Syeda Noor oversees the renovation at the Kotwali and (below) the wedding card printed in Bengali. Pictures by Surajit Roy

Malda, Nov. 18: Syeda Noor is very busy, choosing the right curtain, the right hues for the rooms or adding names to the guest list for probably the 1000th time. It is sister Mausam’s wedding and everything has to be just right for the occasion.

“I have already started shopping and checking out the arrangements. Our elder sister, Sonia, is arriving here from America on November 25. That will be a great relief. But I am buying everything after consulting Mausam,” Syeda said.

The 27-year-Congress MP is expected in Malda on Friday, but she will have to leave for the winter session of Parliament on November 23. The wedding has been fixed for December 5. The groom, Mirza Kayesh Begg, is also a lawyer like the bride who was once associated with a reputable law firm, and practises at Calcutta High Court. The two had met while studying law in Calcutta.

“We were a group of 10 friends and he was my best friend. He was always very helpful and I began to like him and the friendship soon turned to a deep emotional attachment. I got to know his father, who practises law in Asansol, and mother who is a schoolteacher. I had been to Asansol to attend Kayesh’s sister’s wedding three years ago. Kayesh stays in a flat in Calcutta’s Park Circus,” Mausam Noor said over the phone from Calcutta.

The youngest of Ruby Noor’s daughters, Mausam misses her mother. “I am missing her terribly. She wanted to see all of us married and she knew about Kayesh, but she left us suddenly and that is why the wedding was put off,” Mausam said.

Ruby Noor, the Sujapur MLA, died last year and Mausam contested the byelection to the seat that fell vacant. Three months later, the Congress fielded her in Malda North and she became the MP.

Mausam said two cards were being printed for the wedding. “There is one in English and one in Bengali. The card in Bengali will be sent to those invited during the day, the cards in English will be for those invited to a reception in the evening at the Kotwali,” she said.

Mirza Kayesh Begg and Mausam

Senior officials in the district administration and political leaders from all parties as well as ministers and MLAs would be invited for the evening’s programme. “I am going to Delhi on November 23 and I will personally invite Manmohan Singh (the Prime Minister), Sonia Gandhi (Congress president), Rahul Gandhi, Pranabmama (finance minister Pranab Mukherjee) and others there for the December 13 reception in Calcutta,” she said.

The North Malda MP, however, could not put a figure on the number of invitees. “A long list is being drawn up by my two uncles and sisters. The menu is being also finalised, we will have several kinds of biryani and tandoori, Chinese and Continental items. We are getting cooks from Calcutta,” Mausam said.

The palatial building constructed around the ancestral home in Kotwali by the late A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, a Congress veteran and Mausam’s uncle, is getting a fresh coat of paint from today, a day after the young MP announced her wedding to her family.

The Congress MLA from Sujapur and Ghani Khan’s brother, Abu Naser Khan Chowdhury, recounted that the last wedding at the Kotwali was in 1948.

“There will be a wedding at our house after a gap of 61 years. Back in 1948 one of my elder sisters got married when our father, Hyat Khan Chowdhury, was alive. It’s my niece’s wedding and all of us are excited. I will present Swiss watches to the couple,” said Abu Naser, whose Swiss citizenship controversy had stopped the Congress from fielding him in the Lok Sabha polls.