Publications
Imagine your partner gives you a piece of cake and when you try to bite into it you discover it’s actually a kitchen cleaning sponge covered in icing. Or you cut into a pawpaw and get the fright of your life when you discover a snake in the centre – then, after almost having heart failure, you realise it’s plastic and was hidden there by your partner to trick you.
Most marriages wouldn’t survive this endless pranking, but luckily for Wasim Younas, his long-suffering wife, Aisha, has a sense of humour.
It’s not easy being parents of six kids but Wasim’s constant pranks help to lighten the mood and Aisha loves him for that. And since the couple started sharing their playful relationship on social media, they’ve become an internet sensation.
READ MORE : This nine-year-old sewing prodigy is taking the fashion world by storm – she’s even caught Vera Wang’s eye
Within two years their TikTok profile, AishaWasim0, and their videos have been liked more than 5,5 million times. It’s the humour that appeals to their fans as well as the warmth and homeliness of their busy household – and it’s this that we get to experience first-hand when we visit the couple.
“Come in!” Aisha (46) booms as she invites us into their beautiful double-storey home.
Wasim (also 46) joins us, smiling broadly as their Maltese poodle, Disney, yaps excitedly. Inside the house their two parrots, Hera and Heba, make their presence known while Lion the Labrador barks in the backyard. In the living room the table has been set for dinner. “We all eat together every evening,” Aisha says.
It’s around this table that lots of jokes are exchanged between the couple and their kids – Caine (29), Kalib (27), Cole (20), Mh-Nähill (15), Mh-Vsh (9) and Ayan (2). They’ve been sharing episodes from their daily lives since 2020. It was hard lockdown and they couldn’t go anywhere.
Aisha had just given birth to Ayan and because she’d suffered from post-partum depression after her previous pregnancy, Wasim knew he had to do something to distract her. Aisha landed on the idea of making TikTok videos and Wasim agreed.
They hadn’t shared videos on the platform before so it was a bit of a struggle at first and they had to rope in tech-savvy Mh-Vsh to help. Their first video was of them dancing to a song, but it wasn’t long before Wasim started filming the pranks he played on his wife and their popularity soared.
Although Aisha tries to give as good as she gets – doctoring her husband’s food with chilli, for example – it’s mostly her indignant response to his pranks that has fans laughing.
Like the time she almost hit the roof when he hid fire crackers on the inside of her car door, which went off when she slammed it. Fortunately Wasim is used to his wife’s outbursts – she’s been giving him an earful since their first encounter 30 years ago. WASIM is from Lahore in Pakistan and Aisha from Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape.
Yet somehow they were connected in a time when social media wasn’t even in its infant phase. They were 16 and at phone booths in their respective home towns, trying to make calls to friends, when a switchboard operator accidentally connected them.
“I don’t know what happened but while I was on the line, he answered. I was so irritated because I really wanted to speak to my friend,” Aisha recalls.
“I was very rude and the more I ranted, the more he apologised.”
She hung up, but Wasim, captivated by her feistiness, wanted to continue the conversation and persuaded the operator to reconnect them.When Aisha answered, he apologised, telling her, “My English is very small.”
Touched by his honesty, she agreed to chat to him again. They continued phoning each other for about a year, during which time he also bought a book to help improve his English. When he turned 17 and his dad started talks about an arranged marriage, Wasim said he wanted to marry Aisha.
“I remember he called me and asked if we could get married,” Aisha says.
“I thought he was joking and said, ‘Of course!’ His tone changed and he said he wasn’t joking.
“Will you?”
“I said yes.”
Her parents, Claude and Jossie Frieslaar, weren’t keen but Aisha stuck to her guns. Wasim’s dad, Mohammed, decided to play along and have Aisha come to Pakistan.His mother, Anouar, was initially was kept in the dark about the wedding plans and Mohammed was ready to console his son if Aisha was a no-show.
But Wasim had no doubt she’d show up. He got his cousins to buy pigeons which, according to Pakistani tradition, would be set free to the sound of gunfire as a signal that a significant moment is being celebrated. He also organised jasmine bouquets to present to Aisha and took it all to the airport.
When Aisha stepped off the plane in Lahore there were many men milling about the airport but one man stood out as he looked like “a handsome Father Christmas”, she recalls.
“He was beautifully tall and dressed in white and he looked me straight in the eye and smiled. Something told me that was Wasim’s dad and this was his way of giving us his blessing.
“I smiled back and the next moment, Wasim was there.”
He took her hand – something that’s taboo in public in Pakistani culture – and in that moment, Aisha realised she could indeed marry this man. At that moment the guns were fired, the pigeons set free and the bouquets presented.
Aisha didn’t quite take into account how fast everything would happen. As they got into the car, Mohammed told her the wedding would take place within the next four hours. Although she knew her mother wasn’t keen on the idea of her getting married at such a young age, Aisha was determined to go through with the ceremony.
Her father, who shares her sense of adventure, had given her permission to fly alone to Pakistan to meet Wasim – and then marry him if she felt a true connection. And so on the very same day she met her fiancé, they went to a hotel where she was dressed and then to a mosque where they were married with just his dad and a few witnesses in attendance.
Immediately after, they departed on a two-week-long honeymoon in Pakistan. When they returned, they had a second ceremony where she got to meet all of Wasim’s family, including his mom. As time went by, their love grew and it wasn’t long before their first child was born.
But after living in Pakistan for 18 months Aisha was homesick and convinced Wasim to move to South Africa. They lived in Durban for 17 years, where he was a goldsmith and she worked in the property industry. Now they’re blissfully happy in Gordon’s Bay near Cape Town, where they offer hairdressing and beauty treatments from their home.
But it’s their newfound passion for TikTok and sharing episodes of their daily lives with fans that brings extra spice and colour to their lives.
“It’s become an enjoyable game,” Aisha says. “We’ll keep doing it as long as we can mean something to people.
”Just before we leave, Wasim performs a beautiful love song in his mother tongue, Urdu. He often serenades his wife like this in the evenings. If she’s annoyed with one of his pranks, it’s sometimes his way of patching things up.
“There’s nothing better than making up after a fight,” Aisha says with a twinkle in her eye.
