Chowrangi

In the movies and in the novels, it may feel very romantic and chic for a girl to have a lover abroad, in the real life its hard as hell as it turned out for Shaheena of Lahore.

After the death of her father, she became responsible for raising up her three younger sisters and one toddler brother along with a ill and old mother. After having done her graduation, Shaheena found a modest job in a private firm, and was working like hell day in and day out, but she knew that it would be a very hard ask to carry on with the life in the meager salary and ever-increasing price hike and the demands of the growing-up family.

When a close friend told her about a marriage center, which “specialized” in the marriages of girls with the boys who live in abroad and want to have a dignified oriental wife, she not only imagined a good life for her but more importantly for her family. She at once started fantasizing the dreams of going abroad with her husband, and then calling her whole family there, and how her younger brother will get a foreign upbringing with nice education and opportunities, and how her family would become reasonably well off, if she just go ahead with this risk of marriage, which apparently wasn’t a risk, as her friend assured her about the goodwill and the authenticity of that particular matrimonial service.

So she registered herself for a minute fee at the marriage center. After someday she got a call from them, as one Canada-based Pakistani aspirant wanted to marry her. She met with the guy at the marriage center, talked a little, as she was already blinded by the rosy future, she just showed her assent. Guy married her the next weekend, took her to a hill station in Pakistan, enjoyed a month long honeymoon. Couple returned back to Lahore, guy asked Shaheen to apply for the Canadian Visa, and he told her that to speed the things up, he would to go to Canada, and will pursue the case from there. So the guy went back, Shaheena stayed in Pakistan while levitating around the embassies, agents and other related joints. Her visa never came, and after three years she hasn’t even received a call from her husband.

Shaheena is one of the thousands of women who are duped, used, and abandoned ruthlessly by their overseas husbands annually. Most of the émigré husbands don’t even bother to send back the divorce. Many heartless people abroad have made this trend as yet another fun way to enjoy a holiday in a developing country. Their wretched, opulent, and negatively westernized egos derive satisfaction from ruining the lives of the hapless and aspirant girls from their own homeland.

I wanted to finish the post here, but as the custom goes, let me boringly conclude it by saying that “authorities should take measures to curb this evil, and the marriages should be registered properly, and there should be a way for such girls to rise above the social taboos, and government should save these girl’s honors and keep them becoming pariahs in the society or outright usable thing”.

Anybody even read the last paragraph?

Other posts by Commoner

• Habitual Condemnation - November 21st, 2008
• Sandwitched Population - November 21st, 2008
• Clear the Dust - November 20th, 2008
• Exactly What They Want - November 20th, 2008
• Punjab Heats Up - November 19th, 2008
• Eyeball to Eyeball - November 18th, 2008
• No Surprises There - November 18th, 2008
• Yousuf Ready to Leave "Power" - November 18th, 2008
• OGRA Website Hacked By Indian Hackers - November 17th, 2008
• Friends Of Pakistan Again Disappoints - November 17th, 2008