2 States The Story Of My Marriage (20 page)

little. The men opened their newspapers. The women gave each other formal

smiles like ballet dancers. The groom took out his latest Motorola Startac mobile

phone, checking messages. Ananya’s mother served her standard fossilised

snake snacks. No one spoke to each other. In a Punjabi home, if a similar silence

occurred, you could assume that something terrible has happened – like

someone has died or there is a property dispute or someone forgot to put butter

in the black daal. But this is Ananya’s home protocol. You meet in an excited

manner, you serve bland snacks and you open the newspaper or exchange dead

looks.

My re-entry made everyone notice me. Ananya’s mother seemed surprised.

Ananya sat next to her and faced Harish’s parents. I occupied my corner chair.

‘Manju’s tutor,’ Ananya’s mother said. Everyone looked at me, the tutor who

came to teach in a corporate suit.

‘He is Ananya akka’s classmate,’ Manju said, restoring some status to me.

‘You also went to IIMA? I have many colleagues who are your seniors,’ Harish

said.

‘Really? That’s nice,’ I said. I wanted to shove the spiral snacks up his

moustache-covered nose, but I kept a diplomatic smile.

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Ananya’s father spoke to Harish’s father in Tamil. ‘Something something

Citibank Chennai posted something. Something something Punjabi fellow.’

Everyone nodded and felt relieved after my credentials of being a Punjabi

made me a safe outsider.

‘Talk, Ananya,’ Ananya’s mother whispered to her.

‘How long are you here for?’ Ananya asked as her bangles jingled. She really

didn’t have to wear the bangles.

‘Two weeks. Then I have to go for our annual conference to Bali,’ he said.

‘Bali?’ one of Ananya’s aunts said.

‘Bali is an island in Indonesia, an archipelago. It is eight hours flying time from
here via Singapore,’ Harish’s mother said.

Everyone nodded as they absorbed the little nugget of knowledge before

breakfast. Ananya’s family loved knowledge, irrespective of whether they ever

used it.

We moved to the dining table, or rather the dining floor. Ananya’s mother had

already kept the banana leaves. I found them a little greener than usual, perhaps

my jealousy reflected in them.

Aunties loaded up Harish’s leaf.

‘This is too much,’ Harish said, pointing to the six idlis on his leaf. ‘Does

anyone want one?’ He picked up an idli and placed it in Ananya’s leaf.

‘Wow!’ all the aunties screamed in unison.

‘See, how much care he is taking of her already. You are so lucky, Ananya,’ an

aunt said as I almost tore a piece of banana leaf and ate it.

I saw the bowl of sambhar in the middle. I wondered if I should pick it up and

upturn it on Harish’s head. She can take her own idlis, idiot, why don’t you go drown
in Bali, I thought.

Harish thought it really funny to shift everything he was served to Ananya. He

transferred parts of upma, pongal, chutney and banana chips from his leaf to

hers. Really Harish, did anybody teach you not to stretch a bad joke too far? And all you
aunts, can you please stop sniggering so as to no encourage this moron?

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‘We must decide the date keeping in mind the US holiday calendar,’ Shobha

aunty said and I felt she was moving way, way too fast.

‘Easy, aunty, easy,’ Ananya said.

Thanks, Ananya madam, that is so nice of you to finally impart some sense to these
people. ‘You OK?’ Manju offered an idli to me. I had spent two months with him.

He could sense the turmoil in me.

‘I’m good,’ I said.

The breakfast continued. And then Ananya’s mother did something that paled

all the idli-passing and date-setting comments. She began to cry.

‘Amma?’ Ananya said as she stood up and came to her mother.

Amma shook her head. Manju looked at her but didn’t stop eating. The uncles

pretended nothing had happened.

‘What, Radha?’ Suruchi aunty said as she put a hand on Amma’s shoulder.

‘Nothing, I am so happy. I am crying for that,’ she said in such an emotional

voice even I got a lump in my throat. All the other aunts had moist eyes. Harish’s

mother hugged Ananya’s mother. I looked at Ananya. She rolled her eyes.

‘How quickly our children grow up,’ one aunt said, ignoring the small fact that
with the children, she’d grown into an old woman, too.

I’m going to get you all, I will, I swore to myself as I went to wash my hands.

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25

‘Why don’t you tell them! This gradual strategy is obviously not working,’ I said

as I opened the menu.

We had come to Amethyst, a charming teahouse set in an old colonial

bungalow. It is one of the few redeeming aspects of the city. Set in a one-acre

plot, the bungalow is on two levels. Outside the bungalow there are grand

verandahs with cane furniture and potted plants with large leaves. Waiters bring

eclectic drinks like jamun iced tea and mint and ginger coolers along with

expensive dishes with feta cheese in them. It is a favourite haunt of stylish

Chennai ladies and couples so madly in love, they feel a hundred bucks for jamun

mixed with soda was OK.

‘I’ll have the jamun iced and chicken sandwich, and some scones and cream,

please.’ Ananya said.

‘And some water, please,’ I said to the waiter.

‘Still or sparkling, sir?’ the waiter said.

‘Whatever you had a bath with this morning,’ Krish said.

‘Sir?’ the waiter said, taken aback, ‘tap water, sir.’

‘Same, get me that,’ I said.

‘I have told them, of course. They don’t agree,’ Ananya said, as we reverted to
our topic.

‘Is Mr Harish history?’

‘Finally, though it will take two years to make Shobha athai OK again. She is

like – tell me one thing wrong with Harish.’

‘He can’t get a woman on his own,’ I said.

‘Shut up, Krish,’ Ananya laughed. ‘You know how I finally closed it?’

