THE FIRST day of my wedding. I was standing on the flat roof of my mother’s great house in the old walled city, staring out at the dirt alleys and whitewashed houses, slim minarets rising all around, the neighborhood that was as much part of me as the tree-lined suburban streets, the Colonial-style homes in Minneapolis. Five times a day, from each of these corner mosques, a different azan sounded, filling the air with God’s adoration, his greatness, humble words quickly evaporating, being replaced with the sounds of cocks crowing, goats bleating, a lone dog’s howl. Even the lamb now tied to a guava tree in our house’s inner courtyard, awaiting its own slaughter on the day of the nik’kah, four days from now, bayed along with the azan, as though itself praying for Allah’s mercy Allah’s mercy It was what I, too, wanted, though coming in what form, I could no longer say. What was I feeling on this, the first day of my wedding? Indeed, like God’s praise evaporating, leaving in its wake the noise one could not bear to hear, the noise of dirty animals, the soul transcending the body, plunging down to earth, so, too, had my dread, my apprehension, my small hope of escaping these marital ties vanished, and the emotion that took over was no emotion at all, just a dullness that matched the overhead skies, singing of a different kind of surrender.
What do You think about Madras On Rainy Days: A Novel?
