Bilqeece's family is not likely to have taken offense to the joke Sharfullah plays on Mir Ejaz Husain had they not already felt conscious of their inferior class status. Thus, when Ashfaq comes to the defense of his brother, he is sure to note that a relative of his is, in fact, much wealthier than Mir Nihal. It is clear to both sides, even if it remains largely unspoken, what the issue is between the two families. Later, the conflict seems to come to a resolution, as the horse-mounting episode ends with a draw, if a slightly tense draw.
Class plays a significant role in other aspects of the pre-marriage ritual. Asghar is given money by members of his family, but each gives a different amount based on their relative class status. Less blatantly, the kind of gifts which Bilqeece's family can give Asghar, and vice versa, are telling not only of their social class but also of their proximity to British culture. Asghar, for example, is given a soap case, which his more traditional family has never seen before.
The joyousness of the event, however, also allows the families to break through class barriers, especially as it relates to attitudes on gender. Mir Nihal and his servant Ghafoor reflect on the women in their lives, a moment of homosocial bonding prompted by the marriage. Similarly, Dilchain expresses her joy by dressing as a man, using humor as a cathartic way to address the ways in which women are made subservient to men, both as workers and as wives.
