Love Marriage

by V. V. Ganeshananthan

  The priest says, Don't cry.

  The men carry the body out, leaving the women.

  AT THE CREMATION SITE, Chemmani, the body is removed from its wooden coffin and placed onto the funeral pyre. And the men too offer the deceased some rice. My father, as the lighter of the pyre, would have done it last.

  They would have removed any remaining jewels or gold from his body. The rings from his fingers, the chain from around his neck. Everything permanent has been removed. The priest recites a last prayer as the nenjaam kattai, the first funeral logs, are placed on top of the body, so that it does not rise up as it is being burned.

  On his left shoulder, my father carries the vessel of funeral water: water and petrol with coconut and mango leaves on top. He carries a lit stick in his right hand. He travels around Kumaran's body three times, followed by the dhobi. A small hole is made in the vessel, so that the funeral water spills onto the body.

  My father goes to the funeral pyre, to the end where Kumaran's face looks up, just above the pile of wood on his still chest. Without looking he lights it. Without looking he walks away. The mourners do not look back.

  EARTH, FIRE, WATER, ETHER, and wind compose the body. The earth receives the body, which has burned in fire. The wind transports its ashes to flowing water. And the ether, the unknown, returns to the afterlife.

  Afterward the mourners return for kātārru. They must remove all signs of the body. They place fruits, honey, manjal, rosewater, and rice in the places on the pyre where the head, the breast, and the feet of the person they loved lay first. My father circles the place where the body was. Thrice.

  They throw the ashes into the water.

  My father returns to the house of mourning and bathes. He has been fasting. As the lighter of a pyre, he is forbidden from the temple for one year. A�ñtu tivasam.

  We travel away from my uncle—my mother, my father, and I. It takes many days.

  SELAVU: THE DAY AFTER THE FUNERAL. For the first time since the death, the house of the dead prepares food and feeds the village, the family, and friends. The meal is free of any meat, and those attending bring some of the ingredients—rice, vegetables, perhaps a coconut—as a sign of help for the house that has lost one of its own.

  ETTU KALAKKIRATU: EIGHT DAYS AFTER the funeral, the house of the dead cooks all the food that he enjoyed the most. For my uncle: potato curry, vadai, dosai, coconut sambol—things that do not go together, but that he enjoyed. In Jaffna, my mother takes this food and puts it in a corner of the house, the place where his body rested as it was being prepared for the pyre. She has left a picture of him there.

  And on this, the eighth day, he comes back and finds himself at a break in the road, with five paths from which to choose. My father holds a plate out to him, calls out to him three times, and leaves the plate there.

  Without looking back, my father returns to the house.

  ANTHIRATTI: SIXTEEN DAYS AFTER Kumaran died, in my head, I am still in Jaffna. We perform the funeral rites again, without the body. We remember him. We remember him. We remember him. We talk about him only with Love. Everything else—darkness, history, war—is gone. Burned away.

  HER FATHER DIED AND BECAME A GOD. Godlike, in two countries. He has gone across a divide and changed forever. Janani too changes: the wedding guests bless the k�urai, which Suthan has chosen for her, and which is the most visible symbol of her transformation. The groom gives her the k�urai. He waits for her to return at the mānavarai. This is a conversational intermission in the ceremony, its slowest part. She is gone and everyone waits for her to come out.

  When she returns, wearing Wedding-Red, it is the mankalya dhāranam. She does look different; if I saw her on the street, I am not sure I would recognize her. Her red lips and cheeks paint sharp angles on her pale face. Her lashes are very long, and she looks down demurely and properly. The priest hands the tāli to the groom, who ties it around Janani's throat. Like my mother, she will wear this all her life. In the background the priest chants prayers. Bells are rung. The wedding music rises, and they garland each other, shy hands skittering away from accidental contact of flesh to flesh. They are Married. They are Married. They are Married. When they sit back down in the embrace of the mānavarai, they have exchanged places and the groom sits on Janani's right. I move with the parade of girls through the sea of guests, passing food among them to celebrate the moment. I do this mechanically, my eyes fixed on my cousin.

