Sarfraz Manzoor - Is Love Wild, Is Love Real?

 

So, there were no photographs of my parents' wedding day in the house when I was growing up. I grew up in a town called Luton, just outside of London in the 1980s. My parents were Pakistani Muslims. They'd had an arranged marriage. And apparently, it had been such an uneventful day that nobody could remember the day, the week, the month or even the year that it happened. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, my parents were many things, but the one thing they definitely weren't was in love. [audience laughter] And the word love was never used in our house. It was completely taboo. You could almost say that love was a four-letter word. So, I was never told I love you before I went to bed. Nobody told me I love you before I went to school. And my parents never said I love you to each other.

 

They made out that this was a really good thing, because their argument was that white people fell in love, got married and then got divorced. Pakistanis never loved the people they married, but we stuck with them forever. [audience laughter] So, my parents thought it was their duty to keep me away from the idea of love and any kind of intimacy. One way they did this was by making sure that I had a haircut where it was short at the top and long at the back, [audience laughter] which was a bit of a girl repellent. It also suggested that Michael Bolton was some kind of style icon, [audience laughter] rather than a terrifying warning. [audience laughter] They also kept me away from any kind of intimacy on TV. So, if two people were kissing or even looked like they were going to kiss on TV, I had to run over and turn the TV off, because there was no way I could watch that in front of them. 

 

Now, as much as they tried to protect me, the one place they could not police was the radio. And so, pop music became the place where I learned about love. And the people who taught me about love were people like Lionel Richie, [audience laughter] Motown, Foreigner. And all these people were saying that love was amazing. They were saying, you should really go for it. [audience laughter] It was weird, because my parents were saying the exact opposite. 

 

Now, the most important song during my teenage years was by the Pet Shop Boys, and it was a song called Love Comes Quickly. And the chorus was, Love comes quickly, no matter what you do, you can't stop falling. I don't know about you, but that sounds absolutely terrifying, [audience laughter] because what that suggests is that love's like an infection, it's like some kind of disease and it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to be able to stop falling or catching it.

 

I had an older brother and an older sister and a younger sister, and they were a little bit more traditional than me. But I was always a bit of an outsider. I was a bit of a dreamer. I guess I had three dreams, really. I wanted to get out of Luton, I wanted to do an interesting job and I wanted to marry somebody who wasn't already a relative. [audience laughter] And none of those things seemed entirely possible. But as I got into my 20s and 30s, I managed to get out of Luton. I did do an interesting job. But the wedding and the love and the marriage thing, that still seemed completely elusive. But by now, I had moved on. I'd evolved from Lionel Richie to Bruce Springsteen. [audience chuckle] And Bruce Springsteen became the person who I went to for all my wisdom. 

 

Now there's a song you'll know, Born to Run. And in Born to Run, he says this line, "I want to know if love is wild, I want to know if love is real." And that was a really important question to me. Is love real for somebody like me? There was also another line in that song where he says to Wendy, "We live with the sadness, and I love you with all the madness in my soul." I'll love you with all the madness in my soul? I was like, “Oh, I want to meet someone that I could feel this way about, who I could say this about.” Something made me think that this was not something I was going to get from an arranged marriage. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, my mum had started to gently hint that it was time for me to have an arranged marriage. When I say gently hint, she went on a hunger strike. [audience laughter] I would come home, and she'd be on the phone and she’d be talking to the parents of girls she wanted to marry me off to, and she'd be like, "Yeah, he's 5’10”. No, he's not a taxi driver." I'd be like, "Mum, what the hell are you doing?" And she'd be like, "I'm doing my duty." 

 

So, we got to 2008, and I'm almost turning 36. I'm at the Hay Book Festival, which is this big book festival on the border of England and Wales. I'm there for a week doing some work. It gets to the last day of the festival. It's a Sunday. It’s the first Sunday of June. I'm in a taxi on my way to the train station. It's a really hot day and I'm going to miss the train. So, I'm getting out of the taxi, I'm running with a suitcase. I run along the platform. The doors are about to close, I get in. I plop myself down, I look up and sitting opposite me is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. 

 

She's got blonde hair, she's got wild green eyes, she's reading a copy of Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'm looking at her and I'm thinking, who gets to be your friend? [audience chuckle] Who gets to know you? Because this is not usual luck for me. So, I'm not the sort of person that talks to strangers. I didn't do anything, I just let the train carry on. But then something inside me just kept saying, "If you don't start a conversation, you're going to regret this." So, I was like, “What do I do?” 

 

Then I noticed she had a cloth bag which said Hay Festival. That was my opening. I said, "Have you been to Hay?" And she said, "Yes." So, then we started talking. She told me her name was Bridget, she's a speech and language therapist, she works with kids with autism. And as the train rolled on, we talked about life and holidays and family and what was missing from our lives. I was really enjoying the conversation, but I was also getting really, really stressed, because this train was rumbling on its way to London and then it was going to end. And I was like, “I don't want this to be an anecdote. I don't want it to be just this story that I told people afterwards. So, what do I do?” So, I thought, well, I don't want to be one of these people that imposes on somebody else.

