Dealing With A Controlling Saas (Mother-in-law) – Episode 01

This is a story of a very bright fun and lively girl who got married at the age of 23, just when she had completed her degree of Bachelors in Nutritional Sciences. She was a Canadian citizen and had been living in Pakistan for the past 10 years as per her grandmother’s wish for their family to settle back in Pakistan with them. 

Let’s start with a bit of a back story. She got engaged four years before her wedding. It was a cousin marriage which had been arranged on the wish and will of both the families but upon the request of the boy himself. Over time, the girl developed a natural feeling towards the boy due to the warm feelings of affiliation between them.

The boy was the only son and was the apple of the eye of the whole family. He had been raised according to the typical Pakistani standards where the boy wouldn’t be allowed to even drink water by himself and his entire nanhiyal would praise him. He studied his Masters in Business and it was obvious that he would inherit the rule of his father’s empire as his only son. However, the boy’s mother, in her heart, wanted him to get married to her niece and not to his father’s niece. She was someone who, all her life, had never been contented with her spouse and their house quarrels had always been the talk of the town because they never kept a united front nor kept their household issues private. The mother, all her life had only been invested in her children i.e. a son and a daughter.

The daughter who would grow to become the nand of this story had always been quite close to her mother. The mother had transferred all her hate and negativity about her husband and her susral in her daughter and she even had developed a deep hatred for her dadhyal.

As the wedding came closer, the mother kept regretting not marrying her son to her beloved bhanji because she was still single even after four years of the engagement of the happy couple and she felt somewhat responsible and a bit guilty.

There are some old traditional rituals of weddings in Pakistan which I’d like to just say, are nothing but ways to burden the girl’s side of the family. The main grudge between both the families which were about to get their children married started on the ritual of saving the date.  It was Eid-ul-Azha and the big brother (the bride’s father) invited his little brother (the groom’s father) along with his family and two other siblings’ families over lunch to their place. 

The rumor had been spread that on this day they would also finalize the wedding dates. The groom’s mother had decided the sequence of events along with the dates of the events beforehand. When the families sat together to decide about the dates of the wedding, the groom’s mother announced her decided dates, to which both families happily agreed.

The misunderstanding that occurred was that for the larkay walay (groom’s side), it wasn’t the “save the date” ritual, and they had just casually come and wanted to come again with 30-40 people to formally celebrate the date. However, the larki walay (bride’s side) thought that the date had been finalized and gifted the shagun’s clothes to the guests who had come. Both the families were delighted; however, the groom’s mother felt insulted and so she gossiped with the other accompanying guests about how she had planned that she would bring her sisters, brothers, and their families for this ritual but the larki walay have ended the chapter by gifting them clothes and that she had been insulted by those clothes.

The mutual relative who had been invited to this gathering told the whole situation to the hosts and suggested that both the parties should sit, and settle the misunderstanding. The larki walay decided that it’s not a big issue and even if they want to come again for a bigger ritual, they are most welcome and that they would invite them again as per their request. 

When both the ladies sat to settle the matter, the groom’s mother started yelling and saying, “Now we cannot come again here, as we have been insulted by the clothes you have thrown on our heads”. This gesture of giving clothes to her was a sign that they had ended the chapter of the “saving the date” ritual. To which the larki walay requested them to return the clothes if they were the cause of this trouble and that they would gift them the clothes again when the actual ritual would be celebrated. However, the conversations got heated and a lot of harsh words were exchanged resulting in the groom’s mother walking out of the gathering and telling everyone that she would never return to that place ever again. The bride’s parents ran after her to the gate and requested her not to leave but she didn’t hear a single thing they said.

Months passed but no third party tried to settle the matter. Eventually, the two brothers themselves tried to sort the matter. The larki walay kept apologizing, to which the groom’s mother agreed but kept this event in her heart and decided that she would make her future daughter-in-law pay for her insult. She was the kind of lady who would make a fuss out of the small issues like if someone didn’t say their greetings to her in a rush and it had been more than ten minutes of her arrival to a certain place she would keep the grudge for five years. (Not exaggerating)

The lady also was in deep love with her house. She would renovate it from time to time spending all their savings on the house, change the settings, clean the house (even though they had house help) and it would not be an understatement to say that the house was for her like her third child.

The wedding happened and the couple was as happy as they could ever be. They were madly in love with each other and the love birds were busy trying to understand each other, deciding their plans, selecting the wedding pictures for the album print outs and most importantly planning their honeymoon.

Stay tuned to the upcoming episodes to find out how the mother-in-law made her daughter-in-law’s life hell and how she dealt with and solved her problem eventually. Don’t forget to rate the article and share it with your friends.

To be continued… Episode 02