Destination Wedding

by Diksha Basu

“On Hill Road. In Bombay. I have a friend named Nishant Kale so I thought it would be funny.”

  He pronounced kale like kaa-lay.

  “Anyway,” Tina said. “How long are you in Delhi for?”

  “One week,” Sid said. “I’ve never been here before so I thought I’d see some things before I go back. And the train takes almost twenty hours so it didn’t make sense to come for less time.”

  He had taken a train from Bombay when there were flights available that would take less than three hours? India had a slew of low-budget airlines that didn’t cost that much. But clearly even those were out of his reach. And now he had paid for her coffee as well. Tina asked him about his work.

  “Well, ma’am—sorry, Tina. The show did not work out so I am now focusing on the personal training. You also must be focusing on something else? God willing the show will happen someday but until then, what can you do?”

  “It might,” Tina said. “I’m still working on it.”

  She wasn’t. But he was so handsome.

  “You tried, ma’am. I know you tried. These things happen. Do not apologize,” Sid said. A stray dog wandered over near their table and Sid leaned over and stroked it. Tina’s shock must have registered on her face because Sid laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll wash my hands. But it’s sad that the dirty little things have nobody to clean them and as a result nobody touches them either. Physical touch is important.”

  Sid had a swagger about him that hadn’t faded despite the show being canceled, Tina noted. Young women walking past were noticing him and men in more expensive clothes than Sid’s were clearly irritated by his presence. He ran his hands through his dark brown hair and it flopped over his eyