Finding Mr Perfectly Fine Read online

  For my Nani. I miss you every day.

  May your soul rest in peace. Ameen.

  Contents

  Part One: Winter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Two: Spring

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part Three: Summer

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part Four: Autumn

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Part Five: Winter

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Part One

  Winter

  Chapter 1

  My stomach churns as I type in ‘Muslim Marriage Websites’ on my laptop and I’m not sure if it’s out of excitement or shame. Probably a bit of both. Although it feels empowering to take charge of my destiny instead of waiting around for things to happen, I can’t help feeling embarrassed. Looking for a husband online isn’t exactly the dream, is it? Anything else would have been preferable. Meeting him at uni, work, or even on the Tube would have been better than filling out a form and putting myself out there for public scrutiny. Yet here we are. Desperate times . . .

  I hit ‘search’ and I’m immediately inundated with countless sites claiming to be the best and to do what my mum, aunts and social network have failed to do: find me a husband. As the pointer hovers over the first link, my youngest sister, Yasmin, peers over my shoulder, scrunching up her nose at the choices.

  ‘This is like, a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?’ she says after I’ve clicked on the first option and we are assaulted by hot-pink branding and images of airbrushed, light-skinned brown people.

  ‘Huh? I thought internet dating was in fashion?’

  ‘Yeah, ten years ago. Now it’s all about apps. Look.’ Slamming my MacBook closed, she grabs my phone, enters my passcode and starts browsing. Despite being the youngest sibling and still at uni, she’s clearly so much more knowledgeable than I am. I didn’t even realise she knew my passcode, for God’s sake.

  I let her do her thing, and mull over how my life has got to this stage. I know everyone does it. I know it’s not a big deal. It’s barely any different from a traditional arranged marriage scenario, only instead of a meddling aunty being the mediator, it’s a website. But I can’t help feeling ashamed about it all, like I’ve somehow failed because I’m still single at twenty-nine. Bengali years are a bit like cat years, so in my community, I might as well be thirty-nine.

  In the end, ‘we’ decide to download an app called MuslimMate, because according to Yas, ‘That’s where all the cool people are’. She goes on to tell me that she has friends that use it, and I’m aghast that twenty-year-olds feel the need to go online to find husbands. Not just because online dating can be soul-destroying, but because now I’m going to have to compete with women a decade younger than me as well! How is that even fair? And why do they want to get married so young anyway?

  ‘You’re so naïve sometimes,’ Yasmin giggles. ‘They’re not looking for husbands, they’re looking for hook-ups. Boyfriends. You know, fun.’

  Bloody hell. So it’s a dating app disguised as a marriage one, to make it more respectable and ‘Islamic’. I keep my opinions on the matter to myself though, as I already look like an ignorant old granny next to my younger, cooler sister.

  ‘I really don’t feel comfortable about this,’ I mutter as Yasmin snatches my phone out of my grasp and scrolls through my photo gallery before selecting what she thinks is the right picture; a selfie I took in a park a few months ago. The sun was beaming down on me, its rays illuminating my face and making me look radiant.

  ‘Let me fix this up a bit,’ she mumbles to herself, opening up an editing app and then playing around with my face until she’s zapped away a spot and blurred out a laugh line from the corner of my eyes.

  ‘Isn’t this deception?’ I ask, partly in awe, as I try to grab the phone back.

  ‘Chill out!’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Everyone does it. But look – you have to take a selfie now so they can verify that it’s actually you and you’re not a catfish.’

  ‘No way! Not looking like this!’ I haven’t washed my hair in three days and the evidence of yesterday’s chocolate binge is sitting on my cheek right now, all red and painful.

  ‘No one’s going to see it! They’ll use facial recognition technology to make sure that it’s you.’

  This is getting worse by the second but I reluctantly comply. It’s either this or a Biman Bangladesh flight straight to Shahjalal Airport. A spot of online dating is definitely the lesser of two evils.

