by Manju Kapur
After Nina said yes, Ananda experienced a sense of achievement. He had courted, at the same time he had completed what his mother had set out to do. He recognised his sister’s role in this and felt closer to her.
Once she had made the decision, Nina became calmer. Her torture was over. She was moving towards a new life, and she allowed herself to feel the excitement of this.
As for Mr Batra, she looked positively bridal as the weight of Nina’s thirty years lifted from her heart.
Letters between the engaged pair doubled. She who dealt in words all day came home from work to pen hundreds to him, a running commentary on her thoughts and feelings, shyly revealing her expectations of happiness. Now between his neatly spaced blue lines she was free to read every meaning she wanted—desire for her, impatience for marriage, an eagerness to build a future together
A few times Ananda asked whether she would like to work once she came. He would be away all day, she might get lonely.
Nina would investigate all that once she got there. She knew it wasn’t easy to get a teaching job, but she had no experience of anything else. When she considered all her years of study and preparation, doing nothing for a while seemed no bad thing.
Once a week Nina went to the university post office to get her sheaf of onion skin papers weighed. She bought stamps for the precise amount, gummed them onto a thin airmail envelope, which she then had franked before her wary eyes. She numbered her letters so Ananda would know when one was missing and be appropriately desolate.
Almost every weekend Nina visited Alka. Ishan and Ila called her Maami; she was already their aunt. For Nina it was novel to feel part of a larger family, her interest assumed and gladly given in every matter under discussion. She could wander around the kitchen, open the fridge, ask about Ananda’s favourite dishes. (Later she realised that Alka had got it all wrong.) Ila hero-worshipped her—it was the age—and wanted to come to Canada as soon as possible. On the evenings of these visits, Nina gratified her mother by recounting every tiny detail. Mr Batra was always greedy for more.
Alka presented Nina with an engagement ring, a rectangular cut ruby surrounded by Basra pearls. ‘My mother got it from Burma. How she was looking forward to this day.’ The ring had an old-fashioned prettiness, and Nina slowly put it on her finger, abandoning fantasies of Ananda and diamonds. She was too old for that sort of thing, she had better watch herself.
The wedding was fixed for December. Ananda, the uncle and his family, friend Gary and Gary’s parents were all coming. The uncle wanted to stay at the Oberoi Hotel; its central heating and running hot water would soften the harsh realities of Indian living. Gary and his parents were booked at the Gymkhana Club. A colonial relic, it had an atmosphere no money could buy.
Ananda and Nina wanted a court marriage—less trouble, less expense—but Alka insisted that ritual alone could satisfy the spirit of her parents. They compromised on a simple ceremony at the Arya Samaj Mandir. Canadian dollars were to be spent on a reception held in the Rose Garden of the Gymkhana.
Though the groom was adamant that the girl’s side be put to no expense, Nina did not want to start married life as a charity case. She took a loan against her college provident fund, determined to pay for the wedding and the subsequent breakfast. Every day Nina and her mother counted their rupees, now free to flow into the future with all their might.
Meanwhile the mother worried about the daughter’s trousseau collected during her husband’s postings abroad: sheets, towels, linen, cutlery, kitchenware. Were these items to be shipped to Halifax or stored in Alka’s house?
Ananda objected to both possibilities. The transport money to Canada would buy such household articles twice over, and Alka would not want to be burdened by them. As for memorabilia, the practical eye looked coldly on books, letters, old diaries, cotton saris, lecture notes and decided they could not go.
Ananda had made sure that none of the traditional demands involving gifts and money be made on the bride’s side. All the immigration paperwork and the price of the air ticket were his. A bed of roses was waiting for Nina. Mr Batra hoped the girl would not make a special effort to seek out the thorns.
The summer holidays began, mother and daughter trapped in the heat of Delhi. At night they slept in the small outer space, squeezed to one side of the car, on two string beds which were propped against the wall in the day. They wet their sheets, so they could fall asleep with some coolness against their bodies. By five in the morning the summer sun drove them inside, Nina to bed, the mother to the kitchen.
For the first time in years, the never-ending summer with its dusty, searing winds was bearable. Every day was numbered, the last one of its kind. The last May, the last June. Nina would soon break out of this prison of heat. As she sweated, and fanned herself during electricity breakdowns, she could scarcely believe that for the rest of her life she need never be this hot again.
Valiantly the duo dealt with the flies that came with this particular ointment.
Homesick? Home was just a flight away.
Especially if you had money, and money was what the West was all about.
The world was getting smaller. Distances were all in the mind.
College started. At a meeting during the first term Zenobia announced that their Lit Soc secretary was engaged. Family, sex and marriage would soon be hers.
The colleagues looked at Nina’s blushing face. How did it all start? How long had it been going on? And the boy, the boy, the boy?
Nina was careful to describe her courtship in a way that prevented the department from denigrating her as an arranged marriage type whom age had made desperate. Though the wedding was fixed for December, her own departure was not so certain. Her fiancé was doing all he could to expedite the immigration process, but much of that could only start after the ceremony.
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Ananda was affianced. It was time to let his uncle and friend know. He looked forward to neither conversation. Both of them had hoped he would find a wife in Canada.
An engagement is a big thing to hide. When his secret grew so large he could look at neither person without feeling guilty, he decided to start with his uncle. As it so happened Lara and Lenny were home from their respective universities for Easter weekend. Dr Sharma had invited him over for dinner and Ananda planned to break the news then. A wedding trip to India needed ample notice.
He sat with them at their dining table. The food was at its Sharma best: glazed ham, duchess potatoes, fiddlesticks with lemon butter sauce, an elaborate salad with fresh mustard–honey dressing, crisp brown rolls. All this was accompanied by a French red wine.
Mellowed by the feast, the drink and family feeling, Ananda allowed himself to imagine Nina sitting at this very table next year. He looked at Nancy and thought his fiancée was a hundred times more beautiful and elegant. And once she wore Western clothes she could pass for Italian or Spanish.
By now the family was on dessert. Fruit compote with rum flavoured whipped cream. During a pause in the conversation, Ananda took a photograph from his wallet. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the girl I am going to marry in December. You are all invited.’
It was a bombshell, yes, it was. They were flabbergasted, they exclaimed, they examined him with more interest than they had in seven years.
Was it an arranged marriage?
How long had he known her?
How had they met?
Was that why he had gone to India?
What was he going to do about the immigration papers?
How much family did she have?
What did this girl do?
How old was she?
She looked pretty in the picture, what was she like in real life?
Ananda answered patiently. Dr Sharma grew quite emotional. They would come for the wedding. His children were half Indian; it was time they discovered their roots. Lara declared her father always sounded so soppy about India, if he cared that much, how come they didn’t go there more often? And cou
ld she please bring her boyfriend? Lenny said he wanted to go to Goa. He had heard the beaches there were fantastic.
And so the evening passed.
Now for the friend. Gary might wonder about the secrecy, might question the explanations, but he knew friendship recognised the clear divide between public and private and beyond a certain point there would be no probing.
It was Friday—come and have a beer with me, I have something to tell you, was how he put it. Gary immediately looked concerned. No, nothing was wrong, he had good news and he wanted to relate it properly.
‘So, I gather this is not your average arranged marriage,’ remarked Gary at the end of the story, thoughtfully nibbling his chips and sipping his beer.
That Indian marriages were barbarically arranged, that strangers were forced to cohabit, was a universal perception, and there was nothing Ananda could do to change it. Useless to assert the influence of modernity, to suggest variations, to indicate that in the cities it was just arranged introductions, and where in the world did that not happen? The Western eye, viewing things from a ten thousand mile distance, had no use for trifling nuances.
‘No,’ said Ananda, aiming for truth of intention rather than cold fact.
