Dr. Rafeeq Masoodi
It is 2 a.m. In a small lane of Srinagar, a father is still awake.
In his hand is a calculator. On the table before him are scattered bank papers. In his eyes there is no sleep, only tears. In the next room, his daughter is sleeping. She is 34. Post-graduate. Beautiful. Pious. But beneath her eyes there are dark circles now – circles made by waiting.
The father whispers to himself, “Ya Allah, what will happen to my daughter? If I die, what will happen to her?”
This is not the story of one house. This is the story of every house in Kashmir where a girl child is born.
When a girl is born in Kashmir, people say Mubarak. Sweets are distributed. Prayers are offered. But on that same day, a small thorn pricks the father’s heart. That thorn grows year after year. When the daughter is 10, it pricks. When she is 20, it pains. When she becomes 30, that thorn tears the heart open.
That thorn has a name – Marriage.
Once, marriage in Kashmir was worship. A Nikah in the mosque. A Waza from the mohalla. A small, simple Wazwan. The bride came in a simple Pheran, and her in-laws took her home with prayers, not with a list of demands.
Today, marriage has become a market. And in that market, the poorest buyer is the father of the girl.
Let us have the courage today to do the calculation that no one does on the wedding stage.
Wazwan – Rs 30 Lakh.
The father does not want to feed 800 people with 12 dishes. He only wants to send his daughter with dignity. But if the Wazwan is weak, people will say, “What a marriage, there was no soul in the Wazwan.” The Waza charges Rs 10,500 per Trami which is minimum. Mutton, chicken, oil, spices, labour. Two days of cooking. Twenty lakh vanishes like smoke from the deg. Those who eat forget in ten days. The one who pays remembers for a lifetime.
Decoration and Event Management – Rs 20 Lakh.Once, four chairs and a white cloth was decoration. Today the bride needs a stage like a palace in Dubai. Flowers from Delhi, lights from Mumbai, a drone camera, an LED wall, a selfie corner. The decorator says, “Sir, this is the standard package.” Standard for whom? For the father whose monthly income is Rs 30,000? But the father nods yes. Because he fears that tomorrow, on Instagram, his daughter’s picture should not look smaller than someone else’s daughter.
Dress and Jewellery – Rs 20 Lakh.
A lehenga of Rs 3 lakh, worn for only five hours. A Pheran with tilla work. A make-up artist who charges Rs 80,000 for one day’s face. And gold. Gold is no longer jewellery, it has become a chain. Ten tolas, fifteen tolas. The boy’s family does not say it directly, but they say, “What will people say?” The jeweller smiles. The father signs.
And then those expenses that are never written on the invitation card. Hall rent -Rs 5 lakh. Photography and video – Rs 4 lakh. Cars – Rs 2 lakh. Bedding, utensils, fridge, washing machine, furniture – Rs 12 lakh. Mehandi night, Dastarbandi,Phir’saal, Rukhsati ,every function a new show, every show a new bill.
Add them up. Rs 90 lakh to Rs 1 Crore. For one daughter.
And who is this father? He is no businessman. No contractor. He has no regular source of income to match this. He is a school teacher, a daily wager, a small shopkeeper, a retired employee living on pension, a farmer whose apple orchard was destroyed last year.
He has only two hands and one honour.
So what is the last way left? The Bank.
He walks into the bank with his head lowered. He mortgages his small house. He takes a personal loan. He takes a gold loan on his wife’s remaining jewellery. He takes money from a relative on interest. The bank manager says, “Don’t worry, EMI is only Rs 85,000.” Only. The father’s entire salary is Rs 45,000.
But he signs. Because his daughter is now 32. If not now, she will be 35. And in Kashmir today, 35 means a punishment.
Let us cry a little over this age 35.
A 35-year-old girl. Educated. A doctor, a teacher, a lawyer. She waited because she wanted to study. She waited because every rishta demanded a price she could not pay. And now the mohalla looks at her as if she is old goods.
Aunties whisper, “Is there some defect?” Uncles say, “You should have married her earlier.” The girl herself breaks inside. She stops going to weddings. She stops laughing. She looks in the mirror and asks, “Am I a burden? Is my father suffering because of me?”
How many daughters hide their faces in pillows and cry at night? How many daughters pray to Allah, “Ya Allah, either get me married, or call me to You. I cannot see my father dying every day.”
Is this the Kashmir of Lalle’ Ded, who said simplicity is God? Is this the Kashmir of Sheikh-ul-Alam, who said humanity is above all? We have turned Sunnah into a punishment. We have turned a father’s love into a bank loan. We have turned a daughter’s happiness into an event management project.
And what happens after the marriage? The ten days of kingship end.
For ten days, the father is a King. A new Pheran. People say, “What a grand marriage!” The camera rolls. People eat. The father smiles for the photographs. No one knows, his smile is borrowed.
On the eleventh day, the lights go off. The decorator takes away his flowers. The Waza takes away his degs. The guests go home. The daughter goes to her new house. And the father is left alone in an empty courtyard a pile of bills in his hand, and a bank passbook in his heart.
Then begins the real life. The EMI. Month after month. Year after year. Rs 85,000. Rs 90,000.
The father stops buying his own medicine. His wife stops buying anything for herself. No new Pheran on Eid. If someone falls ill in the house, there is nothing left except prayer. The house he built with 30 years of labour now belongs to the bank. Every month a phone call comes – “Your EMI is pending.” The father’s heart sinks.
Ten days of show to impress people who will forget the Wazwan in ten days. And twenty years of crying to repay a loan that will never forget him.
And the cruellest truth? Even after spending one crore, there is no guarantee of happiness. How many grand marriages break in six months? Because the marriage was built on decoration, not on understanding. The boy who demanded a grand marriage now demands a bigger car. The girl who sat like a queen on the stage is now treated like a servant in the kitchen. Dowry has taken a new name – gift, trousseau, shagun. But the poison is the same.
So finally, what ails the parents of a girl child in Kashmir? The girl is not the disease. The girl is Rehmat, a blessing. The disease is us. Our show-off. Our competition. Our silence.
A daughter does not ask her father for a one-crore marriage. Ask any girl in Kashmir, she will say with tears, “Abba, don’t take a loan for me. I don’t want a stage. I want you. I want you alive, I want you healthy. When I come to meet you after marriage, I want to see you smiling, not counting bank papers. I don’t want to become the reason for your tears.”
Children do not ask us for palaces. Children ask us for protection. Not ten days of kingship, but a lifetime of peace.
O Kashmir, wake up. O Imams, O Ulemas, O elders, O educated youth, stand up. Say it Enough is enough.
One day’s marriage. One Wazwan. No decoration. No display of gold. Let the boy’s family have the courage to say, “We want nothing, only your daughter.”
If we do not speak today, then tomorrow every father will sit at 2 a.m. with a calculator and cry. Every daughter will wait till 35. Every house will have bank papers hidden under the pillow.
Ten days of kingship is a lie. A lifetime of dignity is the truth.
Let us choose dignity. Let us treat the daughter as Rehmat, not as a burden. Let us treat marriage as worship, not as a market.
Otherwise, one day will come when on a father’s grave it will be written – “Here lies the man who mortgaged his entire life for his daughter’s ten days of happiness.”
And there will be no flowers on that grave. Because even the flowers had come on loan.
Dr. Rafeeq Masoodi writes with tears, for every father who is crying in silence tonight.
