‘I’m not sure.’ I really wasn’t. I would be totally out of place and at the centre of everyone’s attention. The thought of being scrutinized by Harsh’s extended family, of being judged for my clothes and looks, was scary. Everything I did, said and ate would be observed. There was too much scope for trouble.
And my family wouldn’t even be there for moral support. I’d definitely much rather stay peacefully at home.
‘Okay,’ Harsh said. That’s it. No convincing, no reasoning, no asking me to try to make it. It put me off completely. Why was I even doing this? Why was I marrying a man who was so wooden? A man who hadn’t the courage to romance a girl he had himself agreed to marry.
I sat sulking in bed. I had not wanted to go for this event from the minute I’d heard about it but when Harsh didn’t insist, I suddenly wanted to go. Or rather, I wanted to be convinced to go for it. What is it about reverse psychology? It beats me completely.
Thoroughly unsatisfied with the state of my love life, I decided to brood over the matter later and tried to sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the beep of my phone woke me up. My eyes flew open when I saw it was a message from Harsh.
‘It would be nice if you could come,’ read his message. I rubbed my eyes and read again. My inexpressive, boring fiancé had made a genuine, although unusual, effort to convince me. And just like that I was baffled again. Harsh always did this. It was like walking back three steps only to take a step ahead. His behaviour was mystifying, to say the least. I checked the time. It was a little after 3 a.m. in one line. What a weirdo he was! It would be nice if you could come. What were we? Characters of some classic English novel?
Nonetheless, I could not bring myself to overlook his effort. It’s not as if I would have been able to get out of the plan if he hadn’t texted. I would have gone anyway. To Mother and Grandma, it wouldn’t matter that Harsh hadn’t tried to convince me. They would think I was being stupid and childish. For them, romance is stupid and childish. What does romance have to do with more important things like marriage and children? Nothing.
Too sleepy to care about any of this, I texted Harsh, ‘I will come’. If anyone read the exchange between Harsh and me, they’d agree we were doing it wrong. Two people could not have been more platonic. Whatever happened to sweet nothings? I just had nothing.
20
282 days before the wedding
It was a laboriously long journey to Harsh’s mother’s maiden home in Fatehabad. We started on the journey in the wee hours of the morning and covered 250-odd kilometres over a five-hour-long drive in Harsh’s sedan, which although was meant for five, couldn’t accommodate his mother, sister and me comfortably in the back seat.
‘This will be one of our last long trips in this car,’ his sister said excitedly. ‘Papa is buying a new car. A red one, right?’
This was news to me. I hoped the new car would be slightly bigger. The four Tripathis animatedly discussed the new member coming into their family (not me). It was being bought on the occasion of the wedding. Harsh was actually childlike while discussing the colour, features and interior of the car. He was a different man in those three minutes. Outspoken, opinionated and truly interested. Why couldn’t he be like this in matters of the heart?
I remained quiet as much as possible during the journey. There was less chance of getting into trouble that way. We reached Harsh’s maternal family home by lunch time. It was a palatial property that hadn’t been maintained well. Paint was peeling off the walls, the house looked dilapidated. The grass in the garden was high and uncut.
Much as I was looking forward to the break from work and college, I was equally dreading the next two days. Harsh’s first cousin was getting married to a girl from the same city. I had heard great things about her soft-spoken nature and beauty throughout the drive to the bungalow. Harsh’s mother had been profusely praising her. Every time she said something about her figure and beauty, it felt like a taunt directed towards me, even if it weren’t so. The trip would be agonizing.
Harsh’s mother introduced me to her family as hurriedly as it was possible to introduce someone you didn’t really want to. We had a quick lunch and then the women got down to business, wrapping last-minute gifts. Some woman, whose relationship to Harsh I could not comprehend, was kind enough to involve me in the little chores that didn’t seem to end. I was glad to be busy as it meant less attention directed towards me.
I was itching to see the ‘other’ bride. My counterpart of sorts, the girl I’d forever be compared to in Harsh’s family. It was only natural. Even if we were both loved equally, our differences would be duly noted.
Everything seemed to be in favour of this girl. She would be married before me and would already be acquainted with the family by the time I became Harsh’s wife. She was a year younger than me (I don’t know why I thought this was an advantage). She was conventionally good-looking and borderline skinny, thanks to yoga (Can you believe my luck?). And above all, she was a doctor. I had seen her photographs. A young, thin, beautiful doctor. How do you top that? The more I thought about her, while wrapping the gifts, the more I felt hopeless. I willed myself to stay confident and calm, even though it was only pretence. It was just a matter of few days, for now.
That evening, a small mehendi function was organized for the women on the groom’s side. We sat near the veranda, dressed casually, our hands bared to henna artists. The men were indoors for a late-afternoon siesta. Harsh and I had had limited interaction since the morning. We had got friendlier with each other, but I wanted more. I wanted romance. Clichéd though it was.
Harsh’s grandmother started singing a few traditional folk songs that I did not recognize. Some of the women joined in and made a racket in the name of music, using spoons and steel plates. Frankly, the cacophony was annoying. I would occasionally smile and laugh without comprehending half the jokes. I felt like an outsider. One of the girls tried to pull me in for some dancing but I couldn’t do it. Gone was the star performer of Anu’s cocktail night. Gone was her newfound confidence. Drunk Madhu was sorely missed. Sober Madhu was no match for her.
