JUST MARRIED, PLEASE EXCUSE

by Yashodhara Lal

  My make-up was done by a distant relative whom we called Mrignaina Mausi, who was a make-up artist by profession. She had been overly enthusiastic, caking on layers and layers of make-up on my face and sticking about sixty-seven pins into some sort of a fake bun on my head. I was itching to get away from her expert hands and was fervently wishing that this distant relative would make herself distant again, but just as I was on the verge of tearing out of the room screaming, she said, ‘There! All done!’

  I looked at myself and I had to admit that she had done a really good job. I looked quite stunning. I probably wouldn’t go out to the market like this, but for my wedding, it seemed just about right. My pale-pink and silver sari, which I had insisted on as opposed to the usual red or maroon varieties, shimmered delicately around my person. The fake hairbun and make-up didn’t look half bad either. My mother took one look at me and a little tear started to form in the corner of her eye, but she stopped herself from making any sort of impulsive display by somehow finding a stray hair and tucking it behind my ear in a business-like manner. I just grinned at her cheekily, for once refraining from protesting at this gesture. It was okay. I understood how she felt.

  It was finally time to make my appearance in the wedding hall. I waited outside the door to the hall, concentrating on not tripping on my sari. Vandna was accompanying me, and just as the door opened, she whispered to me, ‘There is no need to smile so much.’ This remark confused me for a moment, considering that this was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and all that, but I quickly deciphered it to mean that she thought I should be a bit more of the coy, blushing bride. I obeyed her as I entered the hall, and managed a fairly sombre expression, although it was quite an effort when I caught sight of Vijay.

  He had been refusing to behave like the typical groom and had been wandering all around the large hall, greeting old friends and long-lost family members – much to the consternation of Rama didi, who had a very strong sense of propriety and was unsuccessfully pursuing him through the crowd in order to inform him that he should really be sitting still on one of the two chairs on the platform. When the door opened to reveal me and I started walking in slowly, everybody turned to look at me with gratifying ooh’s and aah’s.

  Vijay, who at that point had been merrily chatting to some old friends from IIT, also joined the crowd as they all turned to look at the coy, blushing and no doubt radiant bride that I was. He stood there, transfixed, along with everybody else, watching me in this strange new avatar. As I walked, I kept my eyes mostly lowered but I spotted him through the heavily mascaraed lashes and had to bite my lower lip to keep from laughing at the expression of pure admiration on his face.

  He continued to stand there with a silly grin on his face until Rama didi finally caught up to him and urged him to take his place on the platform. He reached there and quickly sat down just a few seconds before I did, but the serene smile on his face as I reached him gave the impression that he had been fixed in his seat, waiting patiently for me for the last hour or so.

  It was as he stood up to welcome me that I got my first close look at him for the evening. Instantly, I realized that I could have done a better job of helping him with his wedding suit – the silver-white Sherwani that he had got tailored for himself was too broad at the shoulders, and in combination with his height, his skinny legs and the bright red turban on his head, made him now give the uncanny appearance of a larger-than-life tube of Colgate toothpaste. I could almost see the words inscribed near the base: ‘For Best Results, Squeeze from Bottom Up’. I was unable to retain the sombre expression that Vandna had imposed upon me and started to laugh. I had to pretend to have a coughing fit to disguise my giggles. He sat next to me, giving me the odd quizzical glance now and then, but otherwise resplendent and elegant, as much as human toothpaste tubes can be.

  After this, a lot of people, most of whom we didn’t know, came up to us to wish us well, hand us gifts and envelopes stuffed with cash, and to have photographs taken with us. The photographer was possibly the most annoying photographer in the world, creating blinding flashes when we least expected it, and constantly telling me, ‘Up your chin, up your chin, madam.’ After a while, every time he said this, I started to mutter under my breath, ‘Up yours, sir!’

  He then started repeatedly saying between flashes, ‘Madam, can you more down? Sir, can you more up?’ I was about to tell him off, but then I saw that he had a point. While sitting, for some reason, I looked taller than Vijay.