  The selfie shows me in all my true glory – messy hair, a bit of uneven colouring, a sunspot or two, dark circles that are bigger than my friend circle – and I’m convinced that they’re not going to let me submit the other, manipulated photo.

  ‘Who’s “they”?’ Yasmin sighs. ‘It’s not going to be an actual person doing the verification, Zara. It’s some software that will see that you’ve got the same features and that’s it. Please. Relax.’ Shaking her head, she goes back to the phone and starts typing away. I have no idea what she’s writing but she won’t let me see until she’s finished. Leaning back with an accomplished smirk on her face, she hands it over and I read her intro warily.

  Fun and friendly twenty-nine-year-old Londoner here, finally biting the bullet and exploring the mysterious online Muslim dating scene in the hopes of finding a like-minded someone who’s looking to settle down. I’m after someone kind, funny, intelligent and successful to join me on this adventure, to laugh, explore and learn with me. If you think you could be my match, you know which way to swipe!

  ‘I can’t do this.’ I gulp, staring at the words directly below the image of my face smiling back at me. ‘Am I really about to put myself out there for a bunch of nameless, faceless strangers to ogle at my picture and tear me to pieces? What if no one picks me? What if someone I know screenshots my profile and shares it? What if someone takes my picture and photoshops it onto a glamour model’s body and shares it around? What if—’

  ‘Relax, Z,’ Yasmin soothes me in her most calming voice. ‘Your pictures are already on every social media platform that’s out there. If someone wants to turn you into a glamour model, they don’t need MuslimMate to do it.’

  ‘True,’ I squeak, reaching over for my stone-cold hot chocolate to moisten my throat. ‘Is the intro too flippant though? Maybe I need to sound more serious?’

  ‘No way! Serious means desperate and you are not desperate. It’s fine. It’s chill. See how the responses go, you can always switch up the photo and intro in a week’s time, if you want.’

  Sometimes my twenty-one-year-old sister’s social and emotional maturity is shocking.

  So, I take a deep breath, whisper, ‘Bismillah’ and hit ‘save’.

  *

  It all started a couple of hours ago, with my mum digging her elbow into my ribs and my grandma breathing down my neck as I reluctantly put together a biodata – aka a Bengali marriage CV – under their strict direction.

  I tried to ign
ore them both as I comprehended the magnitude of what I’d agreed to do, but I would have had to be deaf to tune out Mum and Nani’s excited ramblings; Mum was reeling out a list of people to send my biodata to, and Nani kept chanting ‘Alhamdulillah’ – Praise be to God – over and over again. A biodata: a piece of paper that describes me in my most basic, no-longer-a-human-just-a-bunch-of-stats form. And according to the Bengali community as a whole, knowing my height, education and family background is pretty much all they need to determine whether or not I’m an adequate fit for their precious son/nephew/brother. If it wasn’t for my name right there on the top, this document could have been describing anyone.

  While a part of me still can’t believe I’ve let my mum put together the most archaic of arranged marriage resources (it’s not exactly the romcom-worthy love story I had envisioned for myself), the other, more realistic part, knows that I don’t really have much choice. It’s not like I have a queue of tall, dark and handsome suitors lined up outside my house. Or any sort of suitor at all, in fact.

  When you look at it logically, I suppose it’s not really that surprising that I’ve yet to find a match. After all, how many single Bengali men do you really think there are in the UK that are older than me, taller than me, educated, respectable, relatively religious, from the right part of Sylhet, the right family background, and somewhat attractive? And how many of them are going to magically cross my path so I can fall in love with them organically?

  Last week, I turned twenty-nine. Along with the usual home-made Victoria sponge, helium balloon and Selfridges’ gift vouchers, my mum’s birthday present to me was the ultimatum that if I’m not engaged by my thirtieth birthday, she’s sending me off to the Motherland to find a fresh-from-the-Desh husband.