‘Did you tell him about me?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’ I said, my voice loud. ‘I am not Mr Sort Of. I am The Guy.’

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‘Yeah, but I can’t tell him exactly. How would he feel? My boyfriend sat with me
when he came to see me.’

‘Imagine how I felt. Anyway, what did you tell him?’

‘He asked me, rather hinted, about my virginity.’

‘He did not! I will kill that bastard,’ I said, my face red.

Ananya laughed. ‘Jealousy is rather enjoyable emotion to watch,’ she

observed.

‘Funny.’

‘He just said … wait let me remember. Yes, he said, are you still pure or

something,’ she giggled.

‘What a loser. What is he looking for – ghee?’ I asked.

Ananya laughed uncontrollably. She held her stomach as she spoke. ‘Wait,

you’ll die if I told you my response.’

‘And that is?’

‘I told him – Harish, if there is an entrance exam for virginity, you can be sure I
won’t top it,’ Ananya said.

‘You did not! And then?’

‘And then the Cisco guy hung up the phone. No more Harish, finite. Radha

aunty said now Harish also doesn’t like me. Yipee!’

The waiter brought us our drinks. The contents looked like water after you’ve

dipped several paintbrushes in it. The jamun tea tasted different, though different

doesn’t translate into nice. Amethyst is about ambience, not nourishment.

‘Ananya, we need to bring this to closure. I’m not getting traction with your

parents. Manju maybe, but others barely acknowledge me.’

‘You will. In fact, that’s why I called you here today. You have a chance to

score with dad.’

‘I can’t. I told you he folded his hands at me.’

‘He is dying doing his presentation. No one in Bank of Baroda has ever made a

business plan. He doesn’t know computers. It is crazy.’

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‘I offered help. He said no.’

‘He won’t say no now. I could help him but I am travelling most of the time.

And if you help him, it may work.’

‘May, the key word is may. Can be replaced just as easily with may not,’ I said.

‘Try,’ Ananya said and placed her hands on mine. It was probably the only

restaurant in Chennai she would try such a stunt. Here, it looked sort of OK.

‘First your brother, then your father. If nothing else, I’ll be your family tutor,’ I
said as I sipped the last few drops of my tea.

‘And my lover,’ Ananya winked.

‘Thanks. And what about your mother? How can I make her cry in happiness

like the purity-seeking Harish?’

Ananya threw up her hands. ‘Don’t ask me about mom,’ she said. ‘One, she

gives me a guilt trip about Harish everyday. And two, Chennai has put her in her

place about her Carnatic music abilities. She has stopped singing altogether. And

that makes her even more miserable, which creates her own self-guilt trip, which

is then transferred to me and the cycle continues. Even I can’t help her with this.

Work on dad for now.’

I nodded as Ananya paused to catch her breath.

‘Thanks for bearing this,’ she said and fed me a scone dipped in cream. I

licked cream off her fingers. Little things like these kept me going.

‘Easy, this is a public place,’ she said.

She pulled her hand back as the waiter arrived with the bill. I paid and left him
a tip bigger than my daily lunch budget.

‘Hey, you want to go dancing?’ she asked.

‘Dancing? You have an eight o’clock curfew. How can we go dancing?’

‘Because in Chennai we go dancing in the afternoon. Let’s go, Sheraton has a

nice DJ.’

‘At three in the afternoon?’

‘Yes, everybody goes. They banned nightclubs, so we have afternoon clubs.’

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We took an auto to the Sheraton. I am not kidding, a hundred youngsters in

party clothes waited outside in the sunny courtyard. The disco opened in ten

minutes. Everyone went inside and the lights were switched off. The bar started

business. The DJ put on the latest Rajni Tamil track. The crowd went crazy as

everyone apart from me registered the song.

Ananya moved her body to the music. She danced extremely well, as did most

others trained in Bharatnatyam while growing up.

‘Naan onnai kadalikaren,’ she said ‘I love you’ in Tamil. I took her in my arms.

I looked around at the youngsters, doing what they loved despite everyone

from their parents to the government banning them from doing so.

Yes, if there can be afternoon discos, Punjabis can marry Tamilians. Rules,

after all, are only made so you can work around them.

‘Uncle, Ananya told me you are having trouble with your business plan.’

Uncle braked his car in shock. We never spoke in the Fiat. We had a ritual. I

read my reports, he cursed the traffic and the city roads. In twenty minutes, we

reached the traffic signal near the Citibank where he dropped me. I thanked him,

he nodded, all without eye contact. Today, one week after my Amethyst date, I

had made my move. Ananya had gone to Thanjavur on work for five days, and her

mother joined her on the trip to see the temples. Ananya had told me it would be

the perfect time to offer help. Her father wouldn’t suspect I wanted to come home

for Ananya. Plus, more important, he could actually take help from me

I looked around at the youngsters, doing what they loved despite everyone

from their parents to the government banning them from doing so.

Yes, if there can be afternoon discos, Punjabis can marry Tamilians. Rules,

after all, are only made so you can work around them.

DX @ www.desibbrg.com

‘Uncle, Ananya told me you are having trouble with your business plan.’

Uncle braked his car in shock. We never spoke in the Fiat. We had a ritual. I

read my reports, he cursed the traffic and the city roads. In twenty minutes, we

reached the traffic signal near the Citibank where he dropped me. I thanked him,

he nodded, all without eye contact. Today, one week after my Amethyst date, I

had made my move. Ananya had gone to Thanjavur on work for five days, and her

mother joined her on the trip to see the temples. Ananya had told me it would be

the perfect time to offer help. Her father wouldn’t suspect I wanted to come home

for Ananya. Plus, more important, he could actually take help from me and keep