Shoaib beats Gandhi, Nehru, India. Hats off man

So finally the Shonia (Shoaib-Sania for the uninitiated) drama is over. Sania can wed Shoaib without any hurdles now that Ms Ayesha Siddiqui is out of the way. Alls well that ends well you can say.

But wait a minute. Has anyone any clue what a bloody trailblazer Shoaib is? Any clue how this man has rubbed the nose of all our founding fathers in the dirt in such a sweet way that I’m sure up there in the skies, people like Gandhi and Patel and Nehru and the likes might be looking for a good scrub.

What is the connection, you’re asking me? Well you see when these chaps made this nation, they said that let the damn thing be equal and impartial to all. They said that be it man or woman, let the damn nation give each one equality in going after their dreams.

Now Nehru was so good with it that he had just one kid- a daughter and this almost a century ago- ensured that she got a good education and when it came to sharing the spoils of the political loot, the man said my daughter Priyadarshini shall stand next to none for her due.

Our Constitution maker Dr Ambedkar too was a liberal man who said that laws have to be such that women get the last penny that is due to them, tradition be damned. So we came up with laws which gave women equal inheritance, equal rights to divorce, marry, now they can even be natural guardians in case they are single parents.

So far so good. Of course you might think that the ground reality is different. I agree, it is. But only when we have ideal laws that we can strive towards an ideal society one day. If the laws are crooked, that is the end of the journey actually. So let us doff our hats to people like Dr Ambedkar and whole set of visionaries who said let us take the tough road but let us build a country which will be as good as any other when it comes to equality for all sexes. Actually come to think of the repealing of Section 377 last year is also part of that same process.

Now if you are wondering where does a small Punjabi-speaking Muslim idiot about to marry a giggly Hyderabadi Muslim idiot come into the picture crowded by these greats, I’ll come straight to the point.

Shoaib marries Ayesha. Then we hear nothing more about it. Two years later Shoaib wants to marry Sania Mirza. Now the Siddiquis- Ayesha’s family- cry foul and launch a media blitz that would have made Shoaib wish he were in Taliban’s Afghanistan where there are no papers to TV channels.

Semen-stained wedding dress, telephonic nikahnama, fat woman allegations, photo wedding and a hundred tamashas later, Shoaib was told by some very intelligent and prominent Muslims from Hyderabad that his game is definitely over. It is best he admit to the wedding with Ayesha since that is the only way out. Then they threw in the hukum ka ikka. (I think it is called in gambling parlance). They asked him to take a look at the laws of his religion. Hahaha.

So smilingly Shoaib came out to face the cameras, agreed that he had indeed married Ayesha- a bloody stupid mistake- and that he was ready to divorce her. So he picked up the phone, spat talaq three times into it and got his neck out of the first wedding that he was denying till the other day.
Everyone clapped, Sania giggled, prominent and intelligent Muslims in Hyderabad let out a sigh of relief that the religion did not get a bad name (?) and all moved on.

The only question that remains is that six decades after we started this journey, a woman in India can be married, used, impregnated, and divorced at the will of a man simply because his religion allows him to do that. And parties that ask for a common civil code are communal mind you.

There are hundreds of such women at our railway stations who have been thrown out because the man either takes a fancy for another woman or because the first wife has lost it between the sheets in bed or quite simply because she cannot give birth to offspring. Talaq, talaq, talaq, thank you ma’am. No questions asked.

I never thought Shoaib Malik was any good at cricket. But with this drama, my respect for him has gone up several notches. Taking on the likes of Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar and coming out trumps this way is just too good. Shoaib just remember that there are other women in this wretched nation as well waiting to be ensnared and enslaved. So when you had you fill you know what exactly to do. Just read the books, brother.