Marital Musings

    My decision to get married at the age of 23 evoked mixed feelings among my loved ones and well wishers. Most of them were extremely happy for me; some of them were surprised, their responses ranging from giving advice (“Why don't you work for a while before getting married?”) to showing downright disbelief (“This is the 21st century. It’s practically child marriage!”). With child-like naïveté, I enjoyed my wedding in all its traditional glory, basking in the attention, glamour and the material pleasure of new clothes and jewellery, without thinking about the responsibilities associated with the role I was going to play soon.

      

     It has been almost a year since I came to the U.S. of A and slightly more than that since I joined the maamis' (TamBrahm wives') club. This time last year, I was free to lounge about in sweatpants at home, eat and spill Lays chips all over the sofa, sleep for sixteen hours a day and still complain that I never got enough sleep. I never appreciated my mom’s cooking and often tsk-tsked the lack of variety in it (“Masala dosa again? Didn’t we just eat that a week ago? And why didn’t you make any dessert today?”). I pretended to listen with a solemn expression to my family members when they gave me lectures on propriety and manners, while silently wondering if the latest episode of Castle had started on TV. I was quite comfortable being a lazy bum at home, and the biggest decision I had to make was when (or whether) to start studying for the next day’s exam.

“But how will you eat after marriage if you don’t learn how to cook?” my grandmother was very concerned.

“Oh, I’ll just ask my husband to cook,” I said, nonchalantly.

  She looked shocked, as if I’d said I would ask him to go sky-diving. I shrugged and continued to dodge cooking lessons; having convinced myself that there would enough time to learn later. A few months later, I regretted my words, standing in front of a blackened, semi-solid mass in the saucepan which did not even remotely resemble the cheerfully bubbling and ambrosia-like sambar my mother used to make.

  I thought married life was going to be a piece of cake after having lived with roommates for the best part of four years in college. But I have realized now that it is a whole new ball game. Not having my mother around to clean up after me and my dad to loudly praise even my unpalatable potato curry helped remove the rose-coloured glasses from my eyes. Not that my husband ever complained about my cooking skills: six years of living away from home probably made his taste buds insensitive to disastrous culinary experiments.  

 

  On the practical front, cooking was not the only challenge; I knew next to nothing about housework. I followed the how-not-to route of learning to maintain a home. I had to go through a bug contamination in the kitchen, mold in the bathroom and an Australia-shaped eye-liner stain on the carpet, and ruin a couple of my husband’s good shirts, before I could finally keep a house that did not smell like stale clothes or spoiled food.

  On the emotional front, the first few months of married life were fun in some ways, living outside the protective bubble of parental influence. While we lived together, we were only accountable to the other, and he didn’t mind if the dishes weren’t washed for a couple of days, or if clothes were stuffed hurriedly into the closet without being folded neatly. As we grew to know more about each other, I learnt to put up with his slow, methodical approach to everything, while he became tolerant of my hastier pace. We gave each other long ropes, and trod gently on emotions because we were just getting to know each other and didn’t want to rub each other the wrong way at the beginning itself. 

  I learnt some important things from the first year of my marriage, which was mostly spent in trying to figure him out, and slowly falling in love with him. I've come to realize that learning to love someone is like trying to lose weight. You need to put in a lot of effort, give up things you like and be ready to embrace things you don’t like. It is a continuous process with both of us putting effort everyday into learning what makes each other tick, what makes us happy/unhappy and work towards what, as a couple, we want most out of life. The warm glow of contentment you feel, after getting to know little details about the other that no one else knows about, is worth it.

   His treatment of me as a grown-up was something else I came to appreciate and be miffed about, in equal measure. He gave me my space and let me take my decisions, but did not encourage my tantrums or demands for attention, unlike my parents. This meant that he was okay with me eating cookies at midnight and buying extravagant ‘modern art’, but was not okay with me sulking and lashing out at him because I'd had a bad interview. From him, I learnt that being patient and lending a listening ear is very different from using each other as punching bags.

   As we celebrate one year of having successfully survived the institution, I smile at the foolish arrogance I had a year ago, when I thought I knew everything, and embrace the fact that, even after 50 years, I will probably never know. Life with him stretches ahead like Whitewater rafting, yet my fears and anxiety diminish in front of his Rock-of-Gibraltar-like steadiness. I look forward to the many, many, many more years of excitement, joy, sorrow, surprises, disappointments, fights and hugs, everyday for the rest of my life.

Dumped

“He just dumped me.”

I choked on the piece of bread I was eating and looked up at my friend. 

“What?” I asked.

She burst into tears and starting wailing loudly. People in the restaurant turned to stare at us. I automatically shifted into the sympathy mode, patting her shoulder and silently passing her a tissue, while wishing the old man at the next table would stop peering at us through his thick glasses and mind his own business. I signaled the waiter for a large scoop of chocolate ice cream. 

She blew her nose and looked at me through red eyes. 

“But why? I thought you guys had stopped fighting?” I enquired, infusing enough concern and anger in my voice as was expected of me. 

“He says he wants someone who is more practical and less emotional. What the hell does he mean by that? Am I the kind of person who makes a scene?” she screamed.

I declined to point out that the whole restaurant was now staring at us avidly, more Interested in her drama than the menu. Choosing the lesser of the two evils, I hid my embarrassment and nodded my head in agreement; assuring her that she wasn’t emotional and that he was a jerk and that he didn’t deserve her. Fifteen minutes of who-needs-men and men-are-bastards and five hundred calories later, she calmed down enough to bring her voice down a notch. I mentally added another to her list of failed relationships, which was now at a staggering seven. 

