When Hari Met His Saali (11 page)

‘Hiiamsimitiassistersonicetomeetyouhowareyou,’ Simi rushed the words out, awestruck.

Hari finally disengaged from Mrs. Galhotra’s grip, took her hands and bowed.

‘Hello, Aunty!’

Minutes later the three human bodies were separated by safe distance as they satdown. Although Simi was trying hard not to stare at Hari, her mother was doing exactly that.

Is she surprised to see an American, an Indian American or is she surprised to see that Tia is marrying this guy?

Hari did not know what to feel about Simi’s mother’s continuous stare. He felt like a human specimen on display.

‘Indurani, bring the snakes!’
Simi’s mother screamed without taking her eyes off of him.

Oh God, Mom, how many times have I told you. It’s not snakes it’s snacks!

Simi shuddered with embarrassment. She lept to her feet and brought the Pepsi from the kitchen. Even though Hari kept saying he doesn’t drink cola, she kept insisting.

‘No, I don’t, thank you. You, please have it,’ Hari said as if he was talking to an African tribe who didn’t understand English.

Why is it that when people know that the other person may not understand their language they tend to t a l k s l o w l y?

He handed over the chocolate gift to Simi. This time her mother’s eyes tracked the package as it left Hari’s hands and travelled to Simi, then into her lap where Simi elegantly placed it.

‘America
se laye ho kuch
?’ she asked, trying hard to sound casual while asking him the obvious — ‘Is that something you’ve brought from America?’

‘Umm, yeah, chocolates!’ Hari smiled. Thankfully, right on cue, his mobile buzzed. It was another piece of trivia.

Hari’s Trivia # 231: The average chocolate bar has eight insects’ legs in it from the factory where it was produced.

Hari cringed looking at this latest trivia.

Bad timing.
He made a face.

Simi thought that Hari was averse to something, and then realized something.

‘Oh, juice! You people drink juices!’ Simi said loudly.

‘Uh, what people?’ Hari asked, unsure if he was needed in this juice conversation.

‘Americans, of course. Juice is healthy,’ Simi said looking at her mother.

‘
Toh manga le na
juice?’ Mrs. Galhotra instructed Simi to arrange some juice.

Even as Hari protested, ‘No, no, I am fine. In fact, I have to go to the airport …’ he saw Simi rush out of the flat, turn around, face the building, look up to the fourth floor, and then scream, ‘Rahul, Rahul!’

Boy, Tia’s sister knew how to scream. It was so loud that Hari could see her lungs taking in the air and letting it out again.

He heard a little boy scream equally loudly, ‘I am busy.’

‘Come down for two minutes!’ Simi yelled back to Rahul.

Hari would one day realize that everything in India was ‘Only two minutes away.’ Waiting time at the airport? Two minutes! How far is Dharampeth from Pride Hotel? Not too far, only two minutes away! How long to get the juice from the store? Two minutes!

Time in India was under assessed and oversold.

Simi rushed in to get her purse and took out a five hundred-rupee note. As if like magic, Rahul — their twelve-year-old neighbor — had barged into the living room and was staring at him.

‘
Didi
, are you marrying him?’ he had obnoxiously asked.

‘Shut up, Rahul. Go run and get me some juice—mixed fruit — Tropicana
ka.
’

As soon as he had appeared he disappeared, and then reappeared again, but this time with a Tropicana mixed fruit tetra pack in his hands. And then he disappeared again, with Simi’s mother screaming at him to ‘
Arrey
, eat something and go,
na
.’

Everything — too much — was happening all at once, and so fast. Hari was unclear about his role here and then the food — the so-called “snakes”— started appearing in front of him. A woman who was probably the cook was laying out deep-fried, sugary, colorful items. She was wearing her sari differently; it went in between her legs from the front and was then tucked in at the back.

Fascinating
he thought,
was she asked to dress at gunpoint?
He briefly entertained the thought but chose not to pursue it.

‘That’s Indurani
Bai
, our cook,’ Simi’s mother said proudly.

The next fully aware and conscious thought that Hari would have was that he suddenly felt full in his tummy; he must have eaten a lot. He started to put up a protest to the three women hovering above him, serving him “snakes after snakes after snakes”. He also remembered that he actually hated juice and was now reconsidering washing down all the oily food he had consumed with Pepsi. But considering that they had gone through so much trouble to get the juice, settling for Pepsi would have been rude.

