by Sonya Lalli
Sachin looked up at me and heaved out a patronizing sigh. “Are you going to be okay?”
He was also the type of man that any nani would want her granddaughter to marry, and as I patted his shoulder reassuringly, I tried to convince myself that Sachin—that his type—wasn’t what I was interested in, either.
* * *
There seems to be a great deal of misinformation around the modern-day arranged marriage. I am often bombarded with questions by coworkers or middle-aged women sitting next to me on long-haul flights after they’ve picked up on the fact that I’m half Indian. After explaining to them that I was raised by the Indian side of my family, and that whichever white guy fathered me was never in the picture, they smile and tell me that being Indian is all the rage these days. And in an exertion of worldliness, I am cited anecdotes they’ve picked up in the frozen food section at Costco while buying paneer, or watching twenty minutes of Dil Chata Hai on the Bollywood channel that comes with their deluxe cable packages. They love the bright colors and gold chains. The eccentric music. The food—oh, how they love the food. And of course, they are curious about my love life. They want to know more about this whole “arranged marriage” thing, whether soon I, too, might be enlisted.
But the protocol of today’s arranged marriage in my community is less glamorous than they might anticipate. It is choosing from a roster of carefully vetted men, men whose family, religion, background, values, and sometimes even astrology match your own. It is having parents who want their children to marry into the “culture,” and so they hurl them against a brick wall of blind dates until one finally sticks. It is arranged dating, really; an agreement to decide quickly whether you are in love.
I grew up with dozens of girls who went this route; women fast-tracked down the aisle, business class on a nonstop flight toward happily ever after.
And they seemed happy.
After all, they tell me—their mouths full of champagne and vanilla cream cake, cocooned in flowing bridal lenghas worth as much as a new car—what was the big deal about being set up by your family? Isn’t “today’s arranged marriage” equivalent to being set up by a friend, or an algorithm in your go-to dating app? Aren’t their chances of having a successful marriage as high as the girl who ends up marrying her one-night stand? Or the one who met her leading man in college? I am one of the very few in my generation still unmarried in my hometown, and I never know what to say. How much to smile. And so I help myself to another drink—sometimes, another piece of cake—and reverently congratulate them on their Bollywood ending.
But I always wonder what happens after the ceremonial fire goes out and the guests go home, stuffed and slightly drunk on Johnnie Walker. Nani’s marriage was arranged, and unlike today’s blessed nuptials, she didn’t have much of a say in the matter. Her father showed her a black-and-white photo of a lanky boy with round wire spectacles, and later, someone smeared red powder on her forehead, and just like that—well, nearly—she was married. It was simple. Clear-cut. A transaction performed not out of love for a would-be spouse, but for one’s own family.
But wasn’t an arranged marriage beneath me? I wasn’t really Indian, after all. I was Canadian. A girl who refused to feel out of place in her mostly white, middle-class suburb in west Toronto. I had Rollerbladed and held lemonade stands, rolled my eyes on “Culture Day” at school when Shay and I were forced to wear lenghas, the other kids crowding around us for a chance to paw at the fake crystals sewn onto the sleeves. I only saw other Indians when I was dragged to dinner parties, and at temple every Sunday. When we went bulk grocery shopping in Scarborough because the corner Safeway didn’t have the right brand of lentils or coconut milk. And even though Ravi Shankar always seemed to be playing on the radio at home, and my clothes perpetually reeked of masala, I grew up fully committed to my role in what otherwise seemed to be a white narrative. I played a girl who couldn’t believe in arranged marriage—not only because of the cliché of her own family shambles, but because the cynicism of her Western world, the literary fiction on her bookshelf, barely allowed her to believe in marriage at all.
So I resisted. I resisted the idea of a planned union that might make me happy. That might make Nani happy.
“Did you like Sachin?” she asked after he had left. She stood beside me as I washed the dishes, the side of her head lightly resting on my shoulder.
Did I like him? I didn’t dislike him. After he told me he just wasn’t interested, and Nani came back with the tea, the pressure had evaporated. It wasn’t a chaperoned date, a three-hour festival I’d have to immortalize in the diary I’d outgrown so I could one day tell my daughters about all the silly things their father said the first time our eyes locked.
It was just lunch.
“Will you see him again?” Nani asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think so?”
I didn’t answer, and she leaned forward on her tiptoes and turned off the tap.
“You got along with him, nah?”
“I don’t know.” I turned to face her, not quite sure how to tell her I’d already been rejected. “What did you think of him?”
“Only you know what you need in husband, Raina. What you need to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
She wiped a fleck of foam off my neck and stared at me, attempting to read my expression the way she attempted to read English.
“I am!”
She grimaced and glanced away, as if she’d heard it, too. The urgency. The insistence. I attacked the rice cooker, knuckles and steel wool, my palms burning red in the hot water. The suds washed off, and I held it up, set it sideways on the dish rack. Why did I sound like I was trying to convince myself? I was happy, wasn’t I? I had everything, less the one thing that, to Nani, defined the rest. The boxes for college and career had been ticked; only marriage remained.