I’ve known her since my school days and despite our many differences, we’ve always remained good friends. We tended to balance each other-she was dumb, I was smart (which is another way of saying I was a nerd); she was the ‘hot chick’ while I was the kind who is usually invisible to guys till exam time. Still we managed to remain friends through our school and college lives.

“Remember when I had my first break-up?” she asked. We were only fourteen then, at a time when we were just discovering new body parts, and the idea of having a boyfriend was nothing more than owning a shiny new doll, and something inspired by chick flicks we watched on weekends. The word ‘dumping’ meant nothing more than a few tears and was soon forgotten over a large tub of icecream. As we grew older, the size of the tub grew proportionally smaller and was accompanied by increasingly expensive shopping sprees.

“Why do these things happen to me?” she said, looking up at the ceiling, as if all the Gods had specifically chosen to trouble her alone. I could have told her that she’d brought it onto herself but then she’d never listened to me. She could never stay single longer than a few months. I could not understand what she saw in the men she went out with, when it was plain to everyone else that they didn’t care for her more than they cared for their cars, and that they wanted only one thing from her.

“That’s not true. It’s not just about sex. I care about them and they care about me too,” she said, when I told her quite bluntly. I rolled my eyes. 

“This is men we are talking about. Words like ‘care’, ‘PMS’ and ‘commitment’ don’t figure in their dictionary,” I said. She looked at me and burst into tears again. I threw up my hands and fell back in my chair in frustration. 

Ok, I admit I didn’t have the guts to tell her to her face that she was being silly and immature and that she needed to get a grip. That was just me. If I had a house of my own, the name plate would probably read D-O-O-R-M-A-T. 

It took me another half an hour of male-bashing and another large scoop of ice cream to make her stop crying. By the time the bill arrived, she was calm enough to stop blowing her nose and even offered to pay the bill, which I gladly let her do, taking it as my fee for being her sounding board and counselor. For the seventh time. In my own foolish way, I felt nice for having helped her by being such a good friend and being so sympathetic.

We had just walked out of the restaurant when I remembered I’d left my car keys inside. I went back to get them. When I came out, she was standing there, talking to a guy. There was no trace of tears in her eyes and she was giving an ‘I’m-available’ pose- with one hand on her hip, her head slightly tilted and a sly smile on her face. He murmured something to her to which she gave a well-practiced husky laugh, and said, “Don’t be silly. I’m not that pretty!”

She turned to look at me and beamed as if the past one hour hadn’t happened at all. “He’s so cute, isn’t he?” she came up and whispered to me. Ignoring my stare, she said, “He’s just asked me if I could join him for a drive along the beach and I’ve said yes. What do you think?”

I looked from him to her and slapped myself three times. I walked to my car, shut the door and drove away, without looking back.

My search for Mr.Perfect

My search for Mr. Perfect started when I was 10. I was basically this “good girl”, who used to obey my parents (literally), never bawled or wailed at public gatherings, studied well, topped my class, and had quite a normal life. My childhood was never boring, for I had a wild imagination that was bigger than me (which is not saying much as I was only five feet). I ventured out sometimes, but there was a deep-rooted shyness in me that prevented me from rolling in the mud with the kids on the street.

As I grew up, my height remained the same, but my imagination expanded like an inflated balloon. I discovered the joy of fantasizing about guys through Hindi cinema. Every time Shah Rukh Khan aimed a sizzling look at the camera, with his dimples poking out, my heart sighed and melted like ice cream in the Chennai heat. By the time I was fourteen, I had already had my third infatuation. Maybe it was the initial lack of interaction with boys or my over-sized imagination, but I used to spin dreams around every male character outside the family I knew for more than a month. And, they were not always what you might call James Bond look-alikes. The last crush I had in school was on a guy who looked like someone who’d been bench-pressed from both sides, but to me, he was John Cena himself. My appalling taste continued to baffle and mystify my friends all through college- they could not see what I could see in the guys I liked.

When the time came to sit down and choose the right guy for me to settle down with, however, my mom decided to take matters into her own hands. Though the decision brought out shocked looks from my dad (“but she’s just a child!”) and a snort from my brother, my mom was very firm that it was high time I started looking. She was afraid, I think, that I might run away with a guy who looks like a chimpanzee, just because he had an Einstein-like brain. She wanted to be able to introduce her son-in-law to the public as a human being, she told me, not some primate that escaped from the Amazon.

When a girl turns 21 in an Indian household, it causes a stir, and brings out the gossip-loving, jobless ‘aunties’ sniffing like wolves. Dad starts poring over account statements, while mom starts poring over jewellery brochures. Every function you go to, people give knowing looks, and hint heavily and very obviously about prospective grooms, silk saris, jewellery and food. It didn’t take much to make me put up a profile on matrimonial websites, consent to have my horoscope written up and say ok to circulating it. I don’t know what made me agree to it. I’ve always been easily swayed and not exactly a champion decision maker. I shrugged off the comments made by my friends on how medieval that kind of thinking was, and how nowadays all women give importance to their career, and how I was wasting my brains and talent. As long as I didn’t know what I wanted, I was ready to be steered in what course my parents decided was best.

My mom was very excited about it, more than I was. She sat with me, while I filled up the profile forms online, giving suggestions, and giggling with me. I agree it was fun in the beginning. I was dragged along to family functions and weddings, forced to put up a ‘good girl’ image. Every third step I took, there was a relative, looking very important, waiting to advice, admonish or approve. One of my many unknown relatives came up to me, teary-eyed, and spoke vehemently about how she would make it her life’s goal to find me a suitable husband, and then blew her nose loudly, causing a few people to frown at me. I was introduced to people I didn’t know and had to stand with a wide smile pasted on my face, as they gave me the once-over. I put up with it for a while, till it became irksome. My mom had to give me inconspicuous jabs to stop me from shooting off my mouth or rolling my eyes. But it did feel nice to be the centre of attention at the gatherings.

