KARACHI: “Valentine’s Day marks the birth of a great scholar!” says 22-year-old Shehzad Adil to his friends, standing near the oil tankers at Shireen Jinnah Colony.
Most people might not know the whys behind the day but they definitely love to celebrate it. Valentine’s Day cuts in all its pink and red glory across class boundaries — but not everyone has an easy romance.
Adil says he and his two friends, Rehan and Zohaib, meet every day to talk about their “progress” with their respective girlfriends. Zohaib said his own romance ended when the girl was married to her cousin last year but now he comes because he “enjoys listening to his friends and giving them tips to keep their girls happy”. “I also tell them how they can get out of giving them gifts!”
Talking about how they communicate with their girlfriends, Rehan, a thin, clean-shaven young man, said they only talk on cell phones. “I borrow Easyload from the shopkeeper on loan. Thankfully the shopkeeper is my friend otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to manage [my relationship].”
“I wish we could go to a good restaurant or even to a park or the Quaid’s mazaar,” says Zohaib.
His girlfriend is a nurse in training at a private hospital. He used to go see her at the hospital but he couldn’t go up to her and talk because “she has a friend who is always sticking to her”. Not everyone has the advantage of technology and Ishtiaq Ahmed, 23, says he writes letters to his girlfriend. The young computer operator lives in Sultanabad. He has to send letters through his girlfriend’s younger cousin because “her father is against cell phones”. If they get caught it would be serious trouble — not just for her but for Ahmed also because she lives next door.
Social taboos kill all the romance for us, he says wistfully. “Everyone knows the dull agony of a love that is communicated through letters. All day you wait for a reply, pay the messenger to keep shut his or her mouth and at the end of the day you receive the reply ‘I am not free, I will write later’.”
Published in The Express Tribune, February 14th, 2011.
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