By Annie Sheikh
I recently flew from Ottawa to Dubai with my mom and sister. We initially had a two hour stopover at Heathrow airport but because of our connecting flight being cancelled, were booked onto the next one available.
This meant our mere two hour stopover was now an annoying 12 hour one. That meant we had one whole day to spend in London, from about eight in the morning when we landed, till 10 in the night when our flight was due to take off.
The weather was pretty good and it would have been a perfect day to roam around and explore the city some more. If you happen to be Desi however, and happen to have relatives in the city, it might just so happen that you won't get to spend a lovely day on your own outside. You'll be bundled in a car, driven home, and that's where you will stay for the rest of the day until it's time for your flight.
Despite being exhausted because of an eight hour journey and the prospect of eight more ahead, you will have to sit, smile, and pretend you're thrilled and excited to be there. You'll have to be cheerful and make conversation politely while your brain screams for respite in the form of a cozy bed and some peaceful sleep. You'll also have to eat as much as you can so as not to offend anyone, even though your travel sickness is so bad you could probably puke out a storm.
Add to this the fact that there's a BBQ in the house in a few hours, which means more company, more food, and even less chance of you getting any rest. If it stopped there, it would have been bearable. It's what happens next that's the rotten cherry on the stale cake.
Imagine this.
You're sitting quietly on the corner of a couch, half asleep, when in walks someone you don't know and have never seen. You get up to greet the aunty, as is usual, and have a big, wet, slobbery kiss planted on your cheek. If that isn't enough to revive you from your semi conscious state, then this will be.
Soon after, in walks a maulvi uncle in his sixties, who has never seen you nor knows who you are, but is apparently so "excited" to see you he decides to "pat" you all the way from your head, to your back, to well, what comes after it. You can't move anywhere because you're stuck between the uncle and a wall. All you can do is stare at your mom in shock and horror with eyes as big as saucers while she stares back confusedly. Then, as you start to wither and sit back down, maulvi uncle decides to stick to you and sit right back down with you on the same place. Fortunately, maulvi uncle's sloppy kisser wife probably knows a thing or two about her husband and tells him to get up and directs him to a seat far away from you.
Meanwhile, you're mortified because not even your closest uncles or aunties or anyone else for that matter has ever "greeted" you in such a way.
A while later I told my sister what had transpired while she was somewhere else in the house.
"Oh my God! You were molested? Who was it? How old were you?" I told her that wasn't what I meant and went on to describe my ordeal, other than who did it because I couldn't point it out then. My sister rolled her eyes and told me not to be so dramatic because that's not called molestation. She went on to say she thought I must have been molested as a child because according to her, "that would explain a lot."
I sulked the rest of the time I was there, taking care not to cross paths with my perpetrator again.
Finally when it was time to leave, I said goodbye to everyone, such as the slobbery kisser aunty who planted another wet one on my poor cheek, her maulvi sons, their wives whose purpose in life seemed to have one child after another, some other guests, and my relatives, who in comparison now seemed relatively normal. I skipped saying bye to the oodles of noisy irritating children because they were too busy killing each other and besides, neither of us could care less anyway.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the predator quickly approaching. I took a quick look to see him running towards me, and darted all the way across the hall and hid behind my mom. I peeked in disgusted disdain from my safe spot.
Even though I didn't tell my sister who the dreaded uncle was, as soon as she saw him first approach me, and then run toward her, she made a dash for it too and ended up right beside me. "It's him, isn't it?" was the look she gave me. I nodded silently.
Later my sister said she figured it was him because he had a really strange look in his eyes as he tried to catch up to us before we darted away. If that wasn't enough to make me want to light a stick on fire and poke it in both his eyes, she also told me she saw the said uncle with his hand down a place it shouldn't have been while he stared at the both of us as we left.
I was so disgusted and traumatized that every time I closed my eyes for the next three weeks, I'd see a pair of creepy gross uncle eyes staring at me. For a good week I also rubbed sanitizer over my poor cheek that had been devoured by his slobbery and nonsense talking wife.
I would also like to take this opportunity to add that such inappropriate touching is also called molestation, in this part of the world anyway. I read it myself in a newspaper. So contrary to what my sister thinks, I am not such a big drama queen after all.
I think that's the last time I stand within touching distance of a maulvi uncle though. In fact, I'll just run every time I see one. It's just not worth the risk and the ensuing nightmares.
Note: The term "maulvi" isn't used to be derogatory. It is used only to evoke the image that is typically associated with it. That would be one of an older man with a long unkempt orange Henna dyed beard, who has a white cap on his head which is also dyed with Henna, and who usually wears shalwar kameez everywhere. Maulvis tend to be very rigid in their beliefs, with the exception of a few who are more educated and enlightened.
Blog: http://my.desivi.be/misspink
Twitter: http://twitter.com/_misspink
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written by khoula sohail , August 05, 2010
Hope you are doing good. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article and totally agree with your sentiments.... One often gets to see some very weird people like the ones you mentioned....Hope to see some more wonderful stuff from your side.....Good luck :-)
