When people call me, they are taken aback to hear the following half-humorous, half-philosophical message on my answering machine, “Darvesh has gone in search of himself. If he is successful he will return your call. Feel free to leave a message”. But last Sunday, I found a surprise message for me from a woman named Saadia Rahman saying, “Dr. Sohail! I would like you to attend our daughter’s wedding on August 21^st. It is a special day for us and we would like to share it with you. Please call me so that I can give you the details and the directions.”

As I put the phone down, I started thinking about Saadia and her husband Rahman. I have met the couple a few times at literary functions in the past couple of years, but we have never had any personal discussions about our life philosophies. I have a lot of respect for them, as they are quite different from other Asian couples I know, who belong to one of two groups. In the first group, the husbands are very dominant and controlling and the wives are very passive and obedient. In the second group, the wives are very confident and outgoing, while their husbands are very insecure and jealous. In my opinion, Saadia and Rahman are not like either of these two groups.  In spite of belonging to a conservative, traditional and religious community, they are a liberal couple. Saadia is a poetess and singer who feels comfortable reciting and singing in mixed gatherings and Rahman is so secure that he whole-heatedly encourages his wife to share her talents. For that reason I felt drawn to them and I had once invited them for dinner, but they had to decline because of a previous commitment.

I felt morally obligated to respond to Saadia’s message so I called her.

“Hello, Saadia! This is Sohail.”

“Assalam-0-alaikum Dr. Sohail”.

“I got your message about your daughter’s wedding. But I don’t think I will be able to attend.”

“Why not?”

“My friend Bette is visiting from Newfoundland and we are both flying to Paris on August 18^th. So I would not be in town.”

“When will you be back?” She was persistent.

“On the 26^th of August.”

“So why don’t you come on August 28^th, and attend the valeema dinner”

I knew that Bette was flying back to Newfoundland on the 29^th of August.

“I am sorry, but I may not be able to attend that either.”

“Why not?” Saadia did not sound very pleased by my turning her offer down a second time. As she was persistent, I felt inspired to have a heart to heart talk.

“Would you like a diplomatic answer or an honest answer?”

“An honest answer,” she responded. I always believed that if people ask personal questions then they should also be prepared to hear honest responses.

“Saadia, I have met you and your husband only a few times in social functions. We are not very close to each other. We are not friends yet.”

“That is why I am inviting you so that we can become friends. My husband and I think a lot of you.”

“But to become friends we need to do some homework?’

“What do you mean by homework? She was confused.

“Homework, in which people meet one to one and discover their similarities and differences and mutually comfortable ways of interacting. If I come to your daughter’s wedding I would not be able to have any serious dialogue with you people, as both of you would be busy with all of the guests. I will be interacting with your community and I am quite sure that your community and I are incompatible.”

“What makes you say that?” She was shocked to hear that comment.

“Because your community is very traditional, conservative and religious. Let me explain my position by an example. Last week my writer friend Sain Sucha was visiting from Sweden with his family. They had a wonderful time with my sweetheart, Bette. (This time I called her sweetheart rather than a friend as I was having an open and honest dialogue). During Sain’s stay, a respectable member of your community invited Sain’s family for dinner. He invited Bette and me as well. I was reluctant to take Bette to that dinner, just as I am reluctant to go to your daughter’s wedding. I could imagine what would have happened if Bette and I had joined Sain’s family for dinner. On arriving at the door, the host would have asked me and Sain to go to the male living room, the mardana and requested Sain’s wife Farida and my sweetheart Bette to go to the female living room, the zanana . At that moment, I would have experienced an awkward dilemma. If I had asked Bette to be part of that segregation I would have felt I was being unfair to her and if I insisted that she sat with me in the male living room, I would have felt I was disrespectful to the host. That is why I extended my apologies and declined that invitation, just as I am extending my regrets to you about the wedding. I don’t feel comfortable with segregated meetings. I feel they are unnatural. That is the main reason I feel I am incompatible with your conservative, traditional and religious community.” I tried to explain my position as best I could.

“But Dr. Sohail…” There was a long pause. It was obvious she was not mentally prepared for such an answer. “A couple of weeks ago my husband’s brother died and I asked Mehmood to invite you and Samuel to come to our home to offer condolences to my husband. I waited and waited and waited but you did not come. Why was that?”

It was obvious Saadia had changed the subject from the wedding to the funeral.