  So there you have it. With a threat like that (picture a short, skinny engineer with a grizzly tash and dubious English) looming over my head, it’s no surprise that I was sitting there in my jammies, nursing a hot chocolate and a headache, putting together a Bengali version of a dating ad. Only instead of it being uploaded online, my parents would share it with friends and relatives.

  ‘So you’re going to be sending my personal information to every aunty, uncle and grandma in the British Sylheti community?’ I asked, nauseated by the very prospect.

  ‘Of course not!’ my mum responded primly. ‘I know we’re desperate, but we don’t want everyone to know that, do we? We’ll only share it with trusted middle people when, and only when, we’ve seen and vetted the potential suitor’s own biodata.’

  It sounded pretty complicated to me but, apparently, it’s completely normal in our culture.

  BIODATA

  Bride’s Name: Zara Choudhury

  Age: 29

  Height: 5’ 8”

  Complexion: Fair

  ‘Mum,’ I began tentatively, my finger poised over the backspace key. ‘Is it really necessary to describe my skin colour? I’m hardly “fair” and even if I were, why should it matter?’

  ‘Of course it’s flippin’ necessary,’ Mum snapped back at me, the grin turning into a scowl. It’s quite scary how my mum can go from deliriously happy to majorly pissed-off to brandishing a rolling pin in seconds. ‘People need to know what they’re getting into. You might like to think that no one cares about complexion any more, but trust me, no one will look twice at a biodata that has “complexion: dark” on it.’

  ‘So what are “dark” people supposed to do?’ I retorted, disgusted. I didn’t really want an answer. I got one, though. You always get an answer from my mum.

  ‘They say that they’re “medium”,’ she responded matter-of-factly, adjusting her saree. ‘Overweight people also call themselves “medium” build, before you ask.’

  Nani murmured her agreement from her place on my bed as she twiddled with her glow-in-the-dark prayer beads.

  ‘Are you telling me that I’m going to have to describe my body on this?’ My hand instinctively moved on to my belly and my eyes darted to the hot chocolate I was about to gulp down, which now looked horribly unappetising. I couldn’t believe it. It was like I’d accidentally gone back two hundred years, before feminism, BLM or even common decency.

  ‘Stop moaning and get on with it,’ Mum said, rolling her eyes and muttering something in Bengali about girls these days being naïve and difficult. ‘We’ve still got Amina to think about, and we can’t even begin to look for her until you’re engaged at least.’

  ‘Good luck finding someone for Amina. She’ll never be as compliant as I am,’ I grumbled under my breath.

  ‘That’s my problem. Go on, carry on typing.’

  And so I did. I swallowed my pride, dignity, self-respect and self-doubts, and continued to type. Slowly.

  Build: Slim

  Education: BA (Hons) English Literature. Upper Second-Class Honours. King’s College London.

  Occupation: Community Engagement Manager. Haringey Council.

  Father: Abdul Aziz Choudhury

  Occupation: Director of Finance

  Mother: Jubeida Choudhury

  Occupation: Homemaker

  Brothers: None

  Sisters: Amina, 25, MSc in International Relations, London School of Economics. Yasmin, 20, Brunel University, Marketing.

  The CV had details about my maternal and paternal grandparents, what they did, the village and district they were from in Bangladesh, my aunts and uncles, what they do . . . It was my entire family history on a screen and in a couple of hundred words.

  ‘What about my interests? What I’m looking for in a husband?’ I implored when Mum finally stopped dictating and smiled at herself, pleased with her efforts.

  ‘Oh, none of that’s important. You don’t want to give away too much. Plus, you’re the girl, so you can’t look like you’re too keen. Now we need to choose a couple of pictures. Thank God you’re photogenic.’

  By that point I’d given up on feeling like a human being. The fastest way to get this entire ordeal over with was to oblige with minimal fuss, so I opened up my photo gallery, handed my laptop over to Mum and collapsed on the bed next to Nani who gave me a reassuring smile.