  The newlyweds, holding hands, walk three times around the sacred fire. Some of the most religious Hindus claim that they can walk on burning coals. I do not believe this; no one can walk in fire. If I ever wear Wedding-Red, I will make sure I walk around the fire, and not through it.

  THE LAST PART OF THE wedding is the blessing. The bride and the groom have been cleansed spiritually. They have been given the guards against evil and the tokens that promise success. They have been tied to each other with the tāli, the chain. They have imitated the act of the gods Shiva and Parvati. The bride has promised her fidelity and her love. The groom has pledged his protection.

  They return to the mānavarai, the ceremonial altar, which is adorned with flowers. Everyone who is present at the wedding throws blue grass and rice to ensure the pair's good fortune as they enter the world together.

  Aratti: two women whom the couple loves bless them by passing a tray of lighted wicks back and forth before them. Then the guests line up to individually bless and honor the bride and the groom. This is the end of the ceremony. This is the beginning of the Marriage.

  THIS IS AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE TOO, something ordained not by the stars, but by me: this meeting of girl and country. Single Sri Lankan Tamil girl. (Slim, educated, tall.) Born in the United States. Father is a doctor, mother is a teacher. (Sober habits.) I do not have to walk out of this country now to be safe. My parents did that for me, and that is an act of love too great for me to ever repeat. Some people leave their spouses for the sake of their children. My parents left a country for each other when they had not even met yet—for me, when I had not been born yet. Someday, I will be able to walk into that country again, because they walked out of it. When I do it will be a different place than the one they knew. But today it is a country held together by lies. Shells fall and no one claims them. People disappear and bereaved families bury no one.

  In my memory, weddings are marked not by the fragrance of orange blossoms but by the dark scent of the fire, which is called the homām. Whereas for Kunju, fire meant an UnMarriage, and for Kalyani it meant the loss of her home. All my life, this has been the end of the film, the play, the story: She got Married. She lived happily ever after. This is not a straight lie, but rather a lie of omission. The story cannot always end in a marriage. Sometimes it goes beyond that. And sometimes we live our lives alone. This might be my future, but I have learned to live with what is mine and imperfect. I have learned that on some days, there is darkness so deep. Our lives begin without fanfare and end without warning.

  Although they have traveled far, my parents and sometimes their families cannot help looking back with longing to the time when they knew the order of things. Their lives do not often surprise them. They were born, grew up, and got Married. I am not getting Married anytime soon, despite the speculative looks of my family, which is not quite sure or comfortable about what will happen to my generation. They do not like that there is no precedent for us—that some of us will not travel their path. We are not quite safe, and they would like to see the matter settled: we leave them with queasy stomachs and unsettled Hearts. But although we are the children of our parents, we have entered other countries in which the rules of Marriage—Love Marriage, Arranged Marriage, and all that lies in between—do not always apply.

  Acknowledgments

  A NUMBER OF PEOPLE HELPED AND SUPPORTED ME IN THE writing of this book.

  In Sri Lanka:

  I wish to thank those individuals and institutions that helped me with my research, most of whom—for their security�
��I have been advised not to name. They know who they are. Many of them went out of their way to talk to me and to help me find the books and materials I needed. I appreciate their assistance more than I can say.

  I am particularly indebted to my traveling companions for my two most recent trips: my cousin Meera and her generous friends; and my father.

  In America:

  In Maryland—my teachers: Jan Bowman, Shellie Berman, Faith Roseman, Celia Harper, Wren Abramo, Suzanne Coker, and the late Renee Malden.

  At Harvard College:S the English department of 1998–2002, especially my first fiction professor, Patricia Powell—and, of course, my thesis adviser, Jamaica Kincaid, without whose encouragement I would never have begun Love Marriage, and whose particular brand of meticulous attention continues to be the standard for which I strive.

