Scarborough’s the scene for star-crossed young lovers
Other than a certain pair of young starcrossed lovers, is there any couple in literary history that has inspired as much swooning — and as many adaptations — as the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet and her brooding amour, Mr. Darcy? From Colin Firth’s star-turning wet shirt scene in the 1995 BBC minidrama to the charming web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, modern-day romantics can’t seem to get enough of Jane Austen’s 200year-old comedy of manners, Pride and Prejudice. Uzma Jalaluddin, a Markham high school English teacher and Toronto Star columnist, remembers first falling under the spell of Pride and Prejudice as a teenager growing up in a tight-knit Muslim community in Scarborough. The self-declared “Austen fan girl” had already reread the classic novel countless times and devoured all the screen adaptations in 2010, when she started working on her debut novel, Ayesha at Last, a retelling of Austen’s story, out June 12 with HarperCollins Canada.
Jalaluddin’s own twist on the Regency romance happened organically as she began writing, combining the framework of the original plot with an updated story about two 20-something Scarborough Muslims who, against all odds, fall in love.
“Pride and Prejudice stuck with me because it’s written by a British woman, and yet 200 years later she’s describing some of the rituals, like arranged marriage or formal introductions, that I really understood and could relate to,” says Jaluddin.
“Jane Austen has so much to say to the South Asian experience. I think it’s because the courtship rituals she talks about in Pride and Prejudice are part of a very specific, rule-based society.”
In Ayesha at Last, the hijab-wearing titular character is a 27-year-old unmarried Scarborough substitute teacher who aspires to become a spoken word poet. But family obligations means Ayesha must put her secret desires on hold as she pays back a debt to her well-off uncle. In Jaluddin’s world, Darcy is played by Khalid, a handsome tech manager who is more than happy to let his widowed mother chose his bride.
At first, Ayesha thinks Khalid is a “fundy” (a fundamentalist), but when the two are paired up at a planning meeting for a mosque fundraiser, the sparks fly. But Khalid mistakes Ayesha for her narcissistic younger cousin, Hafsa, who is obsessed with luxury labels and racking up marriage proposals.
Jaluddin also admired Austen’s arch sense of mischief, and incorporated a light touch of humour into Ayesha at Last, in particular with secondary char- acters like Masood, one of Aysesha’s potential suitors who is a wrestler turned life coach. Even the story’s potential arch villain, Terek Khan (the stand-in Wickham character for Austen fans), is given a sympathetic back-story.
“What Austen does well, and that I’m trying to emulate, is the ability to laugh yourself, but in a way that isn’t mean,” says Jalludin. “I feel that books about Muslims tend to be really black and white, and really dark in a lot of cases.”
Ultimately though, the beating heart of Ayesha at Last is its tangled romance. “The point of the story is love. Serious books don’t have to be tragedies,” Jalludin says.
“There’s so much to be learned from tragedies, but there is a lot to be learned from comedies as well. I wanted to get across how people can be joyful, but still have these really complex personalities. There’s still violence, and dysfunctional family relationships, and being part of a marginalized community, but there are also these joyful moments where there is love.”