I started pacing my room in order to think of an excuse, an explanation, a way out with my dignity intact. The only problem was that I didn’t know what the problem was. I tried to take a guess. My personality would not have allowed me to be too rude no matter what my state. Or would it? I hadn’t ever been that drunk before. The worst I could have done was say harsh things to Harsh for not accepting the proposal. But they hadn’t outright rejected me either, so I could not have jeopardized the situation further no matter how drunk I was. But the mood outside my room indicated how serious the matter was.
I decided to dive into the situation and face it. The easiest way out would be to listen to the offences I was charged with, accepting that I had got drunk and out of hand, apologizing and listening to their rant. Tomorrow everything will be okay again. I had to face the music for now.
Trying to be as nonchalant as possible, I went out and greeted everyone. Everybody responded normally. There was no immediate lambasting and to evade it altogether, I scooted off to the kitchen on the pretext of getting myself a glass of milk.
A minute passed, then two, then three and hope rose in my heart that maybe I had misjudged the situation after all. Harsh had been kind enough to not be complaining and my drunken antics would forever remain a secret. I started to pour milk into a glass when my father called, causing my hand to shake and some milk to spill on the kitchen countertop.
Damn! So close.
‘Yes, Papa, I’m just getting my breakfast.’
‘Come here, we need to discuss something.’ We always needed to ‘discuss something’ those days. It was getting tiring. Getting married is bloody tough, especially when you’re not getting married.
My skin started prickling. Never had I thought that I would get scolded by my father for drunk-dialling a boy who could have been my husband (but would not be because I drunk-dialled him in the first place!). I paced the kitchen a little. Why am I being so jumpy? I asked myself. I am a grown-up, independent woman, who just had a little more to drink than she should have and used her phone a little more than she should have. I don’t deserve to be yelled at for that. I’ve got this.
I gave myself the most rubbish pep talk in the history of rubbish pep talks and prepared for my doom.
‘Madhu?’ came Mother’s voice and I knew I couldn’t avoid it any longer. Well, no point crying over spilt milk, quite literally!
‘Coming, coming,’ I said, walking out casually. I was going to play innocent till the end.
‘How was Anu’s wedding?’ Mother asked. Small talk before the scolding. Nice touch.
‘It was very nice. You both should have come, mom, dad.’
‘They didn’t call,’ Grandma said with a note of finality.
‘Of course, they did. The invite said ‘& family’ and Anu herself told me twice to tell you, which I did.’
‘But they didn’t call on the phone.’
‘Oh, come on!’
‘Leave matters that are beyond your understanding.’
I could sense an argument building up when Father interrupted.
‘Anyway, we have something else to discuss.’
There was a rumbling in the pit of my stomach. I had not been scolded for a long time.
‘The Tripathis called this morning,’ Father said gravely.
‘Really?’ I expressed surprise. Innocent until proven guilty.
‘Yes,’ said Grandma, firmly.
I started to count, mentally tuning the conversation out of my head.
‘We weren’t expecting this.’
Ten, nine . . .
The voice became softer. Not really, I just stopped paying attention. I went back to that night. I tried to picture myself dialling Harsh. The voices of my family members reduced to a whisper but were still audible.
‘Yes, we thought the matter was closed.’
Six, five . . .
I pictured myself in the washroom cubicle as Disha had described. And suddenly I remembered a moment. A moment when I saw his number flash on my phone. He had called me back for something. Even my call log suggested the same. Why had he called back?
Three, two . . .
‘I can’t believe they have said “Yes”.’
I was thinking of that moment. Why had he called me back?
One!
‘WHAT?!!’ I cried out on realizing what I had heard. My attention shot back to the present.
‘Don’t act so surprised. We know you and Harsh have spoken about this already.’
Now that was a double whammy! It took every ounce of my willpower from yelling again. I regained my composure, trying to process everything but it was impossible to believe it. This was the second time Harsh had managed to surprise me by offering acceptance when I had expected rejection.