She rolled up her sleeves and handed me a frying pan. Staring at it, she said, “You agreed to this.”
“I know. But I said thirty.”
“You’re twenty-nine now, Raina. What difference is one year?”
“Yeah, what is the difference?” I squirted dish soap onto the pan, and set the bottle down firmly. “What’s the difference if I get married now, or in five years, or never—”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Really, Nani. What’s the rush? Kris isn’t married.”
“When he’s ready, he will.”
“It’s because he’s a man.”
She didn’t answer. She walked around me and inspected the rice cooker propped up on the drying rack. Tapping on a spec of white caked onto the side, she handed it back to me.
“Just because he’s been married before, or just because he can have children whenever he feels like it, and his sperm—”
“Beta. Enough.”
She finally met my eye. The slight scowl that had formed on her face vanished, and she reached for my cheek. “A husband, a family—it will bring you so much joy. You remember how happy your nana made me?”
I wasn’t so sure I agreed, but I was too tired to argue. Her hand was soft, slightly wet from the dishes, and I let my head rest against it.
“You remember, I told you, when I was young, my father was in army and we had to move. Moving, moving constantly—and I never had anything of my own.” She nodded, pressing her lips together. “And then I had your nana. I had family of my own.”
I turned back to the sink.
“And don’t you want children?”
I sighed. “I do, but—”
“Beta, you are getting older. Your auntie Sarla, everyone at temple—they always ask me: Why is Raina not married? Why always at that office? You cannot marry your Blueberry!”
“It’s called a BlackBerry, Nani. And I’m not picky. I’m just not ready.”
“Y
ou work, and work, and life is passing by. Men are passing by. Tell me, when is the right time? When will you be ready?”
I watched the pan fill with water, bits of brown bubbling in the froth. To Nani, a man unmarried in his thirties was fine—but for me, it wouldn’t be. I took a deep breath, and willed myself not to fight back.
She reached for my hand, and as her slight brown fingers interlocked with my own, that’s when I realized that in my silence, I was being complicit. I realized how much I truly loved this vivacious, slightly insane little woman, and what I would do to be the only person in her life never to break her heart. I would go along with it. I would live up to her expectations, and that promise I made to her two years ago—brokenhearted and desperate for my life to make sense once again—that if I wasn’t married at thirty, I’d let her make the arrangements for me.
“So we will try again?” she asked. “We will find you someone else?”
“Sure, Nani.” I forced out a smile. “We’ll try again.”
She dried her hands on her slacks and headed into the den. “Good, stay there,” she called. “I am bringing the list.” A few moments later, she reappeared in the kitchen, light steps on the hardwood, a piece of loose-leaf paper fluttering like she was bidding at an auction.
Was my future husband’s name somewhere on that list?
She sat down at the kitchen table and pulled out the chair next to her. Dragging her thumb along the edge of the page, she muttered names under her breath.
Did I want it to be?
I abandoned the sink and sat down next to her. Looking through the list, I feigned interest as she enthusiastically explained who each of the candidates were. Going on these dates would make Nani happy, and I supposed it didn’t really matter who I wanted—or who I still wanted. This was happening, and with only three hundred and sixty-four days to go, the arrangements had already begun.
Sachin—Reetu’s son in Scarborough, some kind of doctor—birthday lunch??
TWO
It was light out now when I left; summer, it seemed, was on its way. I ran most mornings before 6 A.M., before the commuters clogged the streets and the city became a mess of traffic, delivery trucks, and the hammering from a nearby construction site. I loved the feel of bare concrete and unbreathed air, of the urban sprawl temporarily abandoned. My legs twitched, and I picked up speed, nothing but the sound of my feet beating against the pavement. I headed north past the still-closed shops, St. Michael’s Cathedral, then cut through Queen’s Park. The paths were damp and crusted in last season’s leaves, and as the sun peeked through the branches and the sweet scent of dew filled my lungs, I exhaled and smiled into the light. Running was how I survived sitting upright in an office chair, sometimes eighteen hours a day; how, as a child, I had learned to survive.
I ran home through the university, the boundaries of four years of my life walled in brick and mortar, paper and pencil, the glare and hum of a screen. I brushed by the buildings dotting St. George Street, each of which harbored memories that became vaguer with each run: the eastern brownstone where I had a class on political economy and advanced econometrics; the building perpetually under construction where I took a seminar on microfinance in the developing world.
Had it really been over ten years since I started university? I thought back to myself in those days: slightly skinnier, commuting back and forth from Nani’s house on overcrowded buses, highlighting textbooks and writing in the margins as I awkwardly stood in the aisles. There hadn’t been wild frat parties with beer pong and hours of missing memories, or shots of tequila after a Monday evening lecture.
I’d studied. I’d graduated. And, exactly according to plan, I’d gotten a well-paying job.