  This realization came as an immense shock to me, as his six feet two inches usually dwarfed my five feet six and a half inches. I asked him to stop slouching and sit up, but even when he straightened his back completely, I was still taller than him. Why had I never noticed this before?

  I hissed at him, ‘Oh my god. You have a freakishly short upper body!’

  A few people who were standing near the podium turned around to look at us. I immediately looked down coyly and started examining the mehendi on my hands. An annoyed Vijay whispered back to me, ‘Or maybe, you have freakishly short legs. How about that?’

  I mumbled that I had a longish upper body and average length legs. Still, this wouldn’t do, our wedding photos were mostly of us sitting next to each other and I was now sure that we looked silly like this. So I whispered a suggestion to Vijay about lifting up his red pagdi slightly. For the rest of the photographs, I slouched as much as I could while Vijay straightened up with his pagdi perched higher on his head. These simple steps resulted in giving the camera the correct impression that he was taller than me. The only slight glitch was that he now looked like a Colgate toothpaste tube whose cap had been screwed on too loosely, but I figured this was a small price to pay and wisely refrained from pointing it out to him.

  The greet-and-photo session went on and on. We got so used to saying, ‘Thank you’ with fake smiles plastered on our faces that, when one gentleman said, ‘I’m Dr Gulati, an old friend of your mother-in-law,’ Vijay gave him his best fake smile, shook his hand firmly and replied, ‘Thank you, uncle.’

  Eventually, it was time for the pheras – the ceremony where we walked around the fire and the punditji droned on and on about our vows. It was late, almost 2 a.m., and Punditji was explaining the meaning of each of the vows to us. I tried very hard to listen to him, but I was actually stifling yawns the whole time. I had been sitting crosslegged for a long time on the floor and it was very uncomfortable. At one point, to my horror, I thought I felt my sari giving me a wedgie, but it thankfully turned out be a false alarm. I only woke from my stupor when Punditji said that, as a part of the ceremony, Vijay and I should feed each other laddoos, which sounded to me like the most sensible thing he’d said all night. He asked Vijay to go first. I turned towards him and lifted my face up with a coy smile. Vijay broke off a piece of laddoo just the right size and I opened my mouth expectantly. Ignoring me completely, he proceeded to swiftly pop the laddoo into his own mouth, much to the merriment of the many observers and to the chagrin of Punditji, as apparently this marred the ritual that denotes the sharing of every aspect of our lives. I accepted Vijay’s next offering rather haughtily. Clearly, he was not taking this sacred ritual seriously enough, and was paying even less attention to Punditji’s instructions than I was. In the background, I was aware of my cousin Mini and sister Gitanjali holding on to each other in a fit of helpless laughter, but I pretended I didn’t find it the least bit funny.

  It was finally over and we were married. The vidai was something of a sham because we were spending the night in the Radisson. So we were being seen off, only to circle around for a block or two before coming back. I bid everybody farewell very cheerfully, deliberately keeping my distance from Vandna, who would no doubt tell me to attempt to cry or something. It was only much later, while watching our wedding video, that I discovered that my obvious merriment looked very out of place, but only because the enthusiastic video-maker had bunged in at this point a particularly weepy song about the sadness of a you
ng bride leaving her family to join an unfamiliar one. The music formed a strange contrast to the candid shots of me with a wide grin on my face, blowing kisses and waving happily to all and sundry.

  When we finally got back to our hotel room, Vijay answered the ringing phone. It was the hotel management asking if everything was to our satisfaction. Vijay answered that it indeed was, and the man said, ‘Thank you, Mister Lal,’ and hung up.

  Vijay did not see the humour in this, although I explained that it was probably a simple misunderstanding since my mother had done the room booking. My little joke of ‘What, you don’t intend to change your surname to mine now?’ didn’t go down too well either.

  Before we put the lights out, my mother called to check if everything was okay with us. I lay back, exhausted after the day we’d had, lazily listening to their exchange.

  Vijay said warmly, ‘Thank you, aunty – for everything.’

  I heard my mother’s voice chiming from the receiver, chiding him with ‘Beta, I’m your mother now. So call me mama from now on, okay? No more of this aunty-shanty.’

  Vijay laughed self-deprecatingly, ‘Sure, I’ll remember.’