‘They want an engagement soon and the wedding within six months.’
Was there something called a triple whammy? What the hell was happening? Was I still drunk from that night?
‘I wish you had told us that you and Harsh were still in touch. We had approached a few more families because we thought that it was a closed chapter,’ said Mother.
‘Yes, exactly. And we would not have been as tongue-tied had we been told to expect it. Quite a little chhupa Rustam you are,’ Grandma said in mock anger, trying hard to contain her naughty smile.
My head started to spin with confusion. Was I getting married? Was I getting married to Harsh? Was that a good thing? I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know the reason behind Harsh’s sudden decision to marry me. I was certain it had to do with the phone call. But what that something was would remain a mystery for a while.
‘Now we need to know what your final answer is. Do you want to marry that sissy little fellow?’
‘Stop it, Ma,’ my mother chided her mother.
‘Are you denying that he is sissy?’
‘I don’t understand these fancy terms. All I know is that he is a good boy from a good family,’ Mother answered.
‘Good family, my foot!’ came Grandma’s sharp reply. She got a nasty glance from mother, enough to silence her.
‘Why are you so against it?’ I asked her, truly bewildered. Weren’t they the ones who got me this proposal to begin with?
‘Because now she likes another family better. The one we were planning to approach next weekend,’ Mother said.
‘Nothing like that,’ Grandma protested weakly.
‘Okay, enough of all this. This is a serious matter. Madhu, beta, what is your final answer? Do you want this? Should we go ahead and start planning an engagement?’
Oh! How badly had I wanted to experience this! This moment of final acceptance, this moment of celebration. My wedding! There was a rush of excitement in my body. It had nothing to do with Harsh or his family or with the (non-existent) connection between us. No. This was about me. This felt validating, like I, too, had a (love) life now. I, too, would have someone to go on dates with, to go to movies with. I, too, was good enough to be someone’s daughter-in-law. I, too, was desired by a man. I was getting married! I would not die alone. I would not die a virgin. This was the best news in a long time. There was something ominous in the air that filled me with a sense of foreboding because it wasn’t usual for someone to readily bring home a fat bride without even knowing her. However, in the excitement of my newfound validation I didn’t dwell on the thought for long.
At that point, it was not Harsh when I really cared about. It could have been any other man and I would have been equally elated. It was his identity in my life that made it exciting—the possible boyfriend, the probable husband. It gave me a thrill, a stamp that I was in sync with the world, doing the things an average person does.
Most people aspired to stand out, but I always dreamed of fitting in. I wanted to blend into the crowd, live life like the girl next door. Being the odd one out can get tiring and I was done with being that—the fat girl.
16
341 days before the wedding
It was by
far the most anticipated day at home. The day my family had been fervently waiting for. The day the burden of finding a groom would be lifted off their shoulders. The day my grandmother would get a new topic to discuss with her relatives. The day Father would find something new to worry about. The day Mother could happily begin complaining about the work to be done for her daughter’s wedding. Parents love this sort of serious planning, don’t they?
So that day, Harsh’s family was visiting us to seal the deal and take matters further. Since the suspicious news of a green signal from the Tripathis, there had been no contact between Harsh and me. How boring, right? The last interaction we had had was the one I had no memory of. It was a confusing situation. I was more curious than ever about his sudden decision to marry me but I didn’t have the nerve to contact him. Not again.
Harsh and his parents, (minus the sister—yay!) reached our place at 9 p.m. sharp.
Mother had paid extra attention to setting up the house. Grandma had paid extra attention to the setting of her hair and Father was finding it difficult to pay attention to anything at all. He seemed more nervous than me.
For the first fifteen minutes after their arrival, I was holed up in my bedroom dressed in a bright blue saree that I hadn’t been able to talk myself out of wearing. Because the door was shut, I couldn’t clearly hear what was going on outside, just a laugh or a sound every few minutes that confirmed the presence of several people on the other side.
