When Hari Met His Saali

by Harsh Warrdhan

  It’s so clean! So fresh!

  When Tia introduced Simi to Minto he was very dismissive of her. No wonder, Tia thought, after all she’s not part of the equation for Minto.

  In his office, Tia made a few more tweaks to Minto’s preparations in spite of his protests. Simi was impressed.

  Tia doesn’t back down, she gets what she wants and just the way she wants it.

  Simi knew she would have been so intimidated by this guy if she was the one getting married. He was so well dressed and well groomed … his nails were better manicured than hers. She slid her hands under her purse to hide them.

  Minto was trying to convince Tia about someone named Xavier.

  ‘He is quite old and he just performed for some other event here at the hotel last night. I am not sure if he will agree to perform at your ceremony at the last minute, though!’

  ‘But you said that if I could convince him then it was fine by you?’ Tia argued.

  ‘I am sorry I even mentioned that he was at our hotel. I only did it because … because you are an Indian and so is he … but now I see that that has nothing to do with why he would agree to perform at your ceremony at such short notice.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t know Indians, and the Indian jugaad, Tia grinned.

  ‘Indian juu what?’ Minto didn’t understand, but thanks to Tia within minutes Minto was introducing her to a tall handsome older man with broad shoulders, shoulder-length salt-n-pepper hair and a same shade French cut beard. He was simply dressed in a linen white shirt and linen pants, but his eyes had an ethereal sparkle to them.

  It was Mr. Xavier.

  While Tia was talking to him, Simi took the opportunity to look around the rest of the property. Minto showed her the ballroom, the bridesmaid’s room as well as the honeymoon suite, which the hotel offered as complimentary to the newly wedded couple for their wedding night.

  ‘But Tia and Hari are not getting married, they’re getting engaged,’ Simi told Minto, who folded one arm and with the other waved in the air indicating he was slightly upset.

  ‘That’s exactly what I said to your sister. We only rent out this for wedded couple, but she insisted and I relented. So the newly engaged couple will stay here for one night. Your sister is one tough negotiator.’ Minto hinted at respect as well as annoyance in his compliment of Tia.

  On their way back Tia stopped at Ruby’s Shake Shackon PCH because she wanted Simi to try some classic American food like burgers and shakes after all the seafood binging. The shack was located at the Malibu Pier Club and was right on the beach.

  As had become routine by now Simi got confused by the restaurant menu and had to ask Tia for help.

  ‘I’ll take whatever you are eating.’

  ‘Day after tomorrow is my engagement and I really can’t afford to have a milkshake but I’ll get you something nice,’ she said.

  ‘How about a Guacamole burger?’ Tia asked looking at the menu.

  Simi was still processing the word ‘guacamole’.

  ‘Okay, there is this fruit, avocado. It’s like a guava but more exotic. And guacamole is a sauce made from avocado. They mash the avocado, mix it with sea salt, onion, garlic, lime juice, chili and seasoning. You don’t get this in India, it’s yummy,’ Tia was salivating as she blurted out the recipe. It was clear that she was ordering it because it was her favorite.

  Simi was not sure, but didn’t argue. She was famished and prayed she would like it.

  Thankfully, Simi liked the guacamole Burger — she found it delicious — and the Peanut Butter Cup Shake Tia had ordered for her was amazing as well. The burger was so big that it wouldn’t fit into Simi’s hands. And on top of that she had the thick milkshake.

  How can one person eat this much?

  Tia was telling her the proper way to eat a burger.

  ‘Hold it like it’s a mouth organ with both hands and then start eating from the periphery while rotating it. The center is the last piece you eat. Also, wash it down from time to time with the shake.’

  Simi could see that Tia so badly wanted to eat it, she even offered her a bite, but Tia was determined to maintain her figure.

  ‘So who is Xavier and what is he going to do at the ceremony?’ Simi asked as she wiped the excess guacamole from her mouth.

  ‘Arrey, he is some magician performer. He does weddings and birthdays. Because he performed at the club last night I asked him to perform for us as well.’

  ‘So, did he agree?’

  ‘Finally he did, after much pleading from me!’