Apart from socializing, I started taking care of myself, going to the gym, increasing my beauty parlor visits to 2 per week and staring at saris displayed on shop windows, wondering if green made me look fat. I found myself asking my cousins for pedicure tips, stopping at every ‘sale’ sign, and worrying about my tummy. My dad became moodier while my mom became more exuberant. Sometimes he looked wistful, probably still imagining me in a pink frock and pigtails. I was ambivalent, but decided to go with the flow. Besides, my mom’s excitement was infectious.

It was exciting at first, going through the guys’ profiles, laughing and commenting, picking and choosing. And I had to admit it gave me a thrill to receive a couple of messages through the website. My excitement stopped short when I saw the kind of profiles that I got messages from. I immediately realized why some men have to resort to matrimonial websites to find a girl. If they had been more ‘worth-a-second-look’ or smarter, they wouldn’t need a website.

As the days went by, I became increasingly frustrated. Most of the profiles wanted ‘simple, home-loving traditional girl with modern values’. I don’t get it. What do they mean by simple? I asked my friend about this and he said, “Probably just means she should say yes to whatever the guy says.” I shook my head in disgust. What’s the fun in being a simple girl? Complexity meant intrigue and more fun anyway. I was also starting to get a headache whenever I saw the oxymoronic statement “traditional with modern values”. And there was the fact that hardly any of the profile descriptions were properly phrased. One guy had written “I want to make love with the girl I want to marry”. My mom and I rolled on the floor with laughter when we saw this one. Occasionally, a few profiles sounded impressive, but the photos made them look mentally retarded.

Somewhere along the line (I think it was after the 102nd profile that I saw and was disappointed yet again) I realized my search would never be complete anyway. And then I hoped fate would displace all my plans and maybe unexpectedly make me fall in love with someone. At least then my mother would have only the saris left to worry about......

Heavy issues

The alarm rang loudly. Muttering to myself, I snuggled into my pillow trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep. In ten minutes, the alarm rang again, shattering my dream, and making me get up, grumbling. I walked sleepily to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and was just turning the hot water tap on when I noticed something in a corner of the bathroom. I stepped on it, looked down, and screamed.

My brother came rushing in, cricket bat in hand, ready to take on the slimy reptile that he assumed must have scared me. Instead, he swallowed a laugh, and tried to keep his face sympathetic, as he saw me standing on the new weighing machine my mom had bought just the previous day. It took me ten whole minutes to recover from the shock of seeing my weight. How could I weigh so much? The machine (which I now considered my mortal enemy) indicated that I was exactly ten kilos overweight, and I immediately decided it was faulty. I can’t be that fat, I told myself (I hoped desperately I wasn’t!). I thought I could hear my brother laughing as he went back to his room. The beast, I thought angrily, taking my anger out on him.

I knew I had to do something before I started bouncing on the road like a rubber ball, and considered going on a diet. The trouble was- I’m a total sucker when it comes to food (who isn’t?). Plus, I was very lazy, and to me, exercise was as painful as leg waxing, which at least I had to do only once a month. After a few days of running on the treadmill in the gym (which left me panting and gasping like an asthmatic patient) I’d given it up.

To make matters worse, one of my cousins, who was slim, tall and very pretty, decided to come and stay with us for a few days, just when I was nicely sulking, and blaming the dairy industry for making all that lovely cheese, butter and chocolate that had tempted me and driven me to obesity. Just what I need, I thought sarcastically, to give my self-confidence a boost.

She breezed in, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, looking like a poster girl.

“So how are things going?” she asked me, after dinner one day. “Your brother was telling me you were upset about something.”

Damn my brother, I thought with gritted teeth. He always got a kick out of embarrassing me.

She clicked her tongue sympathetically, as if she understood. “Listen, it’s normal to put on weight at this age,” she said. Easy for her to say, her thighs didn’t wobble when she walked. When I didn’t reply, she said, “How about letting me help you?”

“Know anyone who can do a liposuction?” I asked. She let out a hoot of laughter and said, “No, no. I’m going to help you lose weight the traditional way.”

I groaned. “I thought technology has advanced far enough to help us lose weight in less painful ways.” I said. She shook her head, and said in an all-knowing voice, “Trust me, this is the best way. Come on, don’t be so lazy. Don’t you want to catch the eye of that cute guy in your class?”

“I was rather hoping to dazzle him with my brilliance,” I replied.

“Guys always go for looks first,” she said, knowingly. Yeah, she’d know, I thought. She probably spent a lot of time beating them off with a stick. I agreed, and she slapped my palm, as if striking a deal.

I was woken up rudely the next day by her banging on my door. I looked out the window; it was still dark. I opened the door, and tried to focus my sleepy eyes. She was wearing snug tennis shorts, and a T-shirt, and looked bright and awake as if it was 8 o’clock in the morning.

“Go to hell,” I muttered, my brain still half-asleep. Fifteen minutes later (it was precisely 5:30 in the morning), we were running on the deserted road, or more accurately, I was lumbering along, while she jogged gracefully. My energy and resolve lasted for fifteen minutes, before I fell against a pole, gasping for breath, my tongue hanging out like a dog.

“What are you trying to do, murder me?” I managed to ask my cousin, between gasps. My heart was pumping like a 100 Watt motor, and every muscle in my body screamed out with pain. I wondered if I might die of sheer exhaustion. I noticed with envy that she simply looked a shade tired, and her face glowed from the exercise. I, on the other hand, had sweat running down my face in buckets, till it formed a small puddle on the road.