  Mother continued, ‘So we’ll talk tomorrow. Goodnight, beta.’

  ‘Goodnight, aunty.’ And with that, my brand-new husband hung up the phone.

  6

  The Honeymoon

  A couple of days after the wedding, we took off for our honeymoon. Vijay and I devised our very own personal welcome slogan and sang out in childish excitement as our flight landed, ‘Welcome to Goooaaaa!’

  The first couple of days unfolded beautifully. We stayed in a cottage-home at a Taj property and went walking along the spotless beaches. The resort swimming pool had an inbuilt bar, so we splashed around in the pool after sipping Bloody Mary and beer. We rented a bike and rode around exploring the place, Vijay expertly manoeuvering the vehicle along side roads, with me hanging on for dear life, happier than I had ever been before, with my arms wrapped tight around his skinny – and freakishly short – upper body. We tried the feni and resolved never to try it again, and went to all the happening joints and beaches and some of the shady ones too. At the flea market, we bought packets and packets of cheap items, including large straw hats and bright shirts that screamed ‘I’m a tourist’ and which after this trip, we knew we would never wear again.

  It was on the third day that we decided to take the bike all the way to Dudhsagar waterfalls, at the other end of Goa. We rode for five hours, refuelling several times on the way. The last seven kilometres were on a poorly maintained dirt track through a forest. My teeth rattled as I held on to Vijay’s flimsy touristy shirt, trying to keep from being thrown off the bike. We finally made it, sweaty and tired – but triumphant. We had only a small climb over some rocks to get to the waterfalls when Vijay suddenly spotted a small monkey innocently scratching itself nearby. Screeching like a teenage girl, he announced rather incoherently that we had to go back right now. Upon my questioning him, I discovered that he had some sort of a phobia of wild monkeys. We were so close that we could hear the waterfalls, but he refused to move further towards them and stood frozen on the spot, staring fearfully at the small lone monkey. This was too much for me. I dragged him bodily past the monkey towards the waterfalls, barking in his ear, ‘We came here to see the waterfalls and we’re going to see the waterfalls even if we get our eyes scratched out. Now ENJOY yourself!’

  The waterfalls were pretty, but the presence of some drunk locals marred the romantic scenery, as did Vijay’s nervous shifty-eyed glancing about for the tiny monkey. After about ten minutes, we set off on the five-hour journey back to the hotel. Overall, this outing was a definite adventure. Not at all worth it, of course.

  The next day was shaping up to be much more promising – we were going to try our hand at adventure sports. After a brief discussion, we decided we would go jet-skiing and parasailing.

  The jet-skiing was first – we rented two jet-skis, and we were each to be accompanied by expert jet-skiers who would do the actual steering. We took off, Vijay’s jet-ski one split second before mine, and my heart jumped into my throat at how fast we were going. We were riding the waves as if the ocean was one bumpy, blue road. After a while, Vijay even tried his hand at driving his jet-ski. I didn’t dare to try it myself because it looked difficult. Also, I didn’t want to trouble my instructor too much, because just a few minutes into the ride, I had snapped my head back suddenly to ask him something and had ended up ramming his jaw very hard. After that, he might have been a bit annoyed with me, because he had stopped speaking to me – or perhaps he just couldn’t talk any more.

  I was extremely excited about the next item on the agenda: parasailing. I was sure it was going to be even more thrilling and hurried a protesting Vijay through lunch, leaving my own plate nearly untouched.

  There was only one other couple ahead of us. The man seemed on the obnoxious side. The instructor kept repeating, ‘Just remember to pull down to the right when you see me wave the red flag – pull right, okay? This motion will bring you down here on this spot, and you’ll be fine.’

  ‘Wow – it’s really that simple? Come on, come on then, let’s go,’ said Mr Obnoxious impatiently.

  He and his wife, whom I felt rather sorry for, were going ahead of us. Vijay and I were strapped onto the sail and just before our boat was to take off with us in tow, we were asked to remove our shoes. I threw off my slippers carelessly and then realized the sand was burning hot. In a hurry, I started trying to run, dragging the sail with me, while Vijay was forced to lope along behind me, saying, ‘Wait, wait.’ I hopped on one foot and then the other and thankfully the boat started up and zoomed off and we found ourselves taking off into the air.