  ‘Was he asking for too much money?’

  ‘No, yaar. It’s not like he is a world-famous magician like David Copperfield or anything. He was acting pricey, saying his health was not good.’

  ‘Tia, he looked really old and if his health was not good, maybe he shouldn’t, na?’

  ‘Arrey, he has to do some stupid tricks for twenty minutes. He’s not gonna die! And I need to fill up those twenty minutes, because I don’t like the DJ I have right now. Anyways its some extra cash for Xavier before he leaves for India, so it’s a win-win situation.’

  Tia called her DJ then and informed him to cut whatever he was going to do by twenty minutes.

  That night Tia went to her gym, Twenty-Four Hour Fitness, near her home. The place, as the name suggests, was open twenty-four hours a day so that people had no excuse not to work out. She took Simi along as a guest but once inside the three-storied gymnasium, Simi felt intimidated by the perfectly toned bodies and muscles she saw. To top it all, when Tia took her to the women’s locker room to change into the gym clothes she had loaned her Simi couldn’t even breathe. Women were roaming around the locker room completely naked. Simi couldn’t help staring at them.

  ‘You don’t have to get naked like them,’ Tia whispered to her. ‘You can just change in one of those rooms and go out.’

  But there was no way Simi was even going to be around these goddesses. She recalled the last time she had seen herself nude in the mirror; even she was disgusted. She was in such bad shape, she thought, that she quickly left the locker room.

  For the next hour or so, she just eyed the gorgeous men and women and followed Tia wherever she was working out. When Tia finally went for a swim in the indoor temperature-controlled swimming pool, she urged Simi again.

  ‘Swim to kar le! You know swimming, na? Papa taught us both together!’

  But Simi stayed stuck to the lounge chair near the pool admiring her sister’s lithe body as it carved a path through the clear water and amongst other equally beautiful people. Simi felt like such an outsider. She was even embarrassed about her dirty sneakers and cursed herself for being kanjus and not getting a new pair for the trip, even though Sharmila had mentioned to her that Americans have separate clothing for their various activities. True enough, everyone else’s clothes and shoes looked brand new at the gym.

  That night they had a late dinner at Hari’s house. It was a sober but yummy fair of saag and makke ki roti. Of course, Badi Mama and Nana had forced fed her the three different types of laddoos they had been making over the last few days with other ‘senior senior citizens’ — other Indian grannies of Mary’s friends.

  The next day, Tia called a close-group meeting at the Malhotra place for short PowerPoint presentation, telling everyone in attendance what was going to happen at the engagement ceremony. Everyone was there: Barry, Mary, Badi Mama, Nana, Chitthi and Cindy, Jenny and Phil, and even Tia’s new acquisition — her assistant and intern, Joe. He was barely seventeen, a white American and looked fearful amongst these non-Americans.

  As per Tia’s instructions, he distributed a small pad and a pen to everyone so everyone was ready and eager to take notes.

  ‘So first, the guests, including the close group — that is you all here — will be in the banquet hall by six p.m. Everyone will be seated to already marked tables. The DJ … umm … DJ … Shameless, yes, yes, that’s his name, will already be playing music. The videographer and the ph
otographer will be filming …’

  She took a tentative pause … and then continued.

  ‘Wine and hord de … hors de … the appetizers will be served and then myself and Hari will make an entry. We will be seated with our respective families. Then the DJ will start the entertainment program which will last for forty minutes.’

  She looked around the room to see if there were any questions. There were none.

  ‘And then for the last twenty minutes a surprise performance will take place, after which the rings will be exchanged between Hari and myself and then we will cut the cake. The champagne will be uncorked and the bar will open and then dinner will be served. Post that the DJ will continue and everyone will dance the night away!’

  Tia explained the whole program with the same intensity she had when she had pitched to the Jewish Heritage Committee in New York. There was silence in the room. Simi was in awe of her sister.

  What command, what control! Even the elderly people in the family are silent and hanging onto her every word.

  ‘Anything else?’ Tia asked. Everyone looked around.

  ‘I thought you were noting down questions,’ she said, still striding in front of the screen.