“You can’t give up now, we’ve just started,” she said, gearing up for another lap. I would have sworn, except that there wasn’t any breath left in me. But I gritted my teeth, braced myself like an Olympic athlete, and started jogging once more. I didn’t want her to think I was weak.

I somehow managed to drag myself back home after her, without needing an ambulance. I fell heavily on the sofa, and emptied an entire bottle of water. I shuddered at the thought of having to do this everyday. At least, I could look forward to a good, heavy breakfast.

“Here,” my cousin said, setting down the bowl of soup in front of me, with the flourish of a cordon bleu chef. I shut my eyes, and brought the image of that cute guy into my head to help me show some willpower. It will get better, I told myself.

The nightmare continued for two weeks. I felt like I was at boot camp. My cousin took ‘my case’, as she called it, very seriously. She made me jog everyday; made sure I ate only the food that was bland, tasteless and ‘healthy’ and deprived me of my afternoon nap. I almost cried when she told me I couldn’t touch chocolate for a month. I had to eat a lot of vegetables (yuck!) some of which I’d never seen in my life. She was a slave-driver.

One of those days, a little voice in me, the one that had horns and wore red, started wondering if there was any way I could kill her without leaving behind any evidence. But then, the other voice (which I really hate), with the halo and wings, reminded me that she was doing this for me, and not for herself. I sighed and tried to stuff the cabbage on my plate down my throat.

But, surprisingly, I did begin to notice a difference in myself. I lost a lot of weight, and it was a relief really, not having to struggle into those size 32 jeans. I no longer had to tolerate my brother’s snide remarks. I became more confident, and best of all, I finally did draw up enough courage to talk to that cute guy in my class. Only, I found out that he was so dumb, when I asked him, “How about a date?” he said “huh? It’s the 15^th, I think.”

Oh well, you can’t win them all.

A Love Story

I was shocked and amazed to discover, at nineteen, that I was in love with my best friend. It was so sudden, so unexpected. I’d known Nikhil since I was six, and we’d been classmates ever since. Nikhil was my best friend, my pal, my confidante, and it suddenly occurred to me that I could spend the rest of my life with him. More, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I looked at him as I had, for so many years, and I could feel my heart thudding in my chest like never before, my nerves tingling, and the pumping of estrogens through my body. I couldn’t explain why or how, but just that he was the only one for me. 

The only thing left to do was to convince him that I was the only one for him too. Before that, I had to convince him I was a girl, no, not just a girl, a woman. I was his ‘buddy’, and that meant he had the license to shamelessly comment on other girls in front of me, not bother to behave him self, be a slob and not say pretty words just to impress me. In short, he treated me just like he treated his guy friends. I had to change that.

At nineteen, I looked upon myself as a young woman and not a teenage girl. I was stubborn, hard-headed, goal-oriented and I usually got what I wanted, with careful planning and operation. I sat down for a whole evening thinking about how to make him fall in love with me – how to ‘seduce’ him, I thought, with a smile. I imagined myself as one of those romance-novel heroines, and him as the playing-hard-to-get hero. I made a list of what all I could do to impress him. Being his pal, I knew all his likes and dislikes.

First, I tried poetry. I racked my brains and came with a sort of love poem titled ‘only you’. A few days ago, I would have snorted in disgust if I’d had to write something so mushy-mushy, but now, it only seemed romantic to me. I showed it to him one day, or more accurately, kept it on my table in clear view so he would see it when he came home to eat dinner (three times a week he ate at my house-he loved my mom’s cooking. Maybe I should learn how to cook his favourite dish?) . As I expected, he saw it and took it in his hand.

“Hey, shorty, what’s this?” he asked. He always teased me that I was a foot shorter than him.

“What’s what?” I asked innocently.

He read it in silence, and I watched him expectantly, like I used to watch my teacher correct my term papers. He let out a whistle.

“Wow! I didn’t know you could write like this.” My insides jumped with joy.

“Thanks,” I said. 

“Do you mind if I keep this?” he asked. Was he going to keep it under his pillow? Or frame it?

“Um, ok. But why?” I asked.

He grinned at me as he folded the paper and pocketed it. “There’s this first year girl in college I want to impress. You won’t mind if I say I wrote it, will you?”

Something deflated inside me like a balloon pricked with a pin. Strike one.

Okay, maybe the poem was a bad idea. I switched over to plan B. I nagged him into taking me to a romantic movie.

“Why in the world do you want to watch that stupid, sloppy movie?” he said.

“I like Shah Rukh,” I said, “and you can drool at Kajol.” I paused and then said, “I’ll buy the popcorn and coke.” That did it. He was a sucker for popcorn. Actually he was always ready for free food.

He shrugged and said, “Fine, meet me there at two o clock.” I restrained myself from giving him a hug. Patience, I told myself.

I rehearsed the plan in my mind. When the lights were off in the theatre, I could put my hand over his, he would stare at me, and I would say, “I love you.” The idea thrilled me. I spent an hour dressing up, carefully coordinating my accessories with my new blue skirt and bell-sleeved top, sneaking into my mom’s room and spraying her perfume on my wrists and over my dress. I reached there ten minutes earlier, and tried not to dance on my toes, looking around for him. He sauntered into the theatre, wearing a black shirt, his hair rumpled, with a goofy smile on his face. Funny how I’d never felt the urge to run my fingers through his hair before.

“Where’s the popcorn?” he asked, his single most important concern.

I gritted my teeth. He hadn’t even noticed my new dress. I shoved the popcorn into his hands. He sniffed the air, and frowned.

“What’s that smell?”

“Perfume,” I said.

