Chapter 9: Flashback

© Abu Zaynah

The readers by now are probably wondering what took place that evening in the cafe and why was Afsana so upset by what had happened. As you read on you shall discover the secrets of that evening in October when Amjad had received the proposal with the CV and photo from his mum.

We know that what he did next was to go into his room to peruse the documents that had been passed to him after which he had gone onto his laptop (see Chapter Three above). Just as a reminder we would like to re-cap below a little of what had happened that evening:

‘Amjad looked at the photo and then back at the screen of his laptop. He read the name on the paper, and then again looked at screen. It seemed as if he was comparing the information on the paper and photograph to something on his laptop. Like some kind of an amateur detective he was immersed in the content that he found on the laptop. He smiled from time to time and laughed occasionally. At times he would gasp and exclaim in amazement “Wow!”. This continued for around half an hour after which he decided that he had done enough for the night. Amjad switched off the machine and retired to bed.’

What was Amjad doing on his laptop and what did he discover? What was it that made him so chirpy the next morning and how did all this help towards his decision to want to meet Afsana.

What Amjad was doing at the time was searching online and on all the popular social networking sites to see if he could find a profile that matches that of the CV and Photo that he had in front of him. He didn’t have to search far. After a few clicks he had navigated his way onto Afsana’s Facebook profile.

Afsana hadn’t realised that she had not fully privatised her profile from public viewing and therefore all her Facebook posts and photos were all available for public viewing. There was nothing inherently wrong in this as Afsana did not normally post anything private on Facebook anyway. But despite this there were things on her Facebook profile that she wouldn’t be comfortable with a complete stranger reading.

Amjad went through the various photo albums that Afsana had saved on her Profile page. He discovered that she had a twitter account also and read through some of her tweets. Afsana was tagged in her friends photos where she was without full Hijab and Amjad was able to view those photos.

Within a short period, Amjad was able to find out a whole lot about Afsana without even having met her. He was able to conjure up a mental image of her looks, her personality, her temperament and so on.

Amjad was pleased with what he discovered and hence his decision to meet Afsana. Afsana clearly wasn’t impressed with Amjad’s detective work and this was why the evening of the meeting ended so abruptly.