Clash Of Cultures

40. Racism And Xenophobia

Noor

I had 6 days...till I was a married woman. When I sign that marriage contract, there would be no do-overs. There would be no second chances, and no place for regret. I understood that, and in some ways maybe it was already too late.

After the award ceremony earlier in the day I had spend the afternoon debating with myself on what to do. I knew I could not go on with the status quo. It was not fair to Omar, who had done absolutely nothing wrong, except for being in love with a woman who had not been able to reciprocate his feelings.

If this wasn't my life, I would have found the whole situation almost comical. After a lifetime of being told that I wasn't allowed to have boyfriends or any romantic relationships, here I was torn between two men six days before my wedding!

I needed to talk everything out with someone, but I debated on who that may be. Kim, as much as I loved her as a friend and respected her opinions, would never understand the complexity of marriage in my culture, especially when it came to maintaining relationships between families.

I had been so busy this year that I really had not had a chance to keep up with any of my friends from back home and I just did not have the energy to first catch them up on my life and then ask for advice. To be honest, Omar had been the closest desi friend I had before us getting married had come up. For obvious reasons I could not discuss anything with him. 

That left my mom who, while I trusted her, was still a desi mom and would likely freak out if I told her I was questioning my wedding altogether, and had fallen in love with my Pakistani-American senior resident. But time was running out, so I had decided that I would approach my mom, without my dad, and just lay it out in front of her and see what she says.

Unfortunately, my mom was still jet-lagged and fell asleep at 6 pm in the evening, leaving me to have an awkward dinner with my dad, brother and Omar. The men spoke mostly amongst themselves on everything ranging from cricket to Pakistani politics, none of which really interested me. But as I watched them having a lively debate in my living room over cups of chai, I couldn't help but think that everything seemed to fit so perfectly. Omar had once told me that we made sense. And looking at the scene in front of me, at the moment I had to agree with him.

And, while I hated myself for even thinking about Salman in this way, I also could not imagine him fitting in with my family the way Omar did.

I went to sleep that night more confused that ever before, but also beginning to realize how selfish I had been, especially with Omar. I had always cared about him as a friend, and hurting him was the last thing I wanted to do. I had to talk to my mom as soon as possible, even if I had to come home early from work.

Not that Samantha would ever let me leave before the end of day!

The next morning I left for work before anyone else had woken up, hoping to get all my work done early so I could at least be in a position to ask Samantha if I could leave early. There were now 5 days left till the wedding, and I was on verge of panicking. The feeling of impending doom had only grown stronger, no matter what I had tried to tell myself.

Our list of patients that morning was the longest that it had been in the last 2 weeks, which did not bode well for me. And none of the patients had straightforward diseases either. Which is not unexpected in a large academic center like ours, where patients would often be referred from the surrounding community hospitals when they had difficult to diagnose or treat illnesses.

One such patient today was a 5 year old girl who had presented with on and off fevers, body aches and rash for the last 4 months. Despite her already being under the care of several different subspecialist at other hospitals no one had been able to diagnosis the cause of her symptoms. The mother had not been happy with the care she was receiving so had requested transfer to our hospital the night before.