“Perfume?” he laughed. “Since when did you start wearing perfume?”

I shut my eyes and willed myself not to swear in public. It will be better when the movie starts, I told myself.

On screen, Shah Rukh Khan looked fabulous as he danced with Kajol, but for once, I didn’t notice. I was too wound up, planning when and how to start. I never once looked in Nikhil’s direction, fearing I might blabber something.

You can do this, I told myself. Just tell him.

What if he said no? Another voice spoke in my head. Or worse, what if he laughed?

You won’t know unless you say it, the first voice replied.

Caught up in this tug-of-war in my head, I suddenly heard a low, rumbling sound. I looked around, and to my disgust, saw that he’d fallen asleep, snoring. I slapped my hand against my forehead, and fell back on my chair, depressed. So much for my plan B.

My anger lasted two days. I’d never been able to hold out against him more than that. He was so sincerely apologetic, I forgave him. But I was far from done with him. I fell back on the old ploy of reaching a man’s heart through his stomach. I planned all his favourite dishes, jotted down the recipes, bought candles, and invited him to dinner when my parents had gone for an evening show. I set the table and candles, and waited for him to come.

When the knock sounded on the door at seven o’ clock, I skipped all the way to the door. My bright smile faded when I opened the door and found Arjun along with him. Arjun was his guy friend, and they usually hung out together at the beach, playing football. I liked him, but at that moment I could have easily strangled him. I looked at Nikhil and he shrugged apologetically. “He was feeling bored so I brought him along. Hope you don’t mind.” I swallowed the disappointment and took them both inside.

“Wow, this looks great,” Arjun commented, as we went into the dining room. “Thank you,” I replied, trying not to sound as if I had a toothache.

They pounced on the food like street dogs, spilling food on the tablecloth, wiping their mouths carelessly with the napkins I’d carefully folded, and making guy jokes.

I smiled through gritted teeth and watched them discuss cricket. I couldn’t eat anything. I interrupted Arjun in the middle of a running commentary about some stupid cricket match and said sweetly, “Have you ever heard of the expression ‘three’s a crowd?’” He looked confused for a second, and then smiled and said, “That’s okay. We don’t mind you being with us.”

It was all I could do to stop myself from throwing the water in the jug all over him. Nikhil smiled, but sobered at once, seeing the expression on my face. I couldn’t wait for the evening to get over. Strike three.

I decided to give it one last shot. This time I went to the expert. My mom.

“Mom, my friend likes a guy. She wants him to pay more attention to her. What do you suppose she should do?”

My mom smiled and said, “Jealousy. Ask her to try making him jealous. Works all the time.”

“Thanks,” I said, turning to go. My mom waited for a second, and then asked, “So, who’s the guy you like?”

She never missed a trick. I laughed and ran away. I could always tell her later.

I decided to follow my mom’s advice. It was Valentine’s Day. One of my cousins had come home for the weekend, and I enlisted his help. Nikhil, me and a few of our other classmates usually met up on Saturdays and went to the beach. This time, I decided not to go.

“Why?” Nikhil asked, when I told him over the phone.

“I have a date,” I said, dramatically.

“Don’t be silly, you don’t date,” he said.

I pretended to be angry. “FYI, someone has asked me out, and I have said yes. I am going to the mall with him.”

“But you can’t just go traipsing off with someone you don’t know. It’s dangerous.” I was delighted to hear the angry edge to his voice.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Besides, he’s Smita’s cousin, and I know he’s a decent guy. I’m entitled to do what I want, aren’t I?”

For a long time there was silence. I wanted him to say, ‘No, I won’t let you go out with anyone.’ I willed him to be angry enough with me to stop me from going. “Fine! Do whatever you want to do,” he said, and cut the call. I kept the phone down and left.

I was restless throughout the trip to mall. I kept looking behind my shoulder for Nikhil, much to my cousin’s exasperation, but he never turned up. After two hours, I sighed and gave up. What had I expected? To have him marching up to us and dragging me out? I blinked back the tears that came to my eyes.

My cousin must have noticed something for his expression softened, and he made me sit down at a café, and got me a cup of coffee.

“You’re in love with him?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “the jerk.”

He laughed and said, “Well, being a guy, I can give you a piece of advice.” I looked up at him.

He said, “First, stop trying to impress him. It works for a while, yeah, but if you really care about him, just let go. If he’s meant, he’ll come to you. If he isn’t, then there’s always someone else. But don’t spoil the friendship you have by trying to be someone you are not.” 

I hadn’t heard this kind of advice from anyone. And it made so much sense. I hugged my cousin, and thanked him. I went home feeling a weight had lifted from my chest. I went up to my room, and found a note on my bed.

It said, ‘I’m sorry. Will you be my Valentine? I love you.’ Below it was signed, ‘your best pal, Nikhil. P.S: you looked great that day at the theatre.’

I stood there, clutching the note in my hand, laughing and crying at the same time.

WEDDING WOES

(This article was published in the magazine New Woman in 2009)

I stared at my mom in dismay.

“You can’t do this to me,” I said.

“I’m sorry, dear, its just one of the things you have to put up with in life. Besides, all your aunts will be there and they want to see you.”

“If they want to see me they can always come home,” I grumbled.

My mom pretended not to notice. I stomped back to my room, muttering curses under my breath, and slammed the door behind.

I had to attend my ‘distant’ cousin’s wedding. Worse, I had to wear a sari! Give me jeans and a sweatshirt any day, but a sari? I’d be tripping and falling over it a dozen times before we even reached there. I sulked and pouted for a week before the wedding, behaving typically like a teenager, and not the twenty year old I was. My mom’s reaction to it was just two words. “Grow up.”