‘All these years and you never said anything.’
‘What was the point of talking when nothing was sure? She lives with her widowed mother whom she did not want to leave.’
So the mother died?’
‘Noooo.’
‘You managed to prevail upon her? I thought—or at least Sue thought—there might be a girl involved the way you suddenly went to India.’
Gary continued to marvel and speculate; all these years and the faithful lovers were going to be united, that was a tale in itself. Sue would be thrilled. Ananda was a little confused as to who Gary thought he was marrying, but he was not about to venture into explanatory quagmires. Instead he tried to persuade his friend to come for the wedding. He had been Gary’s best man, now Gary owed him one. It was about time he made a second trip to India.
By the third beer Ananda’s face grew flushed and he willingly supplied details. Their courtship, the long wait, and yes, that was the reason he could not be serious about any other girl, though he had tried. When he left India, it was with no strings attached, but seven years later, Gary, those very strings, still existed. Her feelings were unchanged, and her mother was now all for it. In India mothers were very hung up about their children’s marriages and it was clear the girl could not find an Indian that suited her. In different ways they had both considered other options.
As he talked he felt he was describing a person who could easily have been him. That the story differed in a few minor details was immaterial. This was a narrative that knit his life together and made sense of his Canadian experiences.
Later Gary insisted on coming home with him and announcing the good news to his parents, who in turn insisted on opening a bottle of champagne. Sue was called over, and again the whole story of the courtship was related, the long relationship, then the long engagement. In the Geller eyes, the existence of Nina explained many things. They only wished Ananda had mentioned her earlier; it would have saved many hours of useless speculation.
Ananda insisted they attend his marriage. They were like his family, and families came for weddings. If he didn’t take his baraat from Halifax, then where on earth would it come from?
That night Ananda went to bed with a light heart. His marriage now felt more real to him. The baraat was getting ready, the guests were excited. He would ask his sister to book the Gellers rooms in the Gymkhana. They could walk from their room to the reception. He imagined his uncle, with his fear of germs and disease, would want to stay in a five star hotel. Tomorrow morning he would phone his sister. He must move out of the basement, perhaps by November. No point spending money before he had to.
He knew the Gellers would like Nina. She was the perfect mix of East and West. Her devotion to her mother and her willingness to consider an arranged introduction proved her Indian values, while her tastes, reading, thoughts, manner of speech and lack of sexual inhibition all revealed Western influences. As a wife she would show the same qualities, bringing patience and understanding to any little problem that might crop up between them. He saw now that many of his difficulties with women in Canada had come from his anxiety to prove himself. Nina and he had the luxury of their whole lives in which to sort things out. He put his hand protectively around his organ and caressed it gently. Poor thing, it had had a hard time. At this sympathy the organ stiffened eagerly. Yes, a hard time, but now that trauma was going to end. A loving mistress was about to enter the picture.
Months passed, and finally it was Nina’s last day in college. A year ago she had walked these same corridors expecting Ananda’s imminent arrival; now she was going to marry him. On the 27th of December they had an appointment at the Canadian High Commission.
The groom and the foreign guests had arrived. The Sharma family came in stages; first the Goa bound children, ten days later the parents. Sue had been too nervous about exposing her kids to Indian germs to come, but the rest of the Gellers, along with Ananda, had flown in the night before. The Gellers were being put up at the Gymkhana courtesy Alka’s connections and Ananda’s money. Ananda assured them they were not allowed to pay; Indian tradition dictated that the utmost hospitality be shown to baraatis, if he could have afforded it, he would have bought their plane tickets. They respected tradition too much to argue.
Nina found this odd. Another tradition she had been brought up in said you did not take anything from anybody. Besides, traditionally it was the bride’s side that paid for baraatis, and that was just the sort of custom no enlightened woman had patience with.
Tonight they were all going to congregate at the club. Nina would be seeing Ananda for the first time in a year. Along with the Gellers, the Sharmas and the Alkas. Clearly it was an introduction to the bride dinner, and she felt nervous. She didn’t like being on display.
