New York: She’d picked her dress, they’d booked their honeymoon and the wedding was set for the end of March. Then, the coronavirus pandemic hit.
So the two young American doctors, Kashif Chaudhry and Naila Shereen, whose whirlwind courtship spun them between New York City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, cancelled their big plans.
Two weeks ago, they persuaded the imam at a mosque in Hawthorne, New Jersey, to open up for a quick nikkah ceremony. The couple married the following day Saturday and celebrated with Shereen’s family at her parents’ house in New Windsor in this city. After the ceremony, Shereen dropped her new husband at the airport 12 hours later.
“We said our goodbyes – we were a bit teary and sad,” Kashif said. “I gave her a red rose.”
Shereen was back at work by Monday. As an internal medicine chief resident overseeing teams of residents, she rotates through different hospitals here, the epicentre of America’s coronavirus outbreak. So far the disease has infected more than one million people and killed over 54,000 worldwide.
Shereen is working long days but is quick to point out doctors are trying to keep each other’s spirits up by swapping snacks and trading funny videos. “We all know New York is bad but we know the worst is yet to come,” Shereen said. “I never thought I’d live through a pandemic.”
Kashif, a 37-year-old cardiac electrophysiologist, is seeing patients via video-conferencing where he works at Mercy Medical Centre in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They’ve cancelled all elective operations to try to conserve their protective equipment when the coronavirus tsunami hits. But while his head is in Iowa, his heart is in New York. “I worry a lot about her (Shereen),” he said. “But I’m really proud of her.”
The two doctors chat several times a day via Facetime. When asked about each other, Shereen said Kashif is ‘super funny’ while he said he loves her ‘witty, sarcastic’ sense of humour. Both say their faith not just inspires but requires them to help – they are Ahmadi, a Muslim sect that believes in Mirza Ghulam Ahmed as the second coming of the Messiah, an idea rejected by other Muslims.
Kashif, whose aid worker father also inspires him, already worked as a volunteer implanting pacemakers for free in Bolivia. He and Shereen, who had herself volunteered in Guatemala, started dating in December. They met for a coffee that turned into dinner, which they ate in a mall because he had forgotten his jacket.
“When we met up, we talked and talked. I just knew right away she is the person I wanted,” Kashif said. “We had to give up our big wedding but it’s much more important I got to marry the woman I love,” he added.
Well all that one can call their journey is ‘Love in the times of Coronavirus’.
Agencies