First Night, Last Goodbye

                                                            Fiction

One cold morning, there was a knock on my door.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I opened it to find Sajeet standing there.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I know it's early, but I need to talk to you urgently.”

“Is everything alright?” I asked, concerned.

“If it were, would I wake you at this hour? There’s a matter. Please come down to the union office. The others are gathering there too.”

With that, he hurried off, leaving me to wonder what had happened. I went to the bathroom, thinking it over.

Sajeet was the night watchman of our housing society. He had lost his parents young and had raised his four sisters on his own. The community had helped arrange their marriages, but Sajeet never found a bride himself. Short, plump, with a bulging stomach and teeth discolored by years of chewing gutka, he had crossed forty but still claimed to be a bachelor. Everyone in the society knew him as Sajjad—a name he had adopted after converting to Islam.

Once, he told me, “I haven’t changed my faith. I’m still Sajeet. But everyone here calls me Sajjad.”
Whether he was Sajeet or Sajjad mattered little to me. What did matter was what he was going through now.

When I reached the union office, the union president, general secretary, the society’s imam, and several others—around ten men—were already there. I quietly sat to one side and listened.

Seeing me, the union president, Safir Sahib, addressed the group.

“Everyone is here now. Let’s talk about this properly. We’ve called you here because our watchman, Sajjad, has been deceived. The woman he married last night has run away. It was all a fraud. We must go to her house and find out why she did this.”

The night before, Sajjad had been married. The whole society had congratulated him. He was glowing with joy—his hair freshly dyed, wearing a shiny China Boski suit, and doused in strong rose perfume. Sitting proudly at the society gate, he smoked a Gold Leaf cigarette in his mehndi-stained fingers, flicking it with flair. Now, his face was drained of all color and life.

Before we set out for the bride’s house, I asked, “At least tell us what happened. I know the nikah took place and you brought her home. But where did things go wrong?”

Sajjad began quietly:
“After the guests left, she told me she didn’t have any clothes. Her new clothes were at her sister’s house, and she insisted on going there.”

He paused, then continued:
“She kept pressing me, so I agreed. We took a rickshaw to her sister’s place. She left me in one room and went into another. After a long wait, I peeked in—only to find the room empty. No bride. No sister. I asked around, searched nearby... nothing. Tired and confused, I returned home. That’s when I told everyone.”

He lowered his head.
“She took the money too—seventy thousand rupees I gave as mehr. She also took the mobile phone and the gold ring. She was a fraud. I couldn’t see it. None of us did.”

Everyone in the room expressed their shock and sympathy. They offered encouragement. “Let’s go talk to them. Maybe this can still be resolved.”

Baman Miyan, the neighborhood shopkeeper, muttered,
“Still... why run off the same night? She could’ve at least waited till morning. At least spend the wedding night!”

Everyone tried not to laugh—but failed. Even Sajjad smiled bitterly,
“Right? She could’ve stayed the night. I’d have dropped her off myself the next day. She destroyed all my dreams.”

Two cars carried us across the city to the bride’s neighborhood. An hour later, we stood outside a locked house. A neighbor told us, “The house has been closed since yesterday.”

Safir Sahib suggested we try calling them. The imam, Maulvi Sarfaraz, dialed the number and put the call on speaker.

“Yes, I’m Maulvi Sarfaraz,” he said. “I conducted the nikah yesterday. What you’ve done is a betrayal.”

A woman’s voice snapped back from the other end:

“We didn’t deceive anyone. You did. That house wasn’t even Sajjad’s. It was rented. There were no chairs, no TV, not even spare clothes. We would never marry our daughter into such a home. Thank God she realized it in time. Otherwise, we would’ve been ruined.”

And the call disconnected.

One by one, we all tried calling again—but the number was now switched off.

A local resident saw us gathered outside and asked what was going on. We told him the story.

“You’re not the first. This has happened here twice before. One man even went to the police—but these people are powerful. The police couldn’t touch them.”

Disheartened, we returned to our society.

Back home, Sajjad had already packed his things.

“I’m leaving this job,” he said. “I’m going back to the village. I came to the city with dreams, but lost everything. At least in the village, I still had dignity. How can I face the neighbors now?”

And with that, he left—silently carrying with him the weight of betrayal.