I was soaked by the time I completed my loop. I sprinted up the stairs of my building, and each floor greeted me with a new smell. Week-old garbage and wet dog. Compost and fresh bread. I heaved my body up the last few stairs and smelled curry—like Nani’s, but tangier—from the Sri Lankan family who lived across the hall. I opened my front door, and for a moment just stood in the entrance, panting as I tried to catch my breath. It never failed to strike me how, two years after moving in, my condo still smelled of absolutely nothing.
Between scenes at the office, only a shadow of me even lived here in this catalog-clean condo with two bedrooms and a view, a gallery of wicker and eggshell and midnight blue accents. Here, there were only egg whites and salsa in the fridge, vodka in the freezer, and thanks to the previous owner, everything seemed to match but me.
I’d bought it as is a month after flying home from London and hadn’t changed a thing except for the handful of framed photos I’d nailed indiscriminately to the walls. Shay and our group of high school friends at graduation next to the fridge. A rare, complete family photo hanging in the front hall: Nani and Nana, me in a frilly dress sitting on their knees, Kris and Mom standing just behind. If anyone asked, I wouldn’t know how to explain each of these characters in a way that made sense, or my relationships to them all. Kris is your uncle—but grew up with you like a brother? And your mom is alive, but didn’t raise you?
I poured myself a glass of orange juice and, leaving the empty carton on the counter, finished it in one long swig. But no one ever asked those questions. In the two years that I’d lived here, I hadn’t had anyone over who didn’t already know the answers.
I showered and changed into a linen suit, and by the time I left again, the city was awake. I turned south on Yonge Street toward downtown, maneuvering through pedestrians and lampposts as I answered e-mails on my BlackBerry. Shay was already at the diner, slumped over in our usual booth, and I slid in across from her.
“Already ordered.” She leaned back, her eyes half closed, and I grabbed a sticky newspaper off the seat. There were mornings when neither of us spoke—when I read, and Shay, straight from a night shift at the hospital, napped at the table. We’d been coming to the same diner since we moved out together into a shared apartment in the building above it. At the time, she was still in medical school, but tired of living with her parents, and I’d received my first big-city paycheck. I’d get home after work and find her studying her medical textbooks at a booth, and we’d nurse our free refills of coffee beneath the neon light of a decorative Hollywood sign, Shay learning how to make a differential diagnosis, while I kept her company, and stuck straws in my nose and tried to make her laugh.
Our usuals arrived: black coffee, three fried eggs and ketchup, crunchy breakfast potatoes, and four thick slices of rye; and for a while, we ate in silence. She looked exhausted, and I waited until after she’d had her first cup of coffee, and was well onto her second, to bring it up.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”
“Sorry.” She smiled groggily, and then nodded her head. “What was he like?”
I shrugged. “He was okay, I guess.”
“Are you glad I warned you?” Shay asked, setting down her fork. She was nearly finished with her meal, and she rested her elbows on the table. “I was worried you wouldn’t turn up.”
Somehow, Shay’s mother, Auntie Sarla, had found out Nani was inviting Sachin over—and, of course, Auntie Sarla had told Shay. Seemingly, there were no secrets in our community, and nothing Auntie Sarla wouldn’t involve herself in. She was my best friend’s mother, and one of Nani’s closest friends, but it was hard to be in the same room with her. She judged and criticized and berated, and treated Nani and me like inferiors. She was particularly critical of her own children, even though Shay and her brother, Nikesh, had lived up to every expectation.
Sarla was a matriarch of our community, and in a way, she represented everything that was wrong with our traditions. At the same time, Nani owed so much to her—making it difficult to despise her.
After they moved to Toronto, Nani and Nana made their living as restaurant owners, running an Indian café that is now called Saffron. But the trendy, ups
cale establishment was nothing like it used to be: strip mall locations and empty plastic seats, Nani and Nana packing up yearly, rifling through the classified pages of the Toronto Sun after getting evicted. They were a homely couple, food (not business) savvy, and intent on viewing the world the way they were themselves: honest. Business parks were rezoned, neighborhoods gentrified, but more often than not, landlords took advantage. And back then, the idea of taking a slum landlord to court, asking an authority in broken English for help, was simply too foreign a concept.
It was Auntie Sarla who had turned things around for them. One of the useful features of a woman who never shut up was, well, she never shut up about their food. She and Nani became friends, and Saffron grew to be the unofficial caterer to the Indian doctors, professors, and obnoxiously rich that populated Auntie Sarla’s inner and outer circles. Gradually, as Nani and Nana could afford to move the business to Roncesvalles, and brand their humble business as more grandiose, they graduated from being one of Auntie’s philanthropic pursuits into full members of their community.
“Would you see him again?” Shay asked after a moment.
“Maybe. I’m not sure. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s not interested in me.” I reached for my coffee. “When Nani was in the other room, he said he wasn’t interested.”
“In you?”
I nodded. “In me.”
“Sachin, in the middle of your date, actually told you he—”
“Can we drop this?”
Shay bit her lip, and then nodded slowly. “Sure. Sachin doesn’t matter—”
“Thank you—”
“Because I have someone else for you.”
“Tell me he’s not a cardiologist.”