My Best Friend’s Wedding (Part I)
15th February 2018 holds a special place in my heart. It’s the day of my best friend’s wedding and it’s a day I will remember for the rest of my life. I still remember the ceremony as it was just like yesterday. There was so much energy in the atmosphere, so much laughter, music, and dancing, and it was honestly something I had never experienced before. Moreover, one of the main reasons why this occasion will forever be ingrained in my memory is that it was one of the rarest times that I genuinely felt happy in my university life.
I had met my best friend, Mohsen Khaled, a twenty-year-old Yemeni man, back in 2017. He was my mentee in my Fundamentals of Mathematics class in the May-August 2017 semester and since that we had grown much closer. I still recall the moment I considered him as my best friend for life. I had been facing a lot of difficulties in my friendship and I was emotionally tortured with how fast my friendship was falling apart. I was heartbroken knowing that someone I had pictured a future with would no longer be a part of my life. I was sitting alone at the restaurant when Mohsen spotted me and asked me to have lunch with him. He noticed that I wasn’t smiling a lot and avoiding conversation. I didn’t give much explanation when he asked what was bothering me. I controlled myself from spilling my guts out as I didn’t want to bother him with the “dramatics” of my life and kept things vague. I had a feeling that he knew the extent of my situation but he let me some space. He listened very attentively and at the end of it, he looked me right in my eyes and said that I should never have to go through anything on my own. It was just one simple sentence but it was genuinely from his heart. It gave me the strength that I needed to move forward and get better. At that moment I accepted Mohsen as my best friend for my life and nothing would ever change that.
I was a very reserved person (and I still am). I rarely hung out with my friends and mostly communicated with them through text. My family visited me in December 2017 and I was telling them about the friends I’ve made at UCSI University. My family was delighted that for the first time in my life I was meeting people who were “friend” material – not people who were willing to use my success as a steppingstone. It’s not to say that I haven’t met people like that in my university years but people like Mohsen and my other best friends are pure from the heart and have proven time and time again that they wanted the best for me. I had texted Mohsen and asked how he was doing. I haven’t spoken to him for a while as I was wrapping up the final semester of my Foundation studies. He texted back almost immediately and mentioned that he was getting married in the coming year. I thought he was joking at first because I had not heard anything from him or anyone about his wedding arrangements. However, as it turns out, he was indeed telling the truth and I couldn’t be happier for him. My family was excited for him as well and we set out together to buy a wedding gift for the next day. We went to the quaint little Turkish shop selling souvenirs, ornaments and jewellery in KLCC and purchased a romantic jewel-encrusted candle for the bride and groom to be. I pictured a candle-light dinner which would be very romantic for the newlyweds. We bought a wedding card and I wrote my wishes on it. My father helped me pack the gift and it looked perfect. It felt more like a family gift and I owe it all to my family for being able to give such a gift to my best friend.
I hung out quite a few times with my best friend and Karam (my other best friend) in the January-April 2018 semester mostly while getting haircuts together and celebrating Mohsen’s occasion to come. There was once a time when some of our friends gathered in Mohsen’s house to celebrate his occasion by playing the Tabla (an Arabic musical instrument) and dancing. It definitely was a new experience for me as I had never encountered a Yemeni wedding before. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of weddings I have attend at that point in my life. In the following days, I had started to prepare for my best friend’s wedding. I had taken out my grandfather’s old suit to wear at the wedding. I had kept my best friend’s wedding gift safe with me and made sure that even the packing remained intact. I wanted everything to be perfect.
On February 15, I had met up with Karam and all his friends in an apartment near the University. Everybody was dressed to the nines. I honestly recognized only a few faces as most of them were seniors. I was still in my first year of my bachelor’s in chemical engineering program and I had never met them before. I felt rather alienated at first but everyone was very amiable. I was the only non-Arab present in the crowd and everyone was delighted to have me there to witness an authentic Arabic wedding. My friends had rented luxury sedans for the day and I left with my friend, Asad, to fetch Mohsen at his apartment in South City, Serdang. All of our friends left in a convoy and everyone was blasting music and singing all along the way. Karam and a few of his friends even had half their bodies sticking out the window and dancing to the Arabic tunes playing via Bluetooth on the speakers. I hadn’t imagined that things would get this lively before.
Mohsen was waiting by the pond in his gorgeous blue suit and he was glowing. It was his special day after all and he looked more handsome that I had ever realized. We made our way to him while singing and chanting wishes for his marriage. We congratulated him and some of the energetic ones started to dance and sing again. I found it quite uncomfortable to move around as I had Mohsen’s wedding gift clutched in my hand. I didn’t know things were going to be this rowdy and lively. I had thought it would be like one of the weddings I had attend back home where everybody showed up to lunch or dinner in a hotel ballroom and waited (rather impatiently) for the bride and groom to walk down the aisle.
We fetched Mohsen back to Seri Cendekia condominium where we had another celebration in the courtyard. The seniors had laid out plastic chairs in the open and distributed water bottles while some worked to set up the stereo. And when the music played, the dancing began. Truth be told, I felt quite nervous that someone would ask me to dance. I have very poor body coordination and I just knew that I was going to embarrass myself. I honestly just sat out the dance while trying to attract as little attention as I could. I had begun to chat with a few people I recognized and occasionally joined in group photography sessions organized by one of my best friends who was a talented photographer.
After an hour, everybody all drenched in sweat had taken a seat and I wondered if the wedding was over. Little did I know that the occasion was still beginning and the day was still young. The celebration in the evening was more intense and that’s when I truly come out of my shell to make the day be one of the best days of my life.
(Look out for Part II.)