Later, he remembered saying several things during his visit like:

‘No, no, no. I can’t eat that!’ ‘No, thank you. What is it?’ ‘Please, it’ll go to waste, I won’t be able to finish it.’ ‘I am so full, I am stuffed.’ ‘Where do you wipe all this oil off your fingers?’

‘Would you like a cup of coffee before you go?’ Simi asked as Hari took one last sip of the juice.

‘No, I am actually perfectly fine. I have a long flight, I must be going now,’ Hari said.

When he had stood up Hari was unsure how he should extract himself. These people were so sweet and so simple, the last thing he wanted to do was offend them. Simi’s mother suddenly handed him a piece of cloth.

‘Get a nice shirt tailored. It’s two meters — you’ll get a long-sleeved shirt.’

Hari nodded and bowed as if he was in Japan, but he was lost as to what he would do with the fabric in his hands. He was a T-shirt kinda guy.

Simi then extended her hand, but by the time Hari had extended his she had already withdrawn hers and was leaning forward for a hug, but when he withdrew his hand and leaned in for the hug, it was too late, she had joined her hands in a simple
Namaste.
Both were glad that the moment had passed.

Simi and her mother walked Hari to the door, then to the stairs, then the gate, then to the compound gate and it was there that Mrs. Galhotra told Hari emotionally, ‘See, I am Tia’s mother but she is in America, very far, long distance. But, now she is yours. Even if I cannot take care of her as a daughter, I hope you will take care of her as your own daughter. God bless!’

Mrs. Galhotra was bawling and had buried her crying face into her daughter’s neck. Simi was embarrassed, not by her actions but by what she had told Hari.

‘She is just emotional,’ Simi said smiling.

‘Don’t worry, Aunty,’ Hari nodded. ‘Everything will be OK.’

Hari bid goodbye and started walking towards his car, but he felt like they were still at the gate watching him walk. He turned around and sure enough they waved at him. This continued until the two women were a speck in the distance and he was not even sure if it was Tia’s mom and her sister at all. He waved one last time. Whoever they were, they waved back.

When Hari reached the airport and his luggage was being weighed he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten the most important thing he was supposed to have done.

Shit, I forgot to give them the invitation!

It was in his bag and the bag was in the car.

Tia will eat me for lunch if she finds out.

He took his boarding pass and then called Simi on her mobile. Thankfully, in between all the hospitality, she had volunteered to exchange phone numbers.

‘Oh hi, Simi, this is Harry … uh … Hari,’ he said impishly.

‘Hi Jiju, you landed in America already?’ Simi joked. He didn’t get the joke.

‘No, I am at
Naagpoor
airport. Uh, I forgot to invite you guys to our engagement and wedding ceremonies. No, I have the card with me but I cannot step out of the airport,’ Hari was having difficulty getting to the point.

Simi offered an easy solution.

‘OK, I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

‘But, I can’t step out!’ Hari was trying to see why she wanted to come.

‘Just give it to the
hawaldar
at the gate. He will give it to me,’ Simi told him.

‘Hawaldar?’
Hari looked around for such a person. ‘Uh, are you already on your way here?’ Hari could hear traffic from the other end of the phone.

‘Yes. Just come to the front door.’

Nagpur airport was small with just one terminal. It had a large glass panel at the entrance. As Hari started walking towards it he saw Simi waving at him from the other side.

What? She is here already? How fucking small is this place Nagpur?

Simi was talking to the law enforcement officer at the gate.

Oh, he must be what these people refer to as a hawaldar.
(Which actually means constable.)

Now they were just seven feet apart, each on either side of the entrance with two
hawaldars
in between them. Hari could hear Simi trying to explain the situation to one of the senior
hawaldars.

‘
Dada, amhi Nagpurche.
My
jeejaji
is going to America. He has to give the invitation card to me. He is marrying my sister. It’ll take two minutes!’

Somehow Simi talked him into letting her get close to Hari.

‘Hi. Again,’ Simi said as she caught her breath.

‘You came so fast, like superwoman.’

Hari was feeling lame having caused such a ruckus over a fucking invitation card.

‘Yeah, no, my Dhanno … my Kintetic is superfast. It only took me two minutes.’ Simi regretted mentioning
Dhanno.

How would he know who Dhanno is? Or what a Kinetic is?

He showed her the card. Unlike the ones in India, which by now were getting to be of the ridiculous size of a phone book, Tia’s wedding card was simple and elegant.

‘Well, here it is. Also, I want to personally invite you and
Auntyji
for both our engagement and our wedding. Please come,’ Hari said just as he had practiced at the hotel.