When I heard my mother’s knock summoning me, a shiver ran down my spine. How would I face Harsh? I couldn’t stop myself from taking one last look in the mirror, an otherwise rarely used object in my room. My reflection deflated my spirits. I wish something could deflate my body as easily. I didn’t at all look like a bride-to-be. In fact, in the starched saree, with the outdated (though beautiful) jewellery and the ‘aunty bun’, I resembled a woman who must have married and mothered at least two children several years ago. I felt angry, frustrated and panicky. I was fat, yes, but why couldn’t I still feel beautiful?
I conveyed my displeasure to my mother.
‘Come on, Madhu. Put a smile on your face and let’s go.’
‘I’m looking horrible.’
‘No, you are not,’ she said firmly, not elaborating further, not pacifying me, not praising me.
I never took the praise of my family members seriously. I felt it was always out of sympathy or because they were my parents. However, at that point, even some false praise would have helped me feel better. Mother didn’t humour me though.
‘Madhu, you are grown up now, about to get married. This childish behaviour won’t do. Hurry up. Everyone is waiting.’
I went out of the room with a slightly less sullen face.
For the first seven or eight minutes, I avoided Harsh’s gaze altogether and for most of the rest of the evening, he avoided mine. I just didn’t understand him. His shyness was off-putting. Maybe ‘shyness’ was too polite a term. Maybe he was outright cold. And I don’t know if it was just my imagination, but I felt that Harsh’s mother had a different tone, a different demeanour, a different air about herself that day. Was she already moving into the snooty mother-in-law zone? Was she displaying pomp because she was the groom’s mother? Or was she being arrogant because they were accepting me in spite of how fat I was? I wasn’t sure what the reason was, but certainly, this wasn’t the same woman who had been much friendlier on our previous meeting.
Most of the dinner proceedings went by predictably. There was superfluous laughter, forced chitchat, unnecessary praising and the usual. I had been unable to eat properly all day and my appetite made a fierce comeback in the middle of the evening but obviously, I couldn’t ask for dinner to be served earlier. Once the elders had had enough of beating about the bush, they got down to business. I was asked to sit beside Harsh. I nervously sank into the sofa next to him. At least two people were talking to me but I couldn’t take my mind off the fact that my left thigh was touching his right. I could feel tension in his body, in his posture and it made me all the more uncomfortable. Did he even want this? Had I blackmailed him into this? Why was he being so uptight?
Father handed over a coconut along with an envelope containing one thousand rupees in cash to Harsh. A basket of fruits was also given to his family as a token of confirmation. Harsh’s mother reciprocated the gesture by handing over another fancy basket to us. ‘There are dry fruits in this. Five kilos in total,’ she said with a snobbish smile.
Throughout the evening, Harsh remained more reserved than usual. He didn’t make much eye contact with me and spoke only when spoken to. The only words he had said directly to me were, ‘Yes,’ when I offered him another helping of rice and ‘No, thank you,’ when I had offered him another helping of dessert.
I know I couldn’t expect him to be romantic with me in the midst of everything, but his lukewarm behaviour frustrated me further. All this suddenly felt unreal.
Sometime later, both fathers went into a corner to discuss serious matters. I learnt later that the groom’s side had asked for an engagement ceremony to be held within the next fortnight in order to announce the news to near and dear ones. They wanted it to be a small affair. My father, on the contrary, had not wanted an engagement at all, for it meant added expenditure, but he could not refuse, not when they were accepting his daughter into their household.
Father’s sense of indebtedness towards the groom’s side had been established right from the beginning. In general, too, we see the groom’s side dictating terms but in my case, it was more so because, well, you know why.
Right after they left that night, Grandma and Mother started a fierce discussion on clothes and jewellery as if they were born to do this. Not even five minutes later, the doorbell rang again. I was in my bedroom.