  Ding! Hari’s mobile dinged loudly. He quickly fished it out. It was more trivia.

  Hari’s Trivia # 402: Engagement and wedding rings are worn on the fourth finger of the left hand because it was once thought that a vein in that finger led directly to the heart.

  ‘No waaay! I didn’t know that!’ he screamed as he read it.

  Tia was annoyed at him … again.

  He realized it was bad timing but he had a valid excuse.

  ‘The server was down for days and I’m getting all the notifications at once. You … you should read this …’

  Mary jumped in to save her son from the wrath of Tia.

  ‘Ah, Tia bete, I had requested you to possibly bring the Chabbra’s to the front table because they have mostly elderly people.’

  ‘Yes Mary, if you’ll check the updated table chart, you’ll see that the Chabbras have been moved from section E-12 to A-01. Anything else?’ Tia looked around the room like a teacher, and, like scared students, everyone shook their heads!

  ‘Joe, wrap it up. Hari, I need to speak to you!’

  Tia snapped her fingers at Joe who was in the middle of a yawn but managed to jump to his feet.

  That night — Tia’s Apartment

  Simi was all alone at Tia’s place. It was the first night she had been alone since she had arrived in Los Angeles. The days had whizzed past so quickly that she had not spoken to her mom since that first day of arrival. She was about to call her mother on the mobile phone Tia had given her, when Tia came home. Something was wrong. She was upset.

  ‘Kya hua, di … Tia?’ Simi asked, concerned.

  ‘I am marrying a number one asshole, that’s what is wrong!’ Tia tossed a large shopping bag onto the couch.

  ‘Calm down, you can’t be so emotionally upset a day before your engagement. You have to be happy,’ Simi said, once again dispensing her Nagpur-style relationship advice.

  ‘You know what he has done now? We had decided to dress in matching colors, so I got a gown for myself in cream and he was told to get a tuxedo in cream as well. But guess what?’ Tia actually waited for Simi to guess …

  ‘He decided, without consulting me, this evening, to wear a black tuxedo! A black tuxedo, can you imagine?’ Tia was hyperventilating.

  Actually, Simi couldn’t imagine. She was having a hard time understanding what all the fuss was about!

  ‘What am I going to do?’ Tia put her head in her hands.

  Simi scratched her head and eventually came up with: ‘You know black goes with everything!’

  ‘No it doesn’t, and everyone is going to be in black. There’s nothing new there!’ Tia was still fuming. ‘Plus, you know that at the ceremony before he puts a ring on my finger he is supposed to give me flowers … roses … right?’

  Simi nodded.

  ‘Now, what color scheme are we having for our ceremony?’ she asked Simi.

  ‘Pink, champagne pink?’ Simi muttered apprehensively.

  ‘See, even you know that! And what color roses does he choose to give me? Red! Can you believe that, Red? Red roses are going to look so cheap!’ Tia had tears in her eyes.

  ‘Red roses can be romant …’ Simi tried pacifying her but this was not about what Simi thought, she was merely a prop. She didn’t get the chance to finish.

  ‘And you know what else? I have been telling him, not even asking but telling him, to change his relationship status on Facebook to in a committed relationship for the longest time, but he didn’t. And I thought, OK fine, he’ll do it when we get engaged. I don’t want to seem silly. So for the past two months I’ve been requesting him to change it to engaged, at least now! But he won’t. He just won’t!’ Tia was thumping her fist on the couch as she spoke.

  Simi felt like laughing. She thought it was sort of an urban joke that couples fought over their Facebook relationship status, but seeing how serious Tia was she dared not to laugh.

  ‘Oh c’mmon Tia, Facebook is stupid. Why give it so much importance?’

  ‘I know it’s stupid and I am not that shallow, but people who know me and are my friends must be wondering why Hari is not committing to … to … an engaged to Tia Galhotra status on Facebook. They must be thinking something is not right if Hari is not publicly accepting me and linking his profile to my profile. Oh, and you know what, he is not even my friend on Facebook. I have sent him friend requests like a zillion times, but he never accepts!’ Tia was speaking as if she was possessed.