‘Good thing you remembered otherwise Tia
Didi
would have had you for lunch!’ Simi said, trying not to stare into his deep brown eyes.

‘Wow, OK, I have to ask — was she like that all the time? Bossy?’ Hari asked with a raised eyebrow.

Simi nodded.

‘Always?’ Hari wanted to know more.

‘Since birth!’ Simi shrugged her shoulders.

The senior
hawaldar
started shouting and asking Simi to move away from the door. She hurriedly took the card from his hand, their eyes locked and he extended his hand for a goodbye when …

… her fingers touched his.

An electric current ran through Simi’s body. She stood firm, looking at him. The crowd enveloped her as she noticed that Hari was backing away
inside, still looking at her. And then he turned away and he was gone from her sight.

She couldn’t move. She was frozen. Her heart had never thumped so fast. It suddenly seemed to her that with that one touch the twenty-three-year-old girl had become a woman. She certainly felt like that, but she also felt clichéd. She felt filmy.

She wanted to hold onto something. She clutched her hands. Something crumpled in her hands. It was Tia’s engagement card. The words that came out of her mouth surprised even her.

‘Oh, Bobby Donnell!’

As soon as Hari had taken his seat in the middle of the plane, he was glad that he was on his way back to the United States of America. What a strange trip it had been! He was looking forward to getting back to Los Angeles as much as he was hoping that he wouldn’t have to travel to India any time soon. Or ever. A strange identity crisis dawned upon him when he realized what he was thinking. An Indian not wanting to return back to India! He suddenly understood why Tia did not want to go back. Tia … how he couldn’t wait to see her, hug her, kiss her, make love to her.

As he reclined his seat, the boy sitting next to him on the window side looked over hopefully.

‘Hello Sir, may I request you to switch seats with me? I want to sit next to her,’ he asked, indicating towards the girl sitting on the other side of Hari in the aisle seat. They looked like they were about twenty years old and fresh out of college. Hari eyed them alternately and found them both eagerly awaiting his decision.

‘I wouldn’t mind switching, but I don’t want to sit in the window seat. Maybe I can take the aisle?’ he asked the boy.

The young couple leaned forward to look at each other and nodded. Soon, Hari was seated in the aisle with the boy in the middle and the girl at the window. They looked so much in love.

‘Is this your first time flying?’ Hari asked the boy.

That was all the young couple needed as they immediately, without any further encouragement, shared their entire story. Hari would come to know that they were from Kolkata. He would be corrected many times for calling it Calcutta. The city of joy was not Calcutta any more; now it was Kolkata. He would learn that they were not lovers but were brother and sister going to America together to study. The sister’s name was Swati and the brother was Abhijat. Swati was more talkative and asked Hari a lot about himself, whereas Abhijat was scared and apprehensive of what lay ahead of him.

Swati was happy to learn that Hari was a UCLA alumnus. She was going
there to do post-graduate studies in microbiology while Abhijat wanted to transfer to UCLA from Wisconsin University where he was going to study anthropology. He wanted to be closer to his sister, while Swati kept telling him in no uncertain terms that he was on his own once they landed in Los Angeles. Obviously, Abhijat was too scared to appreciate her.

It was when they were eating, and Abhijat had taken out some home-cooked food from his carry-on bag, and when Swati had felt embarrassed to even touch it, that Hari realized how different two individuals from the same home, the same environment and the same parents, could be. When Abhijat insisted Hari should try some fish, Swati had scolded him saying that just because he wanted to eat it he shouldn’t insist on others trying it as well. Hari was glad he didn’t have to decline. He just kept quiet.

‘You’re behaving like I am a stranger. Are you going to be like this in America?’ Abhijat asked Swati angrily.

‘You’re not in Kolkata any more. Stop embarrassing me, and yourself,’ Swati shot back before putting the headphones on and going to sleep.

Swati had not completely sworn off her culture though — she was wearing a large round red
bindi
on her forehead. Hari recalled a couple of jokes his American friends used to make about Indian women with
bindi
s. ‘Does that mean the recording is on?’ referring to the red light on cameras. ‘So if you push the red dot, is that supposed to turn her on?’ was another one. Now one after another a slew of
bindi
jokes came flooding into Hari’s mind. Although Swati didn’t know it yet, the red
bindi
would be the first thing she would lose within weeks in America. When Abhijat saw Hari reclined with his eyes closed, but curiously grinning, he felt very alienated … and lonely.

