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I didn’t have a dedicated chaperone at my beck and call though. It was better to be accompanied by someone – husband, sister, mother, brother, a maid, anyone. The problem for me was that a young woman running errands alone was considered vulnerable and therefore frowned upon. You walked or hailed a taxi from the main road. If Islamabad was easy to navigate geographically, the lack of decent public transport made it difficult to physically get around. Although Islamabad exuded composure, the people of Lahore mockingly dubbed it the dead city, for its tendency to swallow a sedative after dark just as Lahore was coming to life.
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Rawalpindi was happy to host the racket of rickshaws that were forbidden from fouling Islamabad’s tree lined boulevards. While the junior city ascended arrogantly like a privileged cousin, neighbouring Rawalpindi preferred to parade its pre-partition architecture and timeworn meandering bazaars. The purpose built capital was a bit like Milton Keynes, laid out on a grid system some sixty years ago and organised into different sectors. The Islamabad I knew back in the early 1990s was a dynamic draw for diplomats rather than the depressing disciplinarians of today. And even if I surmounted these stumbling blocks, how on earth would I get myself to an interview when I wasn’t even used to venturing out alone to buy bread! Since my cultural references were entirely British, I knew nothing about local protocols in the workplace. I didn’t know the first thing about employment options in Islamabad, and in a pre-internet age, I didn’t even know when and where vacancies were advertised. He caved in, begrudgingly, and probably because he conceded that my target was unachievable. Yet, in a bid to sway my unenthusiastic father-in-law, I swore that my chores wouldn’t suffer if he permitted me to take a job. I already resented my role in the kitchen. Why couldn’t the men be trained to help themselves, I’d wonder, just like the women were expected to do? Nor did I understand why our mothers continued to nurture this unconstructive cycle, especially when the ones to bear the brunt of it would be their very own daughters.Īs fate would have it, it was my turn now to preserve the redundant tradition.
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It was as if a man couldn’t be left home alone, just in case he needed something to eat. “I’m not having my son going hungry while three women gallivant around the shops!” she’d protest. You see, mum’s sole preoccupation was to reach home to make lunch for her only son, unaware that our return merely disrupted his devotional analysis of the afternoon’s sporting fixtures. Yet, when she escorted my sister and I into town on Saturday afternoons, her clockwatching would leave me feeling exasperated. As the sole parent to three young children in our council house, it was mum that had her work cut out with lengthy shifts during the week. Growing up in Bradford, it struck me that this wasn’t strictly true. And that’s just how it was – the breadwinner’s every whim was met because it was his labour that brought food to our table. Even as a child, I sensed from the silence his presence commanded that he was a high-ranking member of our sprawling household. The moment he returned home from work, the women stood to attention. I remember how grandma doted on my uncle when I was a little girl and he was a married man and father of three. But you see, that’s just the way our men were raised. Yes, it irked me that something as slight as a change in his daily routine was reason enough for his reluctance. So I had the benefit of reasoning with him in a way that would deem any other daughter-in-law rather insolent. My father-in-law was also my uncle (mum’s older brother), although he was really more like a father to me. Besides, I was more useful at home and people would accuse me of neglecting my duties. Predictably, he decreed that it was up to the men to provide for me.
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Naturally, being the dutiful daughter-in-law, it was expected that I should pursue my father-in-law’s permission in the first instance. I would find a job to support us both so my husband could swiftly come home. So, I mused, he needn’t stay in the Middle East on my account. I was happy to play the supportive wife, but I also took pride in being an equal in the partnership. Mum had raised us singlehandedly so I wasn’t used to taking money from a man, not even my father. Now, I resented being talked about like a piece of luggage. The ‘allowance’ he despatched every month already made me feel awkward. “What can he do? He has a wife to think about now,” they’d fuss. When the Gulf War broke out in early 1991, I’d overhear senior, sager relatives empathising with my husband’s plight of working in the increasingly volatile Middle Eastern region. My motive for finding work in Islamabad was actually quite noble.