The last hoorah

Lahore widows have formed a sorority to enjoy their final years without husbands, commitments or family obligations.

LAHORE: “I’ve always had to live my life according to someone’s wishes. First it was my parents, then it was my husband and after that it was my children. This is the only time I’ve gotten to live it for myself,” says 78-year-old Huma Noorani.

Noorani is part of a group of wealthy Lahore widows who have formed a sorority of sorts to enjoy their final years without husbands, commitments or family obligations. The group consists of 11-13 women who come together one evening every week to play bridge at the Gymkhana, organise charity events or sing at each other’s houses.

“Ours isn’t really a culture that thrives on pleasure, especially when it comes to women. My generation was raised being told how to be ‘respectable’ and we lived by that, by everyone else’s version of what it meant to be respectable in this society,” says Begum Naz.

She organises the sing-along sessions, where this unique group of over-70-somethings have kaava and tea and sing to DVDs of old Indian songs. They exchange stories of their romances when they were young, and rank Indian actors from the black and white era for their ‘handsomeness’.

It is a privilege to watch this group of women finally living. “Of course we don’t let just anyone into the group because at our age, laughing and having fun is considered somehow disrespectful,” scoffs Aziza, a grandmother of 11.

All the women tell me that they wish for their names to be altered simply because they don’t want their children or grandchildren to feel embarrassed. “Even at our age, we have to take care of not offending others. That is all our lives have been about, an exercise in not causing offence,” she says.

The group also organises trips around the world and have so far travelled to Spain, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, China and Nepal together. “All of us pool in the money and one of us takes care of all the arrangements, from visas and bookings to the hotel and tour guide,” says Naz. The person organising the trip generally manages to go for free on commission. The women tell me that ‘saving for a rainy day’ isn’t high on their priority list.

“Most people our age believe in putting aside all their life savings for a rainy day,” says Huma.

“But as far as we’re concerned the rainy days are already here. We are all in our 70s and we know that we don’t have long. Seeing as we’ve never really had charge of our own lives this is our last chance to enjoy ourselves.”

“It is the first time in our lives when we make the rules and no one dares stop us. There may be people who find our loud laughter at the Gymkhana and our colourful clothes and trips to the theatre or galleries rather ‘shameful’ but we are no longer bothered with them,” Aziza says.

The women say that each of them gained their ‘independence’ when they became widows. “It sounds heartless but it was the first time in our lives we were free from responsibilities. Though most people in our country choose to continue walking the straight and narrow, we all decided we had had enough,” Huma says.

These women are rebelling against societal norms that old people ought to dress in varying hues of beige, concern themselves only with their households and essentially fade away.

So what prompted this extraordinary group to throw parties, jet set across the globe and wear scarlet at their age? “I once read this story in the Reader’s Digest about an 80-year-old woman who started wearing purple and red at her age and finally felt free. I wanted to be her. She titled the article The last hoorah!” Naz says, laughing.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2010.