I don’t know why it irritated me more that she was right. Maybe being right all the time comes as a side-effect of gestation? If so I can’t wait to have children, so I could advice someone who’d at least listen to me. But if they are going to be anything like me, I doubt that.

Anyway, the whole marriage thing just freaks me out. At my age, marriage was akin to claustrophobia. I hate being told what to do or being dependent on anyone. Like most smart girls, I saw marriage as a lifetime imprisonment, a millstone around the neck, a violation of my freedom, etc etc. One-fourth of those who got married got divorced anyway, so what was the point? And arranged marriages are so archaic. The whole concept of marrying because of matching horoscopes seemed silly to me. I mean, what if the person you married was a chain smoker and you married him without knowing it? Or what if he snored in bed or frowned upon the books you loved or movies you liked watching? Or if you two have absolutely nothing in common to even talk about and are bound to each other for the rest of your lives? It would be like putting a scientist and a punk artist together. But I kept my thoughts to myself, so as not to give a heart-attack to my grandmother and aunts, who couldn’t wait to marry me off, like a particularly nasty cold they wanted to be rid of. Fat chance of that ever happening, I promised myself.

I was rudely woken up by my mom from a wonderful dream, involving me dancing in the rain with Shah Rukh Khan, at four o’ clock in the morning on Sunday. Which idiot ever decided to fix the wedding on a Sunday? My mom turned a deaf ear to all my whining and complaining, punctuated by yawning every few minutes, as she helped me put on the sari. I reflected on how it would take me two minutes to pull on a salwar as opposed to the twenty minutes it took to fold and twist and wrap the green sari around my body. If I ever got married, I had to wear a sari for every bloody occasion. Another excuse on my list of why-not-to-marry excuses.

I wore a pretty silver chain and small studs on my four-times-pierced ear lobes, which my grandmother always found as an excuse to criticize. I refused point-blank to wear the heavy gold necklace and the matching dangling earrings she took out from the locker. She gave a what-has-happened-to-the-girls-of-today sigh and kept it back safely in, advising me to wear it at least for my marriage, which I promised her I would. If I ever got married.

I slept through the drive in the car, and woke up with a jolt when it came to a halt in front of the marriage hall. I looked out the window. It was only 5 o clock in the morning. The sun hadn’t even come up yet! The last time I’d been awake this early was during my last semester exams.

“Take that frown off your face, and put on a bright smile, dear,” my mom said as she got out of the car. “Anyone would think we dragged you here in chains.” She looked lovely, despite her age, I admitted. Her chocolate brown colour sari swept around her like a ball gown, and made her look years younger.

I plastered a wide smile on my face and said, “Is this bright enough for you?”

She was not impressed one bit. “You are only making a fool of yourself,” she said in that maddening, mom’s-always-right tone again. My dad, dressed in a silk dhoti and a light brown shirt, gave a non-committal shrug, stifling a yawn, and took my mother’s hand as he led her in. He too would have preferred to spend the day lounging in the sofa, watching a cricket match. I knew he at least sympathized with me.

The smile on my face turned to a grimace as I was greeted by ear-splitting music that blared from the five-feet-tall speakers on either side as I entered. I stuffed my fingers in my ears till we passed the speakers, and then heaved a sigh of relief. Boy, if this was their way of welcoming people, there was going to be less of a crowd than at a Bangladesh vs. Netherlands cricket match on Indian turf.

Unfortunately, the hall was full of people, a parade of silks in all colours, and laughter and chatter flowing around despite the hour and the din of the music. I had to shade my eyes against the glare of the gold and diamonds flashing at the neck, chest and earlobes of each and every one. People greeted each other with enthusiasm, slapping each others backs, kissing and hugging as if they were meeting them after years, which was probably true. Marriages are the only occasions everyone turns up for. No one wants to pass up the offer of free food.

I smiled at everyone in general, and tried not to trip over my sari and high heels. My mom was swept off into the growing crowd, but not without a warning glance at me. Sheesh, I knew how to behave; I’m not a silly teenager. After greeting and chatting briefly with all my aunts and uncles, I found myself a secluded corner, and a cup of hot coffee, and decided to watch the going-ons from my vantage point. I told myself this was a lesson on human relations.

The whole hall was the scene of intense activity. The bride’s harassed-looking father hurried about, clutching his silk dhoti with one hand, welcoming everyone. The groom’s relatives swaggered about as if they owned the place. People bustled about, drinking coffee, exchanging pleasantries and idle chitchat, and at the dais, in the front, the groom sat with the priest, repeating chants after the former, looking very somber. Probably mourning the last few moments of his bachelorhood. The bride was still dressing up, I guessed.

The women looked happy, probably because they didn’t have to cook at least today, and the men looked happier, probably because they didn’t have to eat their wives’ meals today. The sheer number of relatives was overwhelming.

One lady, who looked like she was a contestant for the “biggest loser challenge”, ambushed me and claimed to be my third aunt’s sister’s husband’s cousin. She pinched my cheeks not-too-gently and commented that I reminded her of one of her uncle’s sister’s daughters. I very much wanted to tell her who or rather, what, she reminded me of, but I decided not to flap my gums. I was left rubbing my sore cheek as she waddled away, but my relief at her departure was short-lived as another one, who made the previous one look thin, wandered up to me and plowed on like a steam engine. I put on a fake smile and listened to her, nodding my head, like I used to do in college while pretending to listen to the lecturer. I interrupted her droning with a “that sounds fascinating, but I really should go. I want to help my mom with, er, the flowers.” She smiled and said, “of course, what a responsible girl you are.” I walked away, rolling my eyes.