“I cannot speak for Samuel but I did not show up for two reasons. First, I was not sure why you called Mehmood rather than calling me directly. The second reason was that your husband is a believer. He believes in God and life after death and hell and heaven while I don’t. So it is very hard for an atheist humanist to offer condolences to a believer. If I had gone, I would have experienced another awkward dilemma. If I had not offered prayers, your husband would have been offended, and if I had offered prayers, I would have been a hypocrite. That is why I respectfully avoided the whole situation. If we had done the homework, as I have done with other friends, then we would have known how to interact with each other on such occasions. Then we could have shared emotional support without hurting each other’s feelings. Do you know what happened when our socialist friend Saeed Anjum died?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You know he was from an Ahmedi family and his wife is from a Sunni family, while he himself was an atheist. So at his funeral both communities rejected him. Each group declared that he was from the other religious group and he was buried without anybody offering any prayers. I felt both religious communities should have been ashamed of their behaviour. That is why, contrary to popular belief, I believe religions divide rather than unite people.

When the writers who live in Toronto got together at a Writers’ Forum meeting to pay their respect to Saeed Anjum, I shared with them what atheist Simone de Beauvoir had commented when Sartre died. She had said, ‘Your death separated us and my death will not bring us together.’”

“Saadia, it is awkward for atheist humanists to be surrounded by religious people as atheists are still in the minority, especially in our community. It is more of a challenge for me as I have a Canadian sweetheart who does not speak or understand Urdu or Punjabi. Those are some of the reasons I avoid those functions that are not secular. With my close friends, I am very comfortable. We are respectful of each other’s philosophies and lifestyles. I am very confident that we will become friends one day but we need to do some homework, the homework we have already started by this open and honest phone call. So after your daughter’s wedding let us get together for dinner one evening.”

“That will be great, Dr. Sohail! Thank-you for your honest answers. Now I have to think seriously about these issues.”

The next day when I shared this dialogue with my dear friend Samuel and his wife Sonia, I received another surprise. Samuel, who is generally quite in tune with my social interactions, was very disappointed. He felt I had been selfish and unfair to Saadia and that I was disrespectful to people’s social traditions and culture. He suggested that I should go to offer condolences even if I am not very close to the person or do not know the deceased relative. I was taken aback by Samuel’s strong stand. In my defence, I shared with Samuel that on many occasions when I attended condolence meetings in Pakistan, I was asked to recite Quran or offer prayers and when I did not perform those rituals that I did not believe in, I was harshly criticized. Even that explanation did not convince Samuel, who insisted that he had gone to a number of religious condolence ceremonies in Pakistan and when he told them he was a Christian, he was not expected to read Quran or offer prayers.

“But Samuel, you are still not realizing the sensitivity of those situations. It is very different for you to say you are a Christian than for me to say I am an atheist. They respect your religion because at least you have one, but I am despised for denying religion itself.”

By this time, Sonia had seen my point of view. She told Samuel that he was being unfair to me, as he did not realize that fundamentalist and conservative Muslims could have very strong reactions to atheists.

“Can I share one story with you to prove my point?”

“Go ahead”

“When I returned to Pakistan for the first time after being away for seven years, my uncle had a big celebration, part of which was a religious ceremony. A maulana [Muslim priest] was invited to recite Quran and offer prayers. I sat in the circle of nearly thirty people as a token of respect. At the end of the ceremony, the maulana picked up a glass of water and blew in it to bless it. Then the glass went around and everyone present in the room blew into it to bless it. When it came to me, I held it quietly for a few seconds as a token of respect and then gave it to the next person. While I was doing that, someone from the other side of the room shouted, ‘Doctor Sahib. I was watching! You did not blow into it.’”

“At that moment, a wave of anger went through my entire being. I

felt that I was respectful of their religious ceremony but they were not respectful of my secular views. I did not say anything at that moment but decided that I should not expose myself to such humiliation in the future. That is why I avoid religious get- togethers and ceremonies.”

“Now I can see your point.” Samuel had softened by then. “I did not realize religious people could be so unkind.” He was sympathetic.

When I shared the whole story with Mehmood, he felt relieved. He told me that he had felt so awkward about Saadia’s requesting me to offer condolences that he had not even called Samuel.

“But Saadia’s call inspired me to write a biographical essay.”

“What will you call it?”

“Dilemma of a Humanist Lover”.

“Sounds interesting. But what is the next step with Saadia?”

“We will have to do some homework. I will meet with Saadia and Rahman for dinner. I will also invite Samuel and Sonia and read them the essay that they inspired.  Would you like to join us?”

“That would be wonderful.”