A few moments later, out of nowhere, Hari remembered Simi. He recalled how the young woman had to run around all over the place because he had forgotten to hand over the invitation to her. His grinning stopped when he realized that she might tell this.

Oh shit!
Hari stopped grinning. He was going to enter Tia’s World soon.

His phone dinged with another piece of trivia:

Hari’s Trivia # 337: Q. What do more women do in the bathroom than men? A. Wash their hands. Women 80% - Men 55%

Nagpur

As Simi was riding her Kinetic Honda back from the airport, she felt there was something new in the smog-filled Nagpur air. She felt like opening her arms and inhaling the air. Thankfully she kept her hands on the bike but she
did inhale sharply. It only made her sneeze. She was passing all the street food vendors cooking away gloriously and frying delicious things. The wafts of
masala
flavors of
pav bhaji, bhel puri, dabeli
, Indian Chinese filled her nostrils. She stopped her bike at the side of the road, took off her helmet, closed her eyes and inhaled blissfully as if she was at some exotic valley of flowers.

Simi had been passing the vendors on this street since she was a child, but she had never felt like she was feeling today. All her senses, all the pores in her body, felt rejuvenated. She had no clue why. She probably could have guessed — and she would have been right — but the thought was too far removed from her mind for now.

Just then the honk from a car startled her from her blissful state.It was her neighbor, Deshpande Uncle, in his Hyundai Wagon R, along with his wife, sister-in-law, and three children.

Deshpande Uncle leaned from his window asking, ‘
Arrey, Simi beta
, is your bike broken down?’

Simi realized what she must have looked like standing with the support of her two legs on her bike in the middle of the road with her eyes closed as if she was praying.

‘No, no, Uncle, everything is fine.’

Deshpande Aunty shifted her three-year-old onto the other side of her lap and leaned over her husband to speak to Simi through the window on the driver’s side.

‘If you want us to take you home, there’s space in our Wagon R, huh!’ Of course she was overselling the space part. The car was crammed to the extent of illegality.

Simi quickly started her bike and waved to them.

‘No, no. Just reaching home …’ but as her bike started moving, she heard Deshpande Aunty instruct Deshpande Uncle to follow her, still under the impression that something was wrong with her bike.

It was an awkward thing to be followed by an entire family. Simi straitened her
kameez
from the back to make sure it was not flying in the wind. At the signal, she could feel multiple eyes watching her from behind. She casually turned around and, sure enough, everyone in the car was watching her like a hawk. She smiled at them and they waved back, with Uncle signaling her and telling her, ‘Don’t worry, we are right behind you. Go, go, we follow you.’ He looked like a
bandar
mouthing the word and using hand gestures.

As soon as the signal turned green Simi speeded away, lost the car at the next turn, got home, parked her bike in a hurry, entered the house and quickly switched off all the lights. In her household, the Deshpandes were known as
badbadas
, meaning the entire family was talkative and wouldn’t get the hint to shut up. She didn’t want them to start at this hour.

Her mother was sitting in bed waiting for her. When Simi handed her the invitation, her mother started to cry. Silently she grabbed Simi’s hand and took her to the kitchen. She quietly laid the card in front of Simi’s father’s photograph and hugged her daughter. Simi could feel her mother’s heart pounding. She couldn’t help but start sniffling herself. It seemed like an eternity before her mother spoke.

‘How I wish your father was here to guide me.’

Simi sat her mother down and took her hands in hers.

‘Mom, wherever Papa is I am sure he is happy for Tia, for us!’

‘Oh, I am happy for Tia. After all, our happiness is in whatever ways she is happy,
na
? Do we ever have a say in how she should live her life? Tia always does what she wants and we have to accept it and be happy about it.’ Her mother’s anger surged as she wiped away her tears.

‘Do you not like Hariprasad, Mom?’ Simi asked, because she didn’t know what else to say.

‘No, no. Such a fine boy he is, that Hariprasad. But will she keep him happy?’ Her mother had her argument prepared. Simi decided not to engage her as she knew that by the morning her mother’s tune may have changed. It had happened before.

‘Mom, she has invited us both to the engagement ceremony and the wedding. We should go to both,’ Simi said, excitedly taking the card out of the envelope and showing it to her mother. She knew that her mother had not even read the invitation card.

‘What? Go to America?’ she responded as if it was an absurd idea.

Simi had anticipated that response.

‘Mom, if she didn’t invite us you would be sad, and now that she has you don’t want to go. I am telling you, she is even sending us a letter for our visas.’

But her mother cut her off halfway.