I watched the ‘’ Kasi Yatra”, the swing ceremony, and the rest of the fanfare from a safe distance. I had nothing against the customs, of course, but I just wasn’t inclined to follow them myself.

Another thing that irritated me was that they all knew I was, according to them, of marriageable age. I was bombarded with some subtle, and some not-so-subtle hints about how I should start shopping for my wedding trousseau, learning how to cook, and how to show respect to elders, blah blah. The shopping I wouldn’t have minded, but as for the cooking, my culinary skills extended to making bread toast and frying eggs. I side-tracked all their questions as politely as I could manage, and slipped off to find a refuge before they started showing me photographs of ‘prospective grooms’, all of whom, they assured me, were either good looking, successful business executives, or big-muscled sports persons. Nowhere were the words ‘smart’, ‘understanding’ or ‘practical’ used. One of the women even claimed her son was shy and didn’t speak much to girls. I didn’t point out that I had seen the very man flirting with one of the serving girls in a corner of the kitchen.

I was just starting to get really bored when the crowd parted, and I saw a tall, handsome man in a black Sherwani, walking in from the door. He looked rather dashing, like one of those old-time heroes. I imagined him in a dark suit, at a club, saying “A vodka martini on the rocks, shaken, not stirred”, Bond style. The girl in me gave a long, appreciative whistle, and I tried not to drool. Finally, I told myself, this wedding is starting to look interesting. I took a step forward but someone brushed past me and I caught sight of a long mane of sleek black hair and a rich, peacock blue designer sari, before the woman launched herself on the guy, my guy, and hugged him hard enough to make me grit my teeth. He responded with equal fervour, laughing and hugging her. Strike out, I thought gloomily.

I decided I had had enough of this wedding, and was just about to find my mother and tell her I was leaving, when everyone began to get excited. The time had come for the grand finale-the tying of the ‘thaali’ around the bride’s neck. The image of a noose came to my mind, but I edged forward with the others, hoping to glimpse the momentous occasion.

I caught sight of the bride’s face as she sat patiently on her father’s lap, while her husband-to-be continued the chanting, according to the pujari’s instructions, holding the yellow thread in his hand. A kaleidoscope of emotions raced on her face, as she stared up at her man, and he, down at her. In that moment just before the pujari gave the signal to the drummers, they stared at each other, two individuals giving up all bonds to become one, to live together for the rest of their lives, to share joy, sorrow, and most importantly, their love. And that was what, it suddenly struck me, marriage was all about. Love. The love and the happiness they gave each other and to others. He smiled at her, a radiant smile, and she gave him one in return, while tears ran down her cheeks, as he tied the knot around her neck three times, to the loud beating of drums, signifying the union. Everyone cried, hugged and congratulated each other, and suddenly they all seemed closer to each other, the bond running through all of them clearly visible and strong. I saw my mother wipe a tear from her eye, and lay her head on dad’s shoulder, as if imagining my wedding. I couldn’t help the small lump in my throat.

Lunch was a noisy affair, but the food was great and finger-licking tasty. I laughed with my father as he made comments about how some people made kesari that tasted like mud, giving a surreptitious glance at my mom. My mother frowned at him, but I saw her lips twitch when he turned away. I was amused, but kept my mouth shut. I was really enjoying myself. I actually felt a twinge of regret the day had to come to an end.

My mom was surprised to see me smiling, genuinely, as we started to leave.

“So how did you find it?” she asked.

“Well, it was boring at first, but I think the idea of marriage is catching up to me after all. At least I managed to trip and fall only twice.”

My mom laughed. “Your grandmother will be so proud.”

I gave another smile as we settled down in the car. It had turned out to be quite an interesting day. And, best of all, I had finally managed to work up a conversation with the good looking guy I’d seen. He gave me his cell phone number and invited me to a cup of coffee. I sat back in the car, contented with the world.

Oh, and that girl I saw with him? She was his sister.

The wastrel

(A deviation from my usual humorous posts)

The first time he saw her was sometime in the middle of summer. She was walking down the road, a short woman, with a brown paper bag in her hand. She was smiling into space, her mind so occupied she didn’t notice the stares of the other people. Maybe they found the way she walked or her dreamy smile odd, but she didn’t glance twice at anyone.

He didn’t know what made him follow her, but he found himself trailing along after her, though careful to maintain a distance between the two of them. She didn’t turn back even once, though others looked at him, or rather, looked down upon him. No one approves of a wastrel, roaming around the streets, no matter that he was too young to live on the streets alone, with no home to go to. Some people even screwed up their noses, as if he smelt like garbage.

For once, he didn’t care as he followed the woman for what seemed like ages, till she stopped outside a small house. He halted, and watched as she rummaged in her bag for a key, opened the door, and to his disappointment, went in and shut the door. His hopes of getting some food were dashed, and he put his head down. He haunted the narrow alleys, scrounging for leftovers in the dustbin. He ate what he got, though it was disgusting. As night came, he curled up on a park bench opposite to the woman’s house and tried to sleep. He shivered in the cold night, but finally, exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep. Life on the streets was not easy.

He got up early the next morning, the sun shining bright on his face, and stretched himself. His body felt stiff from having slept on the hard bench, but he’d gotten used to it. As he washed his face in the fountain, many people jogged or walked by. His stomach rumbled. He walked down the road to a small bakery, and looked up hopefully at the man opening the shutter. The man looked at him, and he saw pity in the man’s eyes. Then the man smiled at him, and took out a few slices of bread from the shelf and gave it to him. He pounced hungrily on it and ate with relish. The man watched him for a while, amused, and then shooed him away, saying his customers would be coming soon. He tried to show the man his thanks, but the latter shook his head. Feeling happy, he walked back to the park.

