A family by name only

"There is no other woman in the world more dishonoured than you." He had heard Papa shouting.

"And there will be no one more dishonoured man than you." This time he heard Mummy roar louder than Papa. His heart wanted him to run away and never come back.

"I made the biggest mistake of my life by marrying you. Women like you are fine to pass the time but you can't live with them. I wish I would never marry you. Papa repeated the phrase over and over again." 

He sat in the lounge instead of in the room. The noise of the two of them was more prominent in the room because his room was closer to theirs.

"You can't have more regrets about this marriage than I did. My parents were right. You only have money, not a brain. Your heart and mind are both narrow. You can't be happy yourself or see others happy. In fact, you are jealous because there are more people in this city, in this country, who know me than you know. " 

"Knowing or loving?"

Hadid raised his head and looked at the kitchen door where the servants were busy. He had tried to guess how much they could hear. They continued working in the kitchen but there were no expressions on their faces.

"Well, who want to understand? How can anything good be expected from a third class minded person like you."

"All that you have today is because of this third class minded man."

"You have not done me any favors that you have given me, every husband gives her woman but gives much more than you have given me."

"I wish I hadn't given you anything, I would have locked you in a room of the house, I would never have let you out."

He had heard mocking laugh of Mummy at Papa's words.

"You live in the twentieth century. Bilal Ali! It is not the eighteenth century. How could you imprison me, how could you keep a woman like me locked in a room. You know the society in which we move. You are known as Zarshi. You don't have any identity of your own there. Because of me, you get contracts worth crores..."

"I only get disgrace and disgrace. I get ridiculed by people because of your vagrancy. I don't want to be recognized by you. You have become a torment for my life."

Hadid's face was turning white. Even though it was not new, yet every time the pain of these words was more than before.

"I am a bad woman, so what are you? If I sit down to count your bad deeds, it will be morning. What do you think, I don't know anything about your activities. I know everything Bilal Ali! I know everything. I am also aware of the fact that you went Murree with your secretary."

Yes! I went there with Laila, So, what's your problem? I will go ten times, not once. No matter how pious you are, nowadays I know how you relate to the new model that you carry around all the time."

Hadid sat helplessly with his head in his hands. It didn't happen everyday because mummy and daddy didn't face each other everyday. They would meet after several days. Sometimes Papa would go on his business tour and sometimes Mommy would stay out of the house for several days for her fashion show but whenever they met at home they would say all these things and do this. Blaming each other, expressing hatred for each other, pointing out each other's faults, yelling, cursing, breaking pots or whatever they could get their hands on would break. This is what he has been seeing since childhood. As a child he did not understand many things very deeply. After every quarrel between the parents, he would pray to Allah that everything would be fine.

His mummy was a model girl before marriage. She modeled for some time after her marriage. Shortly before Hadid's birth, she quit modeling and began designing clothes. His father was a famous businessman. He had seen Mummy in a catwalk. She was in London at the time and Bilal Ali was there to study. The two had a brief meeting after the catwalk, then this brief meeting became the basis of long meetings.

This went on for a year and a half and then Bilal Ali officially proposed Zarshi. Zarshi's parents raised some objections because they did not want to see Zarshi settle in Pakistan and Bilal Ali had to come to Pakistan because he had factories here. Zarshi married Bilal Ali despite his parents' objections and dislike. Because at that time she was obsessed with Bilal Ali's love.

But later, when she left England for Pakistan, she began to realize that Bilal Ali was a very conservative man, at least in the case of his wife. No other woman in his family had such freedom and this idea was true to greater extent.