  ‘Gosh, you have a lot of selfies here, don’t you?’ Mum mumbled, adjusting her reading glasses and squinting in concentration.

  ‘I take one before I go anywhere to make sure I look presentable,’ I explained through gritted teeth.

  ‘But why are they on your laptop? Do you know how long this is going to take? There are thousands of pictures here!’

  ‘It automatically syncs with my phone when I connect it!’ I exclaimed in irritation, resisting the urge to snatch my laptop back. Everyone knows that looking through a woman’s photo gallery is akin to rummaging through her underwear drawer.

  ‘All right, calm down.’

  I closed my eyes and practised the deep breathing techniques I saw on a mindfulness TikTok the other day. Not that I could remember how to do it properly, so I winged it and focused on getting my heartbeat to slow down. As Mum muttered to herself while browsing through my 7,489 photos, Nani stroked my hair and whispered to me to be patient, it would all be worth it in the end. I stifled a snort and continued with my deep breathing but I was secretly pleased to have Nani in my corner. OK, so she agreed with this biodata malarkey but I knew she would never pressure me into marrying someone I didn’t want to.

  ‘Here, this is a good one.’ Mum’s voice startled me out of my thoughts and I opened my eyes, still breathing slowly to calm my nerves.

  ‘Mum, that’s from my graduation.’

  ‘So? You look sensible. Not like all these silly, pouty—’

  ‘So, it was eight years ago. I look nothing like that now!’ I felt my pulse racing again. So much for the deep breathing. Nani squeezed my arm and I lowered my voice. ‘I can’t use that.’

  ‘You look exactly the same.’

  I didn’t. I looked young in that picture. My complexion was fresh, plump and there wasn’t a pore in sight. My black hair was still silky and shiny, yet to
be abused by GHDs and hair dye. I have better eyebrows now, though. The thin arches from my youth looked positively anorexic.

  ‘And here’s the second picture. This one from Nasima’s wedding. You look lovely in that saree.’ She was right. I looked happy in the photo and peach always complemented my colouring. But I didn’t feel right sending a picture of me in a saree when I didn’t even know how to wrap one. The last time I wore one it unravelled as I ran up a flight of stairs and I had to ask a random woman to fix it for me before I exposed my modesty.

  ‘Mum, I only ever wear sarees at weddings. Isn’t that deceptive?’

  ‘No more than an eight-year-old picture. And what do you propose then? Sending one of you in jeans and trainers like some sort of, what do you girls call them? A “roadman”?’ Mum did the whole exaggerated air quote thing, and I stifled a giggle at the look of confusion on Nani’s face.

  ‘What have the road cleaners got to do with it?’ she asked in Bengali.

  Mum ignored her and carried on. ‘I don’t think so. Right, email it all over to me, OK? And copy your dad in. He’s got three people waiting to receive this.’

  With that, she clambered out of the chair and waltzed out of my bedroom before I could even process what had happened. Nani got up from the bed as fast as her arthritic knees would permit and planted a kiss on top of my head.

  ‘Don’t get cross with your mum, moni,’ she said in Bengali, using the same term of endearment she’s used for me since I was a baby. As she slowly made her way to the open bedroom door, she added, ‘She’s worried about you. As soon as you turn thirty, the proposals will stop coming. You’ll be old. We don’t want you to be all alone forever.’

  Letting out a big sigh, I fell backwards onto the duvet and stared up at the ceiling, my eyes filling with tears I begged not to spill over. Because that would have been really pathetic.

  I thought back to uni days and how my best friend Layla and I would talk about the guys we fancied. The prospects were endless. There was tall Mohammed, blue-eyed Mohammed, Omar, Rafiq, Jamal . . . So many to choose from. We really thought we would have our pick. And then she met Hasan, fell in love and got married. And me? Well, I met someone but that obviously didn’t work out. So here I was, five years after we broke up, putting together a bloody marriage CV with the help of my mother.