‘Everyone speaks American there, I am not good in English you know that, Simi. I am not going,
bas
.’

Simi felt pissed. She was hoping her mother would add, ‘Go if you want to, but I am not going,’ to her decision. But she didn’t. Simi took a chance.

‘Fine, if you don’t want to go to your daughter’s wedding, that’s OK, but I am going to my sister’s wedding … and to the engagement!’

Simi took the invitation card, put it back into the envelope and left her mother’s bedroom. A moment later she came back in, switched off the light to say ‘Good night!’ and walked out again.

Simi cried herself to sleep that night and so did her mother. In fact, both knew that the other would be crying in bed, but it was as if some unseen invisible force restricted them to reach out to each other. Simi knew that her mother would not go to America. She just knew it. She also knew that she wanted to go, but at the same time she felt that to go for a whole month and leave her mother behind was incomprehensible. By the time Simi finally fell asleep she had made a decision that this might be her only opportunity to go to America, and she was going to take it. Lucky for her, but unknown to her, was that her mother had made the same decision. She wanted Simi to go.

Individually, they were both calculating how the trip would be financed.

Next Day — The Malhotra house

Tia was looking at the calendar on her phone. She realized there were only twenty days to go until the engagement ceremony. She was looking into the bathroom mirror at her mother-in-law’s house. Her lips pursed to make a ‘whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo’ sound and she was hyperventilating like a mother delivering a baby. Her breathing could be heard outside.

‘
Beta
Tia, are you OK in there?’ Mary called.

When Tia joined them back in the living room, Mary,
Badi Mama
and
Nana
were staring at her. There was a mysterious silence.

‘Er, you’re not pregnant,
na
, Tia?’ Mary asked bluntly.

Badi Mama
and
Nana
turned their gaze to Tia, as if they were watching a tennis match, and waited for her response.

‘What? Noooo!!!’ Tia protested. ‘I am, just stressed over all the arrangements for the ceremony.’

But Mary,
Badi Mama
and
Nana
just stared at her, making her feel very uncomfortable.

‘How, how can I be pregnant?’ Tia blurted out in her defense, realizing that she was avoiding eye contact with them. The three elderly ladies started giggling.

‘
Beta
Tia, you should ask me to help you,
na
? After all how much work are you going to do alone?’ Mary scolded Tia as she poured her another cup of rich milky coffee.

Tia had been running around for the last few days trying to finalise arrangements for the ceremony. But, Tia being Tia, she couldn’t trust anyone else to do it the way she wanted.

‘Mummy, I have everything under control, don’t you worry,’ Tia replied,
sipping on the coffee. It smelled of milk rather than of coffee and that bothered her, but for Mary’s sake she pretended to like it.

‘Nice,
na
? Listen, I didn’t know how to tell you but Hari started drinking tea and coffee only after he was in college. He is used to milk — and I mean milk-milk, not those skimmed, toned, low-fat, artificial milks, but proper buffalo milk. The tea and coffee are just a disguise to get milk into his body.’

Mary waited for Tia to react.

Tia nodded her head.

‘Does Hari come with a manual, Mary?’ Tia said laughingly.

None of the three elderly ladies found it amusing or funny. I guess their only son, the heir of their
khandaan
, was off-limits for jokes. Tia made a mental note never to crack a joke about Hari in front of his mother and his two grandmothers again. To break the awkwardness, she pulled out a file from her bag and showed it to them.

‘It’s all in here. The mega bible for the engagement ceremony.’ Tia held the file next to her face as if she was advertising a dishwasher liquid. But the room had gone cold. No one thought it was amusing.

‘This tells me everything that’s still to be done for the night of the engagement ceremony. All eighty-four pages of it!’

Badi Mama
looked quizzically at
Nana
who had a blank expression, and whispered in Punjabi: ‘Is this girl getting married or building a car?’

But Mary was excited.

‘Listen, our people — I mean our guests — will make their own arrangements, OK? You don’t worry. You focus on what you want to do at the ceremony, OK?’

‘Mary I am glad you asked because I have booked the banquet hall. Once Hari is back we’ll go and meet the event manager to choose the table arrangements, do a cake tasting, select the wines along with the general theme for the night and that would just leave the rehearsals because everything else will be … wait, I have to get an evening gown and Hari has to decide on his tuxedo, and we still haven’t decided if we want to book a limousine for our arrival at the venue …’ Tia would have gone on longer sharing every detail that was on her mind if Mary, thankfully, had not interrupted her.