It turned out there was no cause for worry as everybody was determined to like everybody. There were enough new people meeting for the first time to keep questions and answers flowing. Ananda and Nina greeted one another shyly. During the past year their most intimate moments had centred around visions of their future which they had shared in letters.
Two days later, December 26th, the Arya Samaj Mandir in Mount Kailash Colony. It is eight in the morning and still misty. Guests clutch their shawls around them. Birds twitter in trees next to the temple compound. In the covered verandah a bridal couple are seated before a fire, flanked by their parents, opposite a pundit. The onlookers sit on white sheeted mattresses that surround the bride and groom. Nancy and Lara are wearing saris that Nina’s mother had long ago purchased for her daughter’s in-laws, Lenny and his father are wearing the silk kurta pyjamas she had bought during the Diwali discount sales from Khadi Gramodyog. This family, half Indian, half foreign, stand out and are explained again and again. As are the Gellers, also wearing Indian clothes. Friendship that comes from so far away is deeply admired.
The bride wears a deep rose Kanjeevaram sari woven with gold flowers. The bridegroom looks self-conscious in his silk dhoti-kurta. The pundit intones Sanskrit slokas, while the astrologer gives elaborate explanations in English. From time to time the family murmur among themselves that these explanations increase the beauty of the ceremony; obviously Ananda is keen to understand everything.
Mr Batra’s eyes are moist, her smile brave. Such a sincere boy, listening so intently, and such a beautiful girl, cheeks flushed, eyes luminous, face framed by the sari that covers her black glossy hair. Even Zenobia, sitting behind them, doesn’t look too bad. Now that Nina can no longer be her companion, maybe one day the poor woman will find someone.
One hour and the pheras are over. Nina and Ananda are married. Family and friends smile, nod and congratulate each other. Presents for the couple are piled onto their relatives. The breakfast that has been paid for by Nin
a’s provident fund will now be consumed. Idli, dosa, vada, puri-aaloo, chola-bhatura, chilla-chutney, dahi-parantha, fruit chaat, lassi, Assam tea, south Indian coffee; all the possible variations of a pan-Indian breakfast are theirs to feast on.
The registry of the marriage will take place at Alka’s home in the afternoon. Through the influence of Ramesh’s IAS contacts, the registrar with his register will come over to save them the trouble of going to Tees Hazari. Mr Batra is tearfully reminded of the days when she too had benefitted from the connections all important bureaucrats enjoyed.
Alka whispered to her that soon they were going to get a posting abroad, but it was taking time to finalise. A lot of people were envious of Ramesh and sought to obstruct his rise.
‘In what capacity?’ asked Mr Batra, jealous of IFS prerogatives. What was the use of the foreign service if postings were distributed so widely? Might as well scrap the whole thing.
‘As a consultant.’
‘For what?’
‘National security.’
‘National security?’
‘Yes. But please keep this to yourself. I am only telling you because now you are family.’
‘Where?’
‘London, maybe Washington. It’s all in the hands of the above.’
‘Nina will be very happy to have you near her. God willing Ramesh’s posting will take place soon.’
The reception took place that evening in the Rose Garden at the Gymkhana. Nina’s red silk temple sari had once belonged to Ananda’s mother. The motifs were exquisite, its embroidery of genuine gold thread. True, forty one years of lying folded in a trunk had given it minute cracks along the folds, but all heirlooms show a certain amount of wear and tear. Besides, declared Alka, there was no point in buying saris when you were going to live abroad.
So Nina stood stiffly next to Ananda, moving her hands carefully so that her jewellery did not catch the thread work, lifting her feet gently, so her heels did not rip the delicate, ancient fabric. Family and friends greeted, congratulations and gifts accepted, drinks drunk, food eaten, and at last the day was over. The bridal couple could leave for their honeymoon destination, the Oberoi Hotel.