At night, a musical event had been organized—nothing like the big fat cocktail programme before Anu’s wedding. Some well-known folk artist had been roped in to sing ghazals. How boring!
We reached the venue, all decked up, by 9 p.m. A tempo had been organized to shuttle the guests back and forth. I wore a simple Indian suit and did my hair and make-up to the best of my abilities but I didn’t feel good enough. I never felt good enough. My extra weight had created an irreparable dent in my self-confidence.
Musicians and artists were already onstage as we took our seats. Shortly after we reached, the programme began. Neither the bride nor her family was present. The groom’s family had organized the event solely for themselves.
Thirty minutes into the night and it was clear that the elders were enjoying themselves while the youngsters were getting bored and restless. What a dull event! They should have had something more appropriate for the younger crowd. I would not let something like this happen at my wedding.
I stole a glance at Harsh who was sitting motionless beside me. He was engrossed in his phone, reading some article or another, no doubt. Harsh was a news junkie. The little that I had got to know of him, I had discovered that he was always abreast with current affairs. One would always find him reading news updates on his mobile phone. I suddenly felt lost, vulnerable and out of place. I was among strangers, with this strange man who had no sense of how to be with a woman, leave alone a woman he was about to marry.
I pictured myself at home, comfortably sitting on the sofa in my pyjamas, bantering with my grandmother, secretly enjoying her mindless television soaps. I longed to go back even though it had only been a few hours. Was this what my life would become? Would I ever fit in? All my notions of a dreamy, romantic, arranged marriage were slowly collapsing, one at a time, making me rethink my decision to get married. I couldn’t he
lp but wonder whether things would have been different had I not been fat?
21
281 days before the wedding
On the day of Harsh’s cousin’s wedding, I woke up uncertain of where I was. It took a moment to realize that I was attending an outstation wedding and sharing a room with my dear, darling, sweet little sister-in-law-to-be. God, I despised her. Since the time we had been allotted the same room, she had not bothered to spend a single minute with me. Except sleeping at night, she had spent every waking minute in her dear mother’s room. I had noticed that she had been cold towards me right from the beginning. She would just not take the initiative to talk to me, to make me feel welcome, to develop an equation with me, even though she was apparently outgoing. She was as extroverted as her brother was introverted. Good-looking, slim and tall, she was usually talkative, but for some reason didn’t seem interested in bonding with me. She wasn’t rude or nasty, just indifferent and aloof.
On finding the other half of the bed empty, I understood that she was up and about already. I checked the time and to my horror saw it was a little past eleven in the morning. I should have put on the alarm and woken up at a decent hour. Grandma’s shrill voice was taunting me in my head. Even in my head, I couldn’t silence her! I jumped out of bed and speedily took a shower and got dressed. About twenty minutes later, I reached the living room. Everyone was already there and the groom’s haldi ceremony, a tradition where a thick paste of milk, flour and turmeric is applied on a bridegroom and bride was in process. Gross.
Trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible, I stealthily went and sat next to Harsh’s sister. His mother noticed me despite my best effort to blend into the crowd. ‘The maharani is here,’ she remarked, caustically. I made light of the comment and smiled, embarrassed. Taunts are part and parcel of marriage, my mother always said. I’d better get used to them.
Everyone was preoccupied with applying haldi on the groom’s hairy chest. Unfortunately, I also saw his armpits. Ugh! An unforgivable sight. Until the previous day, I had never seen this man. And now I had seen too much of him. Why was I even here?
I tried to gauge whether M-I-L-T-B was truly upset with me. But it was difficult to do so as she usually looked sullen. Luckily, she got busy for the rest of the day and her little jibe was the only flak I received.
Harsh was conspicuously absent during the ceremony and I hadn’t had a moment to think about him since I woke up.
The bond that should have been developing between us was absent. He was supposed to be the reason why I was there—the link, the conduit, binding me to the people in that house and to the family. But, when both of us had failed to forge a relationship then how could he help me develop one with his family members?
I was dragging it on. For what? For the sake of carrying out the task of marriage, for the sake of society and its traditions, for the sake of crossing marriage off my list, for the sake of others . . .
After lunch, we had to get ready and leave for the wedding ceremony at a nearby banquet hall. Finally, I would get to see the bride in person.
I gobbled down lunch in order to have more time to get ready. Since my arrival here, I’d happily forgotten all about ‘eating healthy’. Religiously, I had stayed off junk food and carbohydrates for an entire week in order to look slimmer at this wedding. Even my clothes had been taken in an inch or two because I was confident of being in better shape after the week-long ‘health’ spree.
To my horror, everything seemed tighter when I started getting into my clothes. How could it be? I had just let myself go for a day. How could ONE day ruin the efforts and restraint of SEVEN? Maybe the tailor had got the measurements wrong and had tightened it way too much. The blouse of my saree would surely give me a cleavage at the back. Was it possible to sue the tailor?
