Holy Cow! an Indian Adventure

by Sarah Macdonald

  But there has been a disaster. When Simi returns to the office her eyes are downcast and her laughter gone. Vivek’s parents have suddenly decided they’re against the match and are refusing to talk to Simi, her mother or even their son. Simi says she’s been too upset to work or eat. The worst thing for her is that no-one knows why her future in-laws have gone so cold.

  ‘It’s so strange, you know, his parents are quite liberal, his dad is a journalist, they let Vivek have an earring and long hair, they know we have been dating for years. Maybe it’s because my dad is expired or because of my age. I’m twenty-eight, a year older than Vivek.’

  ‘Why would it matter if your dad is dead?’

  ‘Well, you know, Sarah, in India a woman is not much without a husband. Once, a neighbour told my mother that my dad mustn’t have cared for her much because he left her.’

  ‘But he didn’t leave her, he died.’

  ‘I know, but widows are considered worthless and bad luck to know. My poor mum has been having a tricky time of it.’

  I’m getting good at hiding my shock at India’s social cruelties and instead of screaming I shake my head and tell Simi I’m sad for her. But she doesn’t want any pity. Simi picks herself up and pushes ahead with the plans, and Vivek decides to disobey his parents – a radical act in India. I admire them both.

  Simi and Vivek may be unconventional but Simi wants a traditional wedding with all the warm-up gigs. Jonathan’s mother Meg is here for a holiday and is quickly invited to the first pre-wedding party. Abe drives us across the slimy oozing black mud of the empty Yamuna River to Simi’s family flat in north Delhi. The tiny living room is packed with gorgeous girls in silk saris and matriarchs with barrel bellies wrapped in delicate, delicious chiffon topped with cardigans. A few blokes roam the room wearing white kurta suits (long shirts and baggy trousers) and children run underfoot in stiff little nylon dresses looking like kewpie dolls.

  Simi’s voluptuous and beautiful mum (another Auntie-ji) welcomes us with a formal namaste, a guffaw, a hug and a gift of toe rings that she insists I wear to the wedding party. I love her immediately. She speaks little English but drags me into her bedroom for a lecture endlessly repeated by Indian middle-aged women: I should be getting married soon. To encourage me she displays the wedding jewellery piece by piece. Gold chains, an emerald necklace, a garnet bracelet and topaz earrings, delicate anklets, cute toe-rings, a heavenly headpiece and a diamond stud for Vivek.

  I’m not a jewellery girl but I make appreciative noises and Jonathan’s mum promises she’ll hassle her son on my behalf. Thankfully Meg then winks at me; she can sense my discomfort and is merely amused rather than affected by the Indian marriage obsession. Deep inside I hope and suspect marriage is where Jonathan and I are heading, but I want to be sure that we can be together forever. My parents and Meg allow us to make such huge life decisions privately; I’d be furious if they didn’t. But I forgive Auntie for her lecturing; she is Indian and I’d hate to take away one of her great pleasures in life. Besides, I’m touched by feeling so included in the festivities and so welcomed within the family. Indian hospitality is warm, welcoming and loving, and I lap it up to counteract my frustrations with the country.

  We eventually squeeze into the main room for a ceremony called naani mukh that involves asking the ancestors to bless the match. Simi’s gentle, sweet and quiet brother sits on the floor with the pundit surrounded by trays of orange flowers and offerings of bananas, apples, dahl, rice, curd and pineapples. Sanskrit prayers fill the room and sandalwood and rice is applied to a huge garlanded photo of Simi’s ‘expired’ dad. Simi is Bengali, so the women occasionally blow plastic conch shells and make a high-pitched ululation akin to the western gaggle girl thing of International Women’s Day. Apparently all the married women are supposed to make the sound at certain moments but the younger ones are a bit too inhibited and don’t know quite when they’re meant to let rip. Simi’s mum and the grannies are in their element; screaming, berating and bossing everyone around one minute, and then collapsing into tearful laughter over chai the next.

  But while the ceremony looks very serious and intense, Jonathan’s mum and I are the only ones being respectfully quiet and attentive. There’s food bubbling on the stove, a tiny puppy is barking and running around, the kids are screaming and Simi’s uncle is stretched out behind the priest, snoring louder than the chanting and the ululating put together. The doorbell rings every few minutes and more relatives cram into the two-room flat like it’s Dr Who’s tardis.

