Cry like a Man

This is the story of Waleed Butt. What a fine youth Waleed was; tall, dark, fat—or at least chubby. His life started with a misfortune. His dad, Asif Butt, died on the day of his birth. The poor lad took a bullet to his heart. A bullet fired by his cousin to celebrate the birth of a male child. The riffle was rusty—since the last time it was used was two years ago, on Waleed’s father’s barat. The casualty count was three that day, including Asif’s father in law, the Nikah Khuwaan and a random guy who was there to advocate the sin of using video cameras to record the proceedings of the Nikah.

Being the only male progeny of the Butt family, he received an overdose of love and affection. He would after all, carry the legacy of the Butt’s, keep alive the name of his grandfather—whose name, we have a doubt about. He was the rightful heir of all the property, that comprised of the 3 marla house they were living in and a 0.75 marla shop at the end of the street. His grandparents, his mother, his paternal aunts, his maternal aunts all looked towards him as the rising sun of their family. Special attention was given to his diet. Parathas fried in butter, eggs fried in butter—his diet was so nutritious at a point that even the cat feeding on his left overs died of cholesterol.

His childhood was pleasant with all the pampering, until the day he learned to tie his laces. That was considered the first sign of adulthood and since then he was expected to exhibit all the traits of a macho—failing to do so, would result in a tirade of accusations. The most popular being; aren’t you a man?

He was 9 perhaps when he resisted jump-climbing the roof while his distant-cousin yelled at him; aren’t you a man? He could not understand what had being man to do with making this risky leap?  Does being a man imply that he gets nine lives? Still caught in these thoughts, he was perturbed by his cousin who fell on him, from the roof with the kite and the spool still in his hands.

Days went by and this incident faded in his memory. But, the ‘aren’t you a man’ was not going to leave him. 13 he was, when riding the bike, he expressed to his mom sitting behind how hard it is to ride a bike in such cold weather. ‘Aren’t you a man?’ asked his mom. Once again he was perplexed. Do men have fur on their bodies? If they have, why doesn’t he have?

Years went by, every ‘aren’t you a man’ leaving Waleed even more perplexed. And then the time came for Waleed to go to University. Here, nobody pelted him with that taunt anymore. It seemed that finally he would find peace and no longer would his gender be a source of trouble. But, so evanescent was his bliss of happiness and he came into conflict with Asia; Asia, the critic. It happened in a class discussion when upon her argument as to what were the contributions of ma’am Marie Curie in the field of computer science, Waleed replied ‘none’.  In a day or so, he became popular as a sexist through a viral post that went by the title of ‘myogenic student denies the achievements of female scientist’.

Waleed was down, once again. Even the clarification done by Asia couldn’t lift him. She mad an apology in a tweet that read:

“Sorry, I mistook Miss Mary Curie for Alan Turing #SayNoToPatriarchy.”

Waleed understood how dangerous crossing paths with Asia could be and even more to have a conflict with her. Thereby, he made the most logical decision; he married her. Depriving his mom and his grandparents and his maternal aunts and his paternal aunts to go on a bride hunt resulted in resentment and content in their hearts. And it showed up soon. 3 months after his marriage when he was in his office, he received a text message from his wife that read:

I am committing suicide in 3….2….14 minutes.

14 minutes was the travel time from his office to home. Waleed rushed home to find his grandmother at the door, who told him that his mother was going to commit suicide. ‘Wasn’t it Asia that was committing suicide’, he asked. ‘No, it was my idea originally’, yelled his mom from the inner room.

Waleed went in to find that the cause of conflict was as expected, a trivial matter. He requested all the folks to leave the room except his mom and wife. By night, everything was normal. After dinner, his maternal aunt inquired, as to how he had sorted the matter. What did he say that restored peace? What did he do that washed away the grievances of the parties? He replied ‘Khala, I just cried, cried like a man.’