  At the Iowa Writers' Workshop—my professors: the late, great Frank Conroy, Ethan Canin, James Hynes, Elizabeth McCracken, James McPherson, Chris Offutt, ZZ Packer, and Marilynne Robinson. I am grateful for the support of Lan Samantha Chang. Special thanks also to Connie Brothers. Deb West and Jan Zenisek make the Workshop not only run but feel like home. My classmates at Iowa, especially the women of salon. Elizabeth McCracken commented on an early version of this book, and the students of her fall 2003 novel class did the same. Special thanks also to Roderic Crooks, Yiyun Li, Tim O'Sullivan, Tracy Manaster, Jody Caldwell, and Becky Lehmann. Special thanks to English professor Miriam Gilbert.

  At Phillips Exeter Academy: the English department of 2005–2006; and the George Bennett Fellowship, which gave me quite a bit more than a room of my own for a year. Elias Kulukundis, Charles and Joan Pratt, Maggie Dietz, and Todd Hearon. The students and faculty of Phillips Exeter, who love to read and to write. Julie Quinn and Michael Golay, kind neighbors; Vivian Komando; all my Exeter friends.

  At Columbia University: Professor Alisa Solomon and my classmates in Arts and Culture. The students and professors of the MA program. Professor Samuel G. Freedman, whose guidance to a thesis topic indirectly influenced this novel. Professor D. Samuel Sudanandha, who taught me beginning Tamil. The graduate students studying Sri Lankan anthropology; the great Sri Lankan anthropologist E. Valentine Daniel. I wish particularly to note the help of Kitana Ananda, a new friend and a good one, who read a draft of this book. I am also especially grateful for the assistance of Mythri Jegathesan, my oldest friend, who read multiple drafts of this book and provided notes for the funeral ritual and helped me with transliterated words. I am incredibly indebted to you. (Any remaining errors are, of course, mine.) Ravindran Sriramachandran and Kaori Hatsumi, whose knowledge informed me and thus the book. Professor Sreenath Sreenivasan.

  My Sri Lankan communities and relatives, who are, in fact, globe-scattered. My gratitude in particular to my friends and relatives in New York City; Connecticut; Maryland; Washington, D.C., and Lancaster, California; Toronto, Canada; Munich, Germany; Paris, France; Australia; and London, England.

  My fellow artists in the Sri Lankan diaspora.

  My friends: especially Michael Horn, Vicky Hallett, Stacy Erickson, and Matt MacInnis. Jonelle Lonergan, who set up my website.

  The family Fallows, especially Jim and Tad.

  Mathu Subramanian, a beautiful person and writer.

  Kate Currie and Emily Halpern, both of whom read and commented on drafts of this book; and who lived with me when it was first being written. Joyce K. McIntyre, Ross Douthat, Abby Tucker, Catherine Cafferty, and James Renfro, who at various points all read and commented on drafts of this book.

  Suketu Mehta. Photographer Preston Merchant.

  My friends, past and present, at The Harvard Crimson.

  My agent at the Gernert Company, Stephanie Cabot, who is always in my corner, and whose wisdom and ability to do it all astounds me. Chris Parris-Lamb, also of Gernert, upon whose keen eye I rely.

  My friend of twenty-three years, who is also now my editor: Random House's Becca Shapiro. I am so lucky to have you as both; your suggestions strengthened this book immeasurably. What a pleasure to have someone with whom my intellectual and creative collaboration began in . . . kindergarten. The family Shapiro.

  My sister-in-law, an inspiring woman. My inimitable and amazing brother. My parents: still the best people I know.

  A conversation with

  V. V. GANESHANANTHAN

  .

  Suketu Mehta is a fiction writer and journalist based in New York. He has won the Whiting Writers Award, the O. Henry Prize, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. He is the author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, and his other work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Granta, Harper's magazine, Time, Condé Nast Traveler, and The Village Voice and has been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

  Suketu Mehta: Sometimes people who go to Sri Lanka—I've gone there many times—throw up their hands and say you've got the most beautiful country in the world, but there are these two peoples who are just locked in what seems to be a suicidal senseless conflict. So talk a little bit about your impressions of the origin of the conflict and how it's affected your family and the family in the book.