As he passed the house, he saw the door open and the woman come out. For the first time, she saw him, and paused. She came up to him and smiled down at him. She asked him his name, but he couldn’t reply. She understood that he couldn’t speak, and gave him another smile. After that, she walked away, leaving him staring at her till she turned around the corner.

The day turned out to be a disaster. He had the misfortune of getting into a fight with one of the street gangs because of the very silly reason that he didn’t have enough sense not to laugh at the leader, which didn’t go down well with his minions. What provoked them most was that he was smaller, and much younger. A few of the other waifs who lived on the streets like him, tried to help him, but in the end, they had to concede defeat. He limped back to the park, a cut above his left eye, and a gash in his chest and numerous wounds in other parts of his body. The thugs had shown no mercy, but he had the small satisfaction of having hurt the leader badly enough to leave a permanent scar.

He fell down heavily in front of the woman’s house, his body racked with pain. It was past sunset, and he lay there for a long time, with passers-by looking at him in pity, some shocked by the wounds, and some shaking their heads at him. But none of them lifted a finger to help him. His eyes closed, and he prayed he would die, if only to escape the hardship.

His ears suddenly caught voices and someone lifted him up. He opened one eye, his right one, and looked up at the woman’s kind face, her brown eyes full of pity as she carried him inside. Tears ran down his face, even as his wounds hurt. She spoke in a soothing voice and took him to the kitchen, and laid him on the huge table. She continued to speak softly as she took out bandages, cloth, and a glass bottle. She smiled at him and pressed cotton soaked in some liquid on the wound in his chest. He yelped and flinched but she held him down and wrapped the wound in bandage. She gave him some food and told him he could sleep on the sofa in the hall. Her kindness overwhelmed him, and he felt as happy as he had never felt in his life.

“Someone so young as you are shouldn’t be out on the streets alone. You might get killed. If you don’t have a home, you can stay here till you find one,” she told him.

From that day, he became a part of her life. She treated him like a friend sometimes, and sometimes like a son, but never made him feel like a stranger. He would walk with her everyday to the school where she worked and roam in the school’s huge ground. Some of the children would play with him, but some of them gave him disapproving looks, plainly knowing he didn’t belong there, while some ran away at his sight. He avoided the streets where he used to roam; he didn’t want to go back to that life ever again. Some kids thought it amusing to call him names as he couldn’t talk back, but every time he made threatening noises and glared at them, they would hurry away, crying for their mothers, leaving him laughing at them.

In the evenings, the woman and he would go for a walk in the park. She talked to him, and he listened intently, even though he couldn’t reply. She told him of her school, her likes and dislikes. She used to make him treats if he behaved properly and made him take a bath every day. In clean water. He felt like a new person. He understood why she enjoyed his company. They were both lonely.

“There isn’t enough love left in the world,” she would say. “People are in too much of a hurry to appreciate simple things in life.”

They would play with the Frisbee in the park and go for long walks along the beach. Seeing families together, laughing and playing, no longer made him sad. He was part of a family too.

Once, in a playful mood, he hid one of her shoes in the closet. He laughed to himself as she frantically searched for it, grumbling that it was getting late for school. She must have noticed him grinning, for she caught him by the ear and demanded if he’d taken it. He got it out from where he’d hidden it, but instead of giving it to her, he ran around the house with it, with her shouting and chasing him all over. In the end, they both fell on the floor, exhausted and laughing and his heart glowed with the love he felt for her.

He used to wander around the house, but it was a small one, with one bedroom, a kitchen, and a hall. Compared to the streets, it was heaven. There were no photographs and he wondered why she had never married or had a family. He couldn’t ask her even if he wanted to but sometimes, he saw her sitting on the sofa, staring into space, a sad look on her face. He did his best to keep her happy and she always smiled when he was around.

She was an odd person. She would giggle suddenly, for no reason, and then stop, realizing no one had said anything funny. Sometimes, she would just sit in a corner, doing nothing, till he nudged her, and she would jump, suddenly realizing she’d been staring at the same spot for a long time. She seemed to slip into those daydreams often and as the days went by, she became more and more silent. He grew worried but there was no other way to help her except to cheer her up and play with her. Sometimes, he could hear groan in pain at night. Maybe she was sick. He prayed nothing would happen to her.

The day came when his whole world came crashing down. He got up in the morning and was surprised to see the sun was up already and she hadn’t woken up yet. He went up to her room and saw her still in bed. He tried to wake her, but she didn’t move. Panic filled him as her hands fell limp when he tried to move them. He ran out the back door, which was not locked, to the next house where an old man lived. He tried to tell him something was wrong, and indicated that he come with him. The old man understood, and took his walking stick in his hand. Fear had him running, and the old man panted, trying to keep up with him. He came to a stop next to her bed, and looked at the old man, hoping he would be able to wake her. He watched as the old man opened her eyelid with his hand, and felt along her hand with his fingers, searching for something. He saw the man’s face go pale and knew something was wrong. The old man shook his head at him, and wiped away tears. It was then that it struck him. She was gone. Forever.

He had seen others die, of course. The other homeless creatures in the streets died of starvation, of the cold, but never before had he felt so terrible. She had some disease, they said, but he didn’t understand. For the first time in his life, he felt pain as he had never felt. To have received so much love in such a short time only to have the person cruelly ripped away from him, was agony beyond anything he had faced in the streets. For four days, he cried. He watched them bury her in the graveyard, a few streets away. People looked at him in sympathy but nothing anyone did could fill the gaping hole in his heart. He went everyday to her grave and would simply lie down on the cold stone, hoping to die, so he could be with her. The watchman would just look at him and shake his head, saying, “Stupid dog”, and walk away, leaving him to rest in peace.