Rishta Diaries- A Beginning

First of new fiction short story
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2008 was an interesting year.

For the last 3 yrs I've had mummi and her minions, aunti's as their known in our Pakistani culture, slowly brainwashing me to accept Rishta's(a proposal of marriage) and interest from "acceptable families" (I've yet to meet a family which was stamped with the dreaded, "unacceptable" mark).


Their argument was that if I didn't heed their urgings, I'll be old and the rishta's would dwindle and eventually die...perhaps like my eggs? (I thought the last in silence too afeared of uttering it out loud in mummi's vicinity)



In my early 20's, fresh out of University, I fell in love with a Western man and went against centuries of acceptable behaviour. 2008 saw the finality and acceptance of the death of the last decade in my life. This year, I mentally and physically walked away. I stopped visiting the old town where my son is buried, where exactly I know not. I stopped driving by the mansion which I painstakingly built with my ex. Where he know resides blissfully happy with the woman he left me for. And I started writing in hopes of exorcising the remaining ghosts left in my psyche.

A second chance, a new page, a new chapter. Perhaps, routes already established throughout the previous decades may result in the culmination of a happiness that has been too elusive since returning battered, bruised and broken. Now, perhaps, as my personal experiences and selfish choices had led me down the path to ruination, a fear which had been whispered throughout my young adulthood by the respected female members on both sides of the family, it was time to throw in the proverbial red sari and walk down a path which would ultimately create joy and acceptance of the pariah that was me.

I took a deep breath and agreed to begin the Rishta process.


And so began the journey of the Rishta Diaries..............