  We went sailing higher and higher, and when I looked down, the sight of the sea, the beach and the trees far below us was breathtaking and frightening. I wanted to squeeze Vijay’s hand and savour the moment, but since we were both hanging on for dear life, I decided I would save the hand-squeezing for later. He was trying to whisper something possibly very romantic into my ear, but I couldn’t hear anything over the rushing wind. He then tried shouting but I still couldn’t hear him, so he finally just gave up and we sailed together through the bright blue sky. I felt like we were getting closer and closer to the hot sun. It was perfect.

  Like all good things, it was over too soon and our boat began to veer towards the beach. I spotted the instructor waving his red flag frantically and pointed at him, but Vijay was apparently already on top of it. He pulled down towards the right with all his might and we were soon headed to a safe landing on the beach.

  We landed and I realized that, while it had been great fun, I was feeling especially thrilled to be back on solid ground. As we were being helped out of our sail, we became aware of some commotion nearby. It seems that when he saw the instructor waving, Mr Obnoxious had pulled down with all his considerable weight, except he did it to the left and had thus made a perfect landing in the ocean. We looked over and then spotted him and his poor wife being fished out of the water, both sputtering at the indignity and unfairness of it all.

  I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the hot sand had not once again been burning holes into my soles, and I went hopping over to retrieve my slippers as quickly as I could.

  The honeymoon was over. The flight back to Bangalore was delayed and we landed in the city late at night. Although physically exhausted, we chattered endlessly about how we would do up our place together, what we needed to buy and so on. It was only when we reached home and were paying off the taxi driver that I realized something was missing.

  ‘Honey, where’s our luggage?’

  ‘Huh?’

  I was aghast at what we had done. The two of us were so accustomed to day trips as a part of our marketing jobs, that we had each brought back only our little carry-on bags slung over our shoulders and had forgotten to collect the rest of our luggage from baggage claim. A perfectly understandable error, exce
pt that what we had forgotten were four large suitcases laden with wedding gifts.

  We got the taxi driver to take us back and eventually found our suitcases sitting near the conveyer belt, being examined by two airport officials who eyed us suspiciously as we explained how we had just happened to leave so many large pieces of luggage behind. They were clearly on the fence, wavering between whether to believe us or to call for back-up in case we were crazies who posed some sort of security threat – until Vijay sidled up to them and whispered coyly, ‘Please excuse. Just married.’

  We were granted permission to retrieve our luggage and we headed home.

  7

  Settling Down

  ‘Vijay! My wedding jewellery … it’s gone!’

  It was the third day after our return to Bangalore and we were still unpacking and putting things away when I decided to take a look at the bag of jewellery that we had bunged into our bedroom cupboard the night we arrived. To my shock and dismay, I found several pieces of jewellery missing.

  I had never really owned anything but junk jewellery before and had received, as wedding gifts, several expensive and beautiful pieces gifted by various generous people, although I was utterly confused about who had given what. Naturally, I was now disheartened and lamented the heavy loss, not even daring to calculate how much of a loss it actually was.

  Vijay comforted me to the best of his ability. He also played the part of the Angry Young Husband to a T, vowing to put locks upon our cupboards, and casting a suspicious eye on the cooking maid, the cleaning maid and even the monkeys that occasionally hung around on the trees outside our balcony. I said in a martyred fashion that it didn’t matter and that we couldn’t just go about accusing people, or for that matter, simians, without proof; and that perhaps, in retrospect, a plastic bag in an unlocked cupboard was not the best place to house wedding jewellery and therefore it was at least partly our own fault. It was something that we just had to bear with fortitude, even if it meant that the symbols of the happiest day of my life were now gone for ever. I ended my speech with a melodramatic sigh and I could see Vijay was impressed. We agreed not to tell our family, especially my mother, who had worked so hard to make the wedding a success. Let her, I said, bask in the afterglow of my successful, without-a-single-notable-mishap wedding for a few days – we would bear this heavy burden ourselves.