I started losing my patience and confidence. I was cranky, irritated and homesick. I needed my mother. I needed my home. I needed some familiarity or sense of belonging. This was all so strange and frightening. Despite the paucity of time, I took another shower to cool down.
With a little effort, I managed to shimmy my way into the blouse this time. Once my arms had wiggled into the armholes I took a sigh of relief, but I couldn’t manage to hook the buttons at the back despite my best efforts. I mentally delivered a hate speech to my tailor. My arms hurt too much as I struggled to fasten the blouse. This was such an embarrassing situation to be stuck in.
Harsh’s sister had been getting ready in her mother’s room all this while. She walked in as I was trying to hook the buttons. I had no option but to ask for her help.
I had seen such situations in several movies, a new bride who can’t tie or untie something till her lustful husband comes to her rescue. It’s all very romantic, until the husband is replaced by his sister and you have to hold your breath while she buttons you up on the count of three. What a tragedy!
It was late afternoon when I stepped on to the bus that was shuttling guests back and forth from the house to the venue. I finally ran into Harsh on the bus. He looked at me and smiled his irritating I-could-be-your-brother smile that exuded no charm, no romance and no sense of intimacy. I wished I could express my frustration without actually showing it. I wanted to convey my unhappiness to him but even to do that there needed to be some level of comfort between us. He just never made an effort. It’s not as if Harsh was an unpleasant man. In fact, he was always polite and pleasant. It’s just that when he looked at me, which happened rarely, it’s as if I could be anybody to him—his mother, his uncle, a random person on the road. It didn’t feel like I was special.
I had assumed that when two people, who have everything left to discover about each other, were going to get married, the relationship between them would be passionate and full of eagerness.
Even my parents after all these years had better chemistry than Harsh and me. And the problem wasn’t just the lack of chemistry. It was as if Harsh didn’t want any of it. Then why had he agreed to get married? This was not the bargain I had wanted to make. Was it too late to reconsider my decision?
22
278 days before the wedding
My family was finalizing the wedding date with the Tripathis and here I was, having second thoughts. The trip to Fatehabad had been an eye-opener, a warning, a glimpse into a life with Harsh’s family, a peek into my future if I married him. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to marry for the sake of crossing it off my bucket list. No, I couldn’t. But what choice did I have? To upset my family when this clearly meant a great deal to them? They would never understand my situation, my point of view. I knew there was no point having this internal debate. I didn’t possess the nerve to stall the chain of events that was in motion. I couldn’t stand up to so many people. I couldn’t bring myself to even discuss my apprehensions with anyone in the family.
At noon, the elders sat in the living room, discussing the wedding date. Harsh’s father had given us two options. I would be married within the next three months.
I didn’t know what to feel. I had longed for this, because I didn’t know if it would ever happen. And now, the closer I was to getting married, the more I realized that this was not what I wanted. Life was short-changing me. What a nasty joke!
‘Madhu, beta, come here,’ Father called me.
I went to hear my fate, to know the date I would officially cease to be a fat burden on my family, the date of my wedding. Instead, I was received by frantic parents.
‘Okay, your in-laws have called us over to discuss the wedding date. We are leaving. I think we will have lunch there. We should be back by evening.’
‘Okay.’
‘Your lunch is in the kitchen,’ Mother said. ‘Don’t overeat.’
‘Okay.’
‘Let’s hope all goes well.’
‘Okay.’
Grandma was at her sister’s house again. So I was home alone. I went back to my room and decided to take a nap. It was my quick fix for every problem. But ten minutes
into my snooze, I was woken up by a phone call. I looked for my phone but found that it wasn’t ringing.
I figured one of my parents must’ve left their phone behind. I dashed into the living room and managed to answer the call just in time. This call was about to change my life.
‘Hello,’ I answered the unknown number.
‘Hi, good afternoon, may I speak to Mr Pandey?’
‘This is his daughter speaking.’
‘Oh, I was told this was his number.’
‘It is, but he is not around at the moment. Can I pass on any message to him?’
‘Yes, that would be great. Tell him Ravi Prasad had called to inform that the car is not available in red at the moment. There was a glitch at the manufacturing end so he was misinformed. The colour he wants to book will only be available at the end of the quarter. We are completely booked.’
I didn’t immediately understand the context. The man was speaking gibberish. But it was not a wrong number. This person knew my father.
‘I’m sorry I’m a bit confused. What is this regarding?’
‘Oh. Ms Pandey, your father had come to our showroom to book the sports version of the new Amaze but he was insistent on delivery within forty-five days and wanted it only in red. Unfortunately, that is not possible. And . . .’
New? Car? Book? Red? What was he saying?
My breath caught in my chest. Before the salesman could finish his sentence, I had cut the line and didn’t answer when he called again. It took me a moment to put two and two together. The realization was hard-hitting. There was no dramatic dropping of the phone, no collapsing to the ground in shock, just immobility and disbelief. A single moment of comprehension. As panic started to rise, I filled myself a glass of water and came back to the dining table. Anger built up inside me as my conviction grew firmer with every passing moment. I wanted to yell, but I gulped down the water in order to suppress the urge.
Encounters of a Fat Bride Page 8