  V. V. Ganeshananthan: It took me a long time to understand anything about the origins of the conflict. I think that when you're a kid and your parents tell you a certain set of stories, and parts of those stories are true and maybe also parts of those stories are colored by their perspectives a little—which isn't to say what my parents told me wasn't true—but it wasn't exactly the only truth there was. So one of the things I did when I was researching the book was to read a whole bunch of books about Sri Lanka and to try and figure out exactly what historians thought was the defining truth.

  One of the things people always talk about with regard to Sri Lanka is which people were there first. And I think that's a little bit besides the point, because both sets of people, the Tamils and the Sinhalese (who are not even the only two peoples involved in the conflict) really have been there for thousands of years. And then you have other populations: the Indian Tamils or the tea estate Tamils, and then also the Muslim population, which is Tamil-speaking, and you have Burghers, with their mixed European ancestry—so you really have a whole bunch of different populations. And I think if you're going to talk about who was there longest and that being the reason that you have a claim, then all over the world you've got big problems with the feasibility of restoring everyone to where they were first. It's not really a way to lay claim to land, necessarily.

  SM: How long has the war been going on between the Tamils and the Sinhalese?

  VG: I was reading online a story by one news agency, the AFP, that put the date at 1972, and the Associated Press, whose coverage I really admire, usually puts the date at 1983.

  And 1983 is a pretty pivotal point in the book. The heroine is born in July 1983 and the war is usually dated to 1983 because of what was called Black July, which were anti-Tamil riots in the capital of Sri Lanka. And in which a great many Tamils were killed, and government officials and security forces did nothing, and in fact actually egged them on. So the war really took off after that. But the 1972 date that the AFP uses, there's an argument for that too. Certainly in the early 1970s . . . there was leftist thought going on all over the world, and the founders of the Tamil New Tigers, which later became the Tamil Tigers, they sort of started getting together in the early '70s, so there's a reasonable argument for that too, although it's a less common date.

  So it's been going on for about twenty-five years by most people's count. But it's important to realize that like any war, it's the result of things that happened for decades before. The Sri Lankan government started discriminating against Tamils very shortly after the country gained independence from the British in the late 1940s. This has been well documented. The riots of 1958, for example. The war is really a culmination of previous events. It doesn't justify the Tigers' violence, but it does provide appropriate context.

  SM: How many people
have been killed in the conflict?

  VG: To be honest it's hard to tell. The New York Times has covered this a little bit, and so have other organizations. A lot of people in Sri Lanka over the course of the war have simply disappeared. And so they never turn up or no one ever finds the bodies. So there are probably quite a few people who are dead and just no one knows where they are . . . And when so many people have been displaced it's very hard to take any sort of census. I think that one of the current numbers being tossed around is about seventy thousand.

  SM: But that's still an amazing number in a country whose population is not even twenty million.

  VG: Right. I think in the past couple of years there have been some four thousand people who have been killed or just disappeared. One thing that is very common right now in the north is for people to just be kidnapped. It's even happened a couple of times in the capital. People disappear into white vans, which have become this sign of rogue elements of who knows what, maybe it's the rebels, maybe it's the government, and people are kidnapped. Oftentimes it is Tamil civilians who are being kidnapped. And a lot of them have actually been journalists.

  SM: Now, why has this conflict been allowed to go on for so long? A few years ago when I visited the country it seemed like there was peace everywhere, and everybody that I met in the north and the south agreed on the necessity for peace. That's all gone south, as it were. Why haven't any of the great powers stepped in and imposed a peace on the warring parties?

  VG: I really wish they would. I think that's it's just unfortunately not economically necessarily important enough and I think also there's obviously the very hairy question of terrorism in the post 9/11 environment. The Tigers were identified by the Sri Lankan government, they were named terrorists way back, way back in the day, almost from their very origins. And Sri Lanka had a Prevention of Terrorism Act that was targeting that group and groups similar to it. But they're a military operation too . . . they're often—not always but often—targeting military targets . . .