Sitting on in the park near the courthouse in lower Manhattan. ©Katarina Kojic
Name: Sabir Profession: Garment / Textile Importer and former cigarette and soap model. Nationality / Origin: Indian
Are you in a relationship? Yes I have a wife. How did you meet her? At a party, my friend took me to a party. She was starting med school. After seeing her for 7-8 years, with the permission of our parents, we got married in 1987.
Let’s go back to the party when you met her, the first time that you saw her. Do you remember what she was wearing? “Yes she was wearing an Indian dress in light green color. And that light green color is very favorite to me. She was beautiful when I saw her. Right now she’s not that… But at that time she was most beautiful woman.”
So what was your first date? Did you have a first date? “No we don’t do dates, we don’t do that in India, you know that. We always met thru somebody, in somebody’s house in a party or something like that. And after 6- 7 years, we get close, close, close and then I wrote my parents, that I have a girl, been seeing a girl. And she also wrote her parents. Then I go and met her father, mother and after that both the parents met together and said ok.”
What is your favorite thing about her: She’s a very care-taking person. For me, my kids, my daughter, my son, she always take care of everybody. And one more thing. She’s an extraordinary clean lady.
I really love it when… she smiles. Why is she important to you? Because she’s my second half. In Indian culture we have a different concept. Once we get married. Our life divided in two parts. One part is wife. One part is husband. Same for her also. We both share half of our soul, half of our body together. We never ever think about getting divorced or anything like that in our life. Different culture. You must know about India. In my case at least I saw my wife and dated her for 7-6 years. All my brothers and sisters they never even saw their wife before they got married. And you know the divorce ratio in India is .001. Not even 1 percent. 100 times not even 1 person. That’s the way we grow up.
What does love mean to you? Love is… How can I explain love. In my opinion, love is everything but soul. Everything is love except the soul. (Can you explain more?) In your real life, everybody, whether me or somebody else, only love one person in their whole life. THe other all you can say, you can name anything, but you have anybody have only attraction, affection, great richness, everything is just for one person, that is called love. My opinion right there. I don’t know about anybody else.