 

So, as the train went towards the end, I said, "Look, I'd really like to see you again, but I totally understand if you don't want to feel that way about me. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you my phone number, but I'm not going to take yours. And I don't even know your second name, so there's no way we're ever going to hear from each other again, unless you contact me." So, then I went home and stared at my phone. [audience laughter] And then, the next day I stared at my phone. And the next day, I stared at my phone. And then, she sent me a text saying she'd had a really nice time, she'd like to meet up again. 

 

So, on the Saturday, we went for a date at Tate Modern, and that led to a couple more dates, that led to more dates. We ended up in a relationship. And I was like, “This is amazing. This is what Lionel Richie was singing about. [audience laughter] Finally, I had the answer to Foreigner's question from their 1986 hit, I Want to Know What Love Is.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, I go back home to my mum. She is not in a good way. She's getting more and more worried about the fact that I'm still not with anyone. And she's like, "It's my duty to see you married. There's nobody who's going to take care of you. What are you doing?" And I'm like, “I know something you don't.” So, I thought, sod it, I'm going to tell her. I just said, "Look, I have actually met someone." 

 

When you say that, you can't just leave it like that. [audience laughter] So, I had to give her some more information. I was like, "Oh my God, what am I going to do? Okay, so she works with children, she's really good with her parents, she knows some Muslims." [audience laughter] And then, I threw in that she was blonde and Christian, but I hoped she didn't notice that. 

 

So, that evening, I ring home just to see how it had all gone. And it turns out it had gone really badly, [audience laughter] because my mum is not answering the phone, and she's like, "You have absolutely, totally betrayed everything that I believed about you. And if you're going to have this relationship with this girl, you're not going to have a relationship with us. You've got to choose." And this is difficult. I'm meeting somebody who I absolutely love, who makes me happier than I've ever been. But my family are saying, you've got to choose. So, what do I do? 

 

I do what I always do in situations like this. I turn to Bruce Springsteen. [audience laughter] And in Prove It All Night from the album Darkness on the Edge of Town, he has a line where he says, "If dreams came true, well, wouldn't that be nice? But this ain't no dream we're living through tonight. If you want it, you take it and you pay the price." It's profound, isn't he? [audience laughter] "If you want it, you take it, you pay the price." I thought, maybe that's what life's about. Maybe in the end, you take the things you want and you pay the price. And maybe that's what maturity is. 

 

So, we went on holiday to Rome. That's not me and my mum. It's me and Bridget. [audience laughter] We have dinner, and then it's a really full moon and the stars are shining, and it's Rome. I just, out of nowhere, say to Bridget, "Do you think we should get married?" She said, "Let's do it." So, we return to Britain engaged, and I ring my family and I tell them the good news and they say, "Well, that's great, but don't expect us at the wedding. We're not going to come. If you're going to choose her, go at it alone." 

 

So, we set the wedding date for the 21st of August. And it's a weird thing, because we're trying to do the seating plan. All of Bridget's family are on the top table, but there's nobody from my side. But you make your choices. So, we're setting it all up and I'm steeling myself for the happy day. And on the 20th of August, the day before I'm supposed to get married, I get a phone call. And it's my younger sister. I haven't spoken to my younger sister since all this argument stuff had been happening. 

 

So, I was a bit surprised to hear from her. And she said, "How are you doing?" I said, "I'm not great. How are you?" And she said, "I'm actually not that great either." I said, "What's been happening?" And she said, "Well, I go to work from Luton to London every morning. And by the time I get to work, I've got tears streaking down my face and my boss is wondering why I've got mascara running and whether I'm on the tip of having an emotional breakdown." And I said, "What's going on?" And she said, "Well, I've been listening to Bruce Springsteen." [audience laughter] That's one of the things I did well by having a younger sister, I got her into Springsteen. 

 

She'd been listening to the album, Tunnel of Love. There's a song on Tunnel of Love called Walk Like a Man, which is about getting married. There's a line in it where he says, "Would they ever look so happy again, the handsome groom and his bride, as they step into that long black limousine for their mystery ride." It's about somebody getting married. And she said, "The reason I'm crying is that every morning I listen to that song and I think, I want to see my brother as that handsome groom." I said, "What does that mean?" And she said, "Well, you know, the family have decided that we're not going to turn up to the wedding, but I'm going to go. You're going to see me. Don't know about anybody else, but I'm going to be at your wedding." 

 

So, the next day is the 21st of August. I wake up, I put my suit on, I put a flower in, I get to the Islington Town Hall where we're supposed to be getting married, and I see a car pull up. And out of the car is my sister. But she's also brought my mum. My older brother and older sister still didn't turn up, but I was really moved by the fact that my mum was able to transcend and overcome some of her concerns to be there for my big day.

 

So, the following year, my wife gives birth to our daughter, Leila. And a couple of years later, we have a little boy, Ezra. And the great thing about having kids is you get to tell a new story. So, in our house, there are photographs of our wedding day. And I do tell my kids I love them. And kids being what they are, they love me reading books to them, but even more than reading books, my daughter, Leila, loves me telling her stories. 

 

And her favorite story is the story of how Mummy and Daddy met. And the fact that if I had not met Bridget on that train, those two children would not exist. And as a parent, you have lots of dreams for your children. But if I have one dream for my kids, it's for them to grow up believing that love is not a four-letter word, that love is wild and yes, love is real. Thank you.