‘Madhu,’ my mother said with a naughty smile. ‘Harsh has come. Go.’
My heart started to race. I had just started to undo my saree. Hastily, I draped it back on. He’d come back to meet me. To talk to me. To talk to me alone! To say something that would make me smile, to make all this feel right. For the first time all day I felt how a bride-to-be should be—excited, shy and giddy.
‘Hi,’ I said, standing at the entrance of my house. Harsh was still outside. My family had steered clear, though I could sense Grandma’s eyes peeping from behind some door or another.
‘Come, come in. Why are you standing at the door?’ I said sweetly, wondering what we would do now, what we would say, where his family had gone and how he would go back.
‘Actually, I’ve forgotten my car keys,’ Harsh said simply.
‘Oh!’ Why hadn’t he just taken the keys from my mother then?
Naturally, I felt silly. This boy was almost allergic to romance. Would it be like this, like we were doing a business deal all along? This was not the bargain I had wanted to settle for. All of my adult life I had been deprived of experiencing love and lust. I deserved to be chased, to be flirted with, to be romanced. I had thought that the Love Gods had finally decided to shower their blessings on me, but I was mistaken.
With obvious disappointment, I handed over the car key to Harsh and bade him goodbye.
After a reasonable amount of sulking, I decided to be ‘mature’ about this. I would have to be patient. There was no need for desperation. He was marrying me of his own accord. For now, I could gloat over the fact that I was GOING TO GET MARRIED.
I would be calling my friends to give them news about ME, I would be shopping for bridal clothes, I would be planning functions and events. I would be the bride, the centre of attention, the one for whose wedding many people would come. The hype excited me at that time because I couldn’t foresee what was coming next.
17
320 days before the wedding
The obligatory engagement that Harsh’s family had wanted was just a week away and matters with him were still as stagnant as before. But who had time to worry about that? There were bigger problems to tackle, like not having anything to w
ear. Yes! It was a week to the big day and I had nothing to wear. Can you imagine! The crisis was real. And I was panicking.
‘Don’t worry. Dieting is helping. God wants you to be in better shape when you find your engagement dress,’ Mother said. Which shape was she talking about? Round? You might think a weeklong of morning jogs and tasteless food could make you skinny but trust me, it doesn’t.
After a very healthy and highly unsatisfying meal, Mother and I left for shopping for the third time in a week. This time I was actually eager to shop. Not having anything to wear and thus running the high risk of looking stupider than I had imagined at my engagement was worrying the crap out of me.
I hated all the options in the first shop that we went to. In the second one, I agreed to try a few outfits but didn’t like them on me. I had not come to terms with the fact that I would have to compromise on the look that I had always had in my head.
As a growing girl, I had looked at marriage as something that would happen in the distant future, almost in another lifetime. As I grew up and the distant future turned into the immediate future, I still didn’t consider marriage as something that was about to happen.
I’d always look at pictures of brides, of bridal models in magazines and try to picture myself as one. ‘I’ll do this to my hair,’ I would tell myself on seeing a hairdo I liked. ‘I would never want to look like that,’ I would think on seeing an OTT bride. ‘I’ll lose the weight.’ ‘I’ll let my bangs grow out.’ ‘I’ll eat well.’ ‘I’ll sleep more.’ ‘I’ll go for a skin treatment.’ Oh, the promises were endless and now suddenly that phase had arrived. The imaginary wedding was actually happening and the weight was still there, the pimples refused to budge, the bangs weren’t growing fast enough. Reality is more real than perfectly white teeth and a tummy without tyres. The magical phase that a girl dreams of since her childhood is just a picture painted by glossy magazines. Not everyone can look as beautiful as a ‘photoshopped’ celebrity. Of course, I hadn’t the maturity to understand any of this. I just wanted to be a beautiful bride, heck, I wanted to be the most beautiful bride. But could a fat bride be that?
Encounters of a Fat Bride Page 6