Salahuddin would not have said 'yes' to the marriage and it was not because of her complexion. It was because he felt like he was not yet ready to marry. He decided to marry because of what happened on the previous Wednesday.

That day  Shahma went to him to have a conversation and  Salahuddin had to break his promise of avoiding Shahma as much as possible. He wanted to stay away from her because rejection from an attached person would hurt and he did not intend to hurt her.

"Do you know Swaliha binth Ahmad?"

Salahuddin went a trip down the memory lane when she asked him about his sister. His past was something that he was always terrified of revisiting.

It was the reason that he always tried to stay away from the house in which he grew up with Swaliha. He pleaded with his parents to send him to a hostel for further studies after the day that  she chose to end her life. His parents did not want their only child to stay away from them but upon his insistence, they had to agree.

Most of his life after the event was spent with people who did not know her and he wanted the rest too to be spent that way. He was afraid of the unshed tears that were in him since her departure. He was afraid that the tears, once shed, would drown him till he became breathless. What he did not know was that it was the rotten tears inside him that was polluting his soul from the inside.

"Um...yeah, how do you know her?"

"We are facebook sisters and you?"She beamed at him as she thought about her friend from whom she did not hear anything for the past few years.

Shahma was not someone who would give up easily on her friendship. She kept sending messages to Swaliha for a few months. She did not get any reply and slowly the chapter was closed.

"I am her brother," Salahuddin coughed a little and Shahma failed to notice that his voice trembled.

"Facebook brother?"

"No, real one"

"Really?" Shahma could not contain her excitement on meeting Swaliha's brother. After all, Swaliha was her closest friend after Sushi. "How is she? What is she doing now? It's been a while since she used Facebook and-"

"She is gone."

"Gone?"

"Dead" It was the first time Salahuddin had to acknowledge Swaliha's death verbally. His nose reddened and his lips trembled as he said the forbidden word.

Shahma's eyes widened as she gasped. Her eyes filled with tears and before she could control it , a few tears escaped her eyes. She thought that Swaliha must have been really busy with her life. Maybe she was busy with her studies or feminist activities but the word 'death' never crossed her mind and she covered her mouth as she tried to control her emotion.

It was the first time that Salahuddin was letting himself stand in front of another person while she showed how much Swaliha meant to her. He had closed himself up on that day when everyone came to show off their grief in her death. He did not meet anyone who came on that fateful day because he simply could not. He did not eat, drink, smile or laugh for a few days. He became numb and that was when he felt that he needed to run away from his own life.

"I am...she is...was... what happened?" Shahma's lips quivered.

"Suicide,"

"What, why?" The words came out as whispered words.

"She did not know how beautiful she was so..." Salahuddin swallowed and wetted his lips.

She clutched to her books and hugged them tighter. She hung her head low and started taking deep breaths. She simply wished if she was with Swaliha during her tough time.

Swaliha always sounded confident about the way she looked. In fact,  Shahma used to contact Swaliha when she felt down about her dark complexion. All the advertisements that showed fair girls as confident and independent, the Aunties who boasted about the fairness of their daughter's or daughter-in-law's complexions, the relatives who kept feeding her with beauty tips to whiten her skins that never worked, the television that showed the fair skinny girls getting attention from the love of their life... everything used to make Shahma crazy. Was she burdening a depressed Swaliha with her painful thoughts?

Sushi always tried to help her but Shahma could not stop herself from comparing their complexions whenever Sushi kept her hand on Shahma's. Shahma could not help but think that all that Sushi had was sympathy. Sushi made her see a beautiful girl on the mirror with long hair and big eyes but once Sushi's reflection was on the mirror beside her, Shahma could not help but feel inferior.

Swaliha, on the other hand , knew what she was going through. While the advertisements combined confidence with fairness, Swaliha said Shahma about Wangari Mathai. Swaliha did not point out that Shahma had big eyes and long hair, she rather pointed out that what's on the outside never mattered.

"Is our skin colour that bad?" Shahma looked at her hand "So bad that we can't marry, so bad that we look hideous, so bad that it can make a girl like Swaliha suicide?"

"Everything around will be bad as long as you do not wish to look at it beautifully," Salahuddin did not say a good-bye to his sister's friend. He wore the helmet and left the college. He knew that he wouldn't be able to lecture that day.

He drove through the road as fast as he could and he could feel the adrenaline in his blood. The trees and houses on either of his sides seemed to move in a whoosh. The vision around him was a blur but he did not want it to be clear.

He barged into his house and closed the door with a thud. His helmet was thrown on the floor as he ran towards the kitchen. He opened the bottle of water in the fridge and gulped down the whole water. He took another bottle to pour it over his head.

He sat on the kitchen floor and screamed, A few drops of warm tears mixed with the ice cold water on his face but he did not dare to cry. It was the second time that he was weeping for his sister and both the times the reason was indirectly Greeshma.

At that moment he decided that he would proceed with the proposal for Shahma's hand.

*********

Sushi did not know about any of the moments that Shahma shared with Salahuddin when her one hundred and somethingth suitor came for seeing her. However, she did know that Salahuddin went to see Shahma and said a 'yes'.

Sreerag and Sushi were sitting in the balcony of Sushi's house. The view from the balcony was breathtaking with neighbours houses in the east, west and south of her house. I forgot to mention about the road between her house and the house in the south. The road was specially decorated with the pits formed in it during the monsoon season.

"Yeah, I want to and I will take a PhD in English," She said with an extra amount of enthusiasm.

The guy nodded and looked at his watch. His hair was neatly combed and his white shirt was carefully ironed. Sreerag moved his pointing finger and thumb over his flourished moustache and pulled his chin towards his neck.

"I see," he replied .

This guy was really easy for Sushi. When their parents insisted them to talk, Sreerag started speaking about the women in his family. His sisters, sisters-in-law, nieces, aunts etc. All the females in his family were housewives and Sushi noted that he kept on stressing the word 'housewife'. He also started speaking about the goodness that comes to a family if the wife was 'completely devoted' to the family. He also said that it would avoid problems due to ego in a family.

"I want to become a professor and I would like to make a-"

"Okay, Sushmitha, I think it is better if a woman does not leave houses for earning money."

"Ok then. I would like to be a social worker. In fact, I was an NSS star when I-"

"No, No" Sreerag moved his head sideways, "I think women must stay at home and care the family"

"Ok, then I will simply start a vlog while at home and-"

Sreerag stood abruptly from the chair he was sitting on and smiled at her with a glare.

"This is not going to work,"

Sushi was not surprised when she got yet another 'no' on that Sunday night because she wanted it. She kept telling herself that she would have been interested in proceeding the marriage since Shahma's soul mate's slot was filled then but she repelled it due to his repulsive principle. However, a small part in her heart kept saying that she had started devising devious plans even before she spoke with Sreerag. This was one of the times when her brain agreed with her heart.

Was I simply using Shahma as a reason for my disinterest in marriage?

That night, Sushi kept taking her phone to call her best friend and share her experience about the disastrous proposal but she could not find the courage to do so. That night, Sushi slept on her bed with the phone in her hand.

That night, a few blocks away, another girl slept with the phone in her hand , waiting for her best friend who never called to say about her latest proposal. She knew that there was a probability for the proposal to proceed since she was out of the way then, but she could not confirm anything since Sushi did not call.

That night, a few more blocks away, a guy kept staring at his sister's photo and let him feel the pain that he contained within for so long.

That night, another guy kept looking at his plus-two photos and the girl of his dreams.