  Simi emerges from a milk bath looking stunning in an orange sari; her feet are painted with a little red Hindu swastika. Meg and I admire the work and a girl giggles and squats to paint ours with the same pattern. It feels weird wearing an emblem I associate with hatred but Simi’s friend and foot-painter Sonali assures me that Hitler perverted the swastika’s intent. It means luck or wellbeing. Soon all the women in the room have little swastika feet.

  We sit on the common roof for the aaye buro bhat, the daughter’s last meal in the maternal house (Simi will be fasting from now until the ceremony). Sonali serves us banana-leaf bowls full of Bengali fish stew and fish heads. She is not married and is kind of like the bridesmaid/slave who has to do all the work while looking cute, demure and available in a pretty pink suit. I tell her I’ve been three times the bridesmaid and never the bride. She looks upset.

  ‘Did you fast properly?’

  ‘Fast? I don’t fast.’

  ‘Well, there you have it, your first mistake, you must, I’m fasting and luckily today is Tuesday, so if I do this right, my future husband will be like Tuesday’s god – Hanuman the monkey god.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Oh yes, I quite like him, he’s mischievous and strong and loyal and steadfast. If Simi was getting married a day earlier I’d have to fast for a husband like Vishnu.’

  ‘But isn’t he really powerful?’

  ‘Sure, but personally I think he’s a bit of a control freak.’ She winks a long-lashed eye. When Sonali is not starving herself, serving food and painting feet she’s writing her Doctorate thesis about businesswomen in Orissa.

  Simi is now dripping with gold and swathed in silk, and her dainty toes are being touched up with red polish. But she has one more grooming activity to endure. A tiny young beautician with a thick plait that stretches to her knees squats and painstakingly applies mehindi (a red mud-like henna) in intricate swirls and pictures on Simi’s hands; she paints peacocks, flowers and tendrils of ivy. I just can’t resist asking for a swirling pattern of circles and twirls. As I wave my new hennaed hands in the air to dry, the entire brigade of Aunties wake from their afternoon snores to check the work.

  ‘The warmer the heart the darker the henna,’ they chant. The largest of all the Aunties nods appreciatively as she pats my wrist. ‘Ah you have the hottest heart of all, look girls, be like this one.’ No-one seems to notice the advantage of white skin in the staining competition. I’m surrounded and rewarded with more chai.

  Vivek arrives. We sit in a circle and bless him with sandalwood, and he in turn has to touch our feet in a gesture of respect. Technically this means that now and until the day I die I can demand that Vivek bow before me, but as I’m leaving he pulls me aside and whispers in my ear, ‘Sarah, don’t even try the feet thing with me, the boundary for traditional behaviour is set by the range of my mother-in-law’s eyes. By the way, can I borrow some Massive Attack CDs?’

  We head home for a costume change (I’m ordered to wear a silk salwar kamiz) and, while Meg rests up from an exhausting day, Jonathan and I return to Simi’s flat for sangeet: the music night.

  A crowd squeezes onto cushions around the room and a group of girls form a rainbow of silk surrounding Simi’s mum. Massive Attack is not on the agenda; Auntie plays an ancient piano accordion-type thing and sings in screeching Hindi. The ancient wedding songs start off like soft laments, then pick up speed and energy and get quite raunchy. The girls clap in time and sing
the chorus but Simi’s mum steals the show. The act culminates in a sexy song to Vivek where she beckons him to come hither with fabulous eyelash fluttering, shoulder shimmying, pelvic wriggling and a flapping of her floppy arms. The girls squeal, the men kill themselves laughing and Vivek blushes all the way to his bare feet. Women should only flirt with husbands or sons-in-law and this is a rare show of sexuality. I must say I’m shocked – it’s been two months since I saw a woman and man hold hands, hug or even touch.

  The unmarried dutiful Sonali is pushed to dance for us. She performs a Bollywood hit beautifully, twisting and turning and lipsyncing like a professional, her head wobbles and pelvic thrusts seem coy and sexy all at once. Jonathan and I are ordered up to join a circle around the nearly weds; we imitate the others, clapping and clicking our fingers and flicking our hips. Simi’s mum even tries to teach Jonathan to do the Indian shoulder shimmy, which causes everyone to fall over in hysterics. The matriarchs then decide Simi’s friends must perform. A guitar appears and a very serious boy picks it up and begins to strum and sing.