  She walked to her laptop and fired it up. She actually showed her Facebook profile to Simi. But then something happened to Tia as she slumped in the chair, exhausted.

  ‘It’s so like Hari. I think he does that to torment me! You know how much I have spent on this dress? Apne Nagpur ka ghar ek saal chal sakta hai jitna, thats how much!’ Tia had inadvertently told Simi that her dress was so expensive that it would have paid Simi and her mother’s household bills in Nagpur for an entire year.

  That really hurt Simi and she became visably withdrawn. Tia suddenly realized how hurtful she had just been.

  She started crying. ‘Sorry, Sim, I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’

  ‘This is very unlike you,’ Simi said, concealing her tears. ‘Who cares if you’re not seen as being engaged to him on Facebook? Who cares what he wears for the engagement? What’s really happening, Tia? What are you so upset about?’

  Tia turned to her with an expression that said she had been waiting for her to ask this for the longest time.

  ‘What am I doing here, Simi?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I miss Papa, Sim …, and I miss Mom too,’ she said, hugging her sister.

  There had been a lot of hugging between Tia and Simi lately. Mostly initiated by Tia, and mostly while she was crying.

  ‘Then why don’t you just talk to her? You know she misses you too!’ Simi was desperate to help Tia.

  ‘Really? She does?’

  ‘Of course she does! Let me Skype her right now. We’ll both talk to her!’ Simi turned the laptop around.

  ‘No, let it be, Simi. What is she going to feel after all these years?’ Tia felt conflicted.

  ‘What is she going to feel? She’ll feel happy; she’s your mother, Tia!’ Simi had already logged into her Skype account.

  Tia turned to face Simi. ‘Did she ever say why she was mad at me?’

  ‘Did you ever tell me why you were so mad at her?’ Simi asked Tia with equal intensity.

  There was a sort of standoff between their silences. And when neither was ready to back down, their mother came to the rescue, literally. She was on Skype, on the laptop screen behind Simi.

  ‘Is that you, Simi? Hello, Hello!’

  She was screaming and then she said to someone off screen, which could be still heard:


  ‘I think your computer is broken. I cannot see Simi. Do you think because it’s night and she is asleep?’

  That someone off screen explained in a very hassled way to Simi’s mother — who was animatedly hassled and could be seen on the screen:

  ‘Auntyji, it’s like a phone with a camera. It doesn’t matter if it’s night there!’

  ‘Simi, Simi bete,’ her mother started screaming into the microphone, as if she was calling out to Simi from her ground floor window.

  Simi and Tia looked at each other and both burst out laughing.

  ‘You better talk to her before she wakes up the people at Skype!’ Tia said, pushing Simi in front of the webcam.

  ‘Hi, Mom, Tia is here and wants to talk to you,’ Simi said as soon as she sat down.

  And then she somehow managed to get Tia in front of the webcam. When Tia sat down and came face-to-face with her mother there was awkwardness, but both of them had tears in their eyes. As their conversation gradually picked up with the same familiarity they had long-lost, Simi withdrew to her bedroom.

  She felt she should let Tia and her mother work out whatever issues they had. She shut her door and then looked through her bags. She knew that everyone was wearing Western outfits for the engagement party, and although she was planning to wear the KP dress her eyes fell on the beautiful sari her mother wanted her to wear. She decided that she’d wear it. She also decided that she would wear the Western outfit for Tia’s wedding. She didn’t know how long Tia and her mother talked for because she was happy and was soon asleep.

  Later, in the other bedroom, Tia was unable to sleep. She didn’t like the fact that Simi saw her vulnerable side. She was also nervous, scared, anxious, and numb about the ceremony the next night.

  This is not the time to be sad. As Simi mentioned, I have to be the happiest person in that banquet hall. And I will be.

  Over at the Malhotra house, Hari was fiddling with his mobile phone. There was some problem with his email as well as with his text messages. The internal memory of the phone was running really low; even his trivia notifications were coming in very delayed. He took an hour to clean up his phone by discarding a number of apps and games. After that, his phone was clean as a whistle and was working like clockwork.