Pakistani Cricketer Does His Part To Preserve Tense Relations With India
Extramarital affairs from American athletes are interesting in a “the-crazier-the-better” sort of way, but Asian extramarital affairs? Those are just plain educational. And literally extramarital – as in there’s an extra marriage in the mix.
To my point about these affairs being educational, did you know that Pakistani marriages may be legally executed over the phone? No, I didn’t think you did. Or that a “nikahnama” is a document binding two people in wedlock? Two for two. How about the idea that when members of the opposite sex send pictures of themselves to people they’ve never seen, the pictures are often, um, less than reliable?
Oh, that you’ve heard of, huh? Well two-out-of-three ain’t bad.
Former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik has been enmeshed in an odd investigation into an alleged marriage to and Indian woman. It’s been well-publicized that Malik is engaged to tennis’ first Indian WTA tour title winner, Sania Mirza, but that’s not the Indian woman causing the investigation. Ayesha Siddiqui is the woman in question. Allegedly, he’s been married to her since 2002.
Mirza’s family must love the post cards she sends home.
“Dear family, so I’m wearing skirts in public these days. Best to you and yours.”
“Dear family, I decided not to marry my childhood friend after all. Turns out I’ve met the captain of Pakistan’s cricket team and I fancy him a bit more. Nothing can go wrong there, I’m sure. Pet the cats for me.”
“Dear family, looks like Shoaib already married an Indian woman eight years ago. Also, my wrist just isn’t fully healed and my tennis career is floundering. Send kebabs.”
Siddiqui herself brought the tele-marriage to the public forefront last week, demanding a proper divorce before Malik’s marriage to Mirza. Either that or a ton of money from the lawsuit she threatened (which, if she won, would probably also end in a proper divorce).
So is Malik married?
Newspapers printed a copy of the alleged wedding 2002 agreement. It appeared to be signed by both Malik and Siddiqui, but not – as legally required – by any witnesses.
In an interview with The Times of India, Malik said he began a telephone relationship with Siddiqui in 2001 after she sent him photographs.
Malik admitted to the newspaper that in 2002 that he signed a “nikahnama” (wedding agreement) “thinking the girl I was marrying was the one in the photographs.”
But “the girl who was accepting the proposal was someone else,” he said, without giving further details.
In a bizarre twist, Malik claimed he had spent time with Ayesha Siddiqui’s “elder sister” who told him that Ayesha would not meet him as she had put on weight. Malik said he now believes the “sister” was actually Ayesha herself.
Chalk it up to cultural differences, but can you imagine the captain of any team on any professional sport in America messing around with a date offering nothing more than telephone conversations and some jpegs?
Siddiqui’s story, for her part, is that Malik refused to acknowledge the marriage not because he’d never actually met her, but because his cricket mates said she was too fat. Too fat to what, none of the reports were able to say.
Malik was scheduled to marry 23-year-old Mirza on April 15. Expect delays.
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Photos courtesy of Flickr
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