  ‘It is a noyne aclock on a Saturdey, and the regulars of crowding shuttle in.’

  ‘Piano Man’ is a bizarre contrast to the other songs, but the oldies clap along anyway and at least we know the words.

  The next morning Vivek sends Simi saris and some turmeric to apply to her body and luckily some falls on Sonali, which means she will be married next.

  Rachel takes me shopping and I buy a gorgeous deep pink and gold silk sari for the same price as a pair of jeans. At dusk Rachel stands me in the centre of the room and wraps me up in the six and a half metres of silk. I feel fabulous but too scared to walk, terrified I’m going to step on the hem and unwrap myself in front of the guests. Rachel’s final orders are: ‘Do not take drink so you don’t need to pee, do not eat much and have fun.’

  The wedding is at the National Press Club. Simi arrives stunning in red and gold, laden with jewels and covered in makeup; the gaggle of grannies order her into the corner and demand she looks coy and meek.

  Vivek’s family has left town in protest; there’s no-one to pay for a horse, so he arrives in the ABC car which is covered in red roses and driven by an hysterically careful, nervous and proud Abraham. Vivek is dressed in cream silk baggy pants and a cream shirt and wears a white pointy cone hat that looks like a tampon on his head; it’s meant to make him look silly and humble for one last time before he’s honoured for the rest of his life. It works. Vivek looks very embarrassed and worried he will never regain his cool image.

  His friend Ravat throws his head back and laughs, ‘Vivek will go from being a sheep to a tiger, loved, adored and respected for the rest of his life. From now on he can be a proper little shit if he wants to be. It’s the Indian man’s birthright.’

  Simi, surrounded by a wall of saris and seated on a wooden platform now has to suffer the part of the wedding I know she’s been dreading. She’s of good Indian roly-poly frame and has to be carried to Vivek and circled around him seven times. Her face is hidden behind two big banana leaves but I can tell she’s shitting herself as her brother and his friends groan and threaten to drop her. Finally, after lots of laughs, ululating and conch blowing, Vivek is lifted up too, the leaves are dropped and they grin at each other. Simi’s brother and his mates practically throw her down and run off to steal a shot of whisky in the car park, as the matriarchs in saris march up to the couple to bless them one by one, hand-feeding them sweets. After fasting all day they both nearly throw up.

  Simi and Vivek enter a little pavilion and sit with the pundit. Everyone ignores the actual ceremony, except we foreigners. After a lot more chanting, ululating, conch-shelling and feet-touching, Simi and Vivek are tied together to circle a sacred fire seven times. Each circle is accompanied by its own mantra – mostly all to protect the husband. Vivek places red powder on Simi’s central hair parting to mark her as a married woman, and we surround them and throw red rose petals.

  There’s no kissing of the bride, but this is a groovy crowd, so we line up and get a hug.

  After all the build-up and exhausting observance of tradition, and perhaps too much Pepsi, everyone is tired and emotional. Suddenly the entire wedding party bursts into tears; the grannies mop their eyes with their cardigans, Simi and Vivek rock with sobs, and the sweet sari clad-girls whimper. When everyone calms down, the newlyweds sit on the thrones and we all eat.

  But as we’re happily stuffing our faces, Jonathan, Meg and I are grabbed and practically pushed under a table. The eunuchs are here. Eunuchs are men who were kidnapped at childhood and castrated to give them this career, or sometimes transvestites who’ve chosen the operation. None do drag well. Skinny and small hipped in tacky saris, their eyes are ringed with blue shadow and their lips slashed with pink. They seem sad and crude. Eunuchs are considered bad luck, and they trade on this to extort newlyweds. If they don’t get big bucks, they’ll create a scene and they don’t mean a Kylie Minogue dance act; vulgar ditties, crude dances and even a display of their mangled sex organs will bring the family into terrible disrepute. If they see us white guests they’ll demand an exorbitant amount. After a long and laboured negotiation someone pays them off and we’re allowed to show our faces again.

  The guests leave soon after dinner, but, despite all the build-up to the event and the days of intense, emotional and draining rituals, the newlyweds are not even allowed to go home and pass out – let alone have sex. This is because of an ancient Bengali legend. A holy man once told a bride that it would be dreadfully bad luck to have relations with her husband on their wedding night but she lustfully ignored the advice. A poisonous snake bit her new husband and he died. The holy man revived him only after she vowed all future women would abstain on wedding nights to pay for her error. So, even in present day India, Bengalis guard the groom against his wanton wife. Simi’s mum and friends will sleep between the newlyweds tonight, and this is one tradition I think Vivek would like to do without; he doesn’t look happy as he’s led away in a fist of family.

  A week later, weary from the wedding madness, I’m slobbing about when there’s a knock on the door. I scream as it opens. It’s Padma – and a tall, cute Indian guy with a thick long rope of a ponytail sticking out of his New York Yankees baseball cap. She introduces him as, ‘Surinder, my husband.’

  We scream again.

  Rachel and Mary linger after delivering chai, wide-mouthed and open-eared for the story.

  ‘Well, so I’m at the Thai conference and on the last day I look up and see Surinder, and I do a double take. My heart starts going into arrest, I can’t breathe, I feel dizzy, the whole bit. He walks over and we just know, it’s karma baby, we just know. We talked, we walked out of the seminar, got on a boat, went to an island, got off and got married in the local church.’

  They hold hands and look lovingly into each other’s eyes. I nearly fall off my chair, Rachel drops the teapot and Mary freezes, too freaked to move.

  India is in love with the idea of romance. On the television, men woo women with soppy songs, flowers, teddy bears and heart-shaped balloons, or shed teeming tears of unrequited love. And then there’s reality. Dutiful sons and daughters do not fall in love and marry without their parents’ blessing.

  I shriek, ‘Shit, Padma, what did your mum say?’

  Padma looks down.

  ‘You haven’t told her?’

  ‘No, I just said I couldn’t get to London to meet men and she’s flying back to Delhi today. Sarah, I can’t pay for the sins of my mother all my life and, besides, Surinder is perfect. She’ll be happy. He’s Indian, he’s a doctor, he must be the most suitable boy in the country. He studied in the States and he has a green card. Sure, he’s Sikh, but that’s a part of Hinduism. He’s perfect, we’re perfect, love and Indian, who’d have thought?’

  Surinder smiles sweetly and adoringly. He also hasn’t told his parents, who live in the Punjab, and he sets off to do so. A gossip honour guard sees him through our gate; the compoun
d is buzzing with scandal.

  I can’t sleep with worry, but Surinder rings in the morning. His parents are cool – upset, hurt, but accepting. Padma and I celebrate the relief with a cup of chai, and I apologise to her for my worry – perhaps I’ve misjudged Indian conservatism. Padma sets off happy-hearted to break the news to her mother.

  But when she gets there it turns out her mother already knew. It says so on the note that was found below her hanging body this morning.

  Beti, you have ruined my life, I can’t live with the shame,

  Mother

  Her mother’s second husband blocks Padma’s way into the house. He hands her the note and speaks to her feet.

  ‘You have destroyed this family. Your mother has restored her honour but yours is gone for good. You are dead to us now. I own this house and the one in Australia, she signed them over to me. You get nothing, now get out.’

  Padma stumbles to our house, retching and wretched. Surinder rushes back to Delhi to hold her. She cannot speak with grief and no-one except Surinder, Jonathan and I will talk to her. None of her mother’s friends visit, call or seem to care. Suicide seems common here. I have given up reading Indian newspapers because of stories about women hanging themselves with their dupatta scarves. Girls who are shameful spinsters, or forced into bad marriages seem most at risk, but I’ve read much about women who are widowed or abandoned also resorting to suicide. It seems in a land where death is ever present, the cultural taboo of self-killing is slightly reduced. For women with few choices, death can deliver status and honour. The pull for respect and the shame of living in disapproval are stronger than the lust for life.

  Padma is not invited to the cremation but we watch from afar. At a funeral ground beside the scum-filled Yamuna River her mother’s shrunken body is wrapped in white cotton, carried aloft, dunked three times in a pool and placed on a pile of wood. She burns blue flames, black cinders, singed hair and popping bones. Her husband stands straight with righteousness until he does the son’s job: smashing the skull to let the soul out. As it cracks, Padma stumbles and falls. She stands slowly with her fists clenched into her stomach. An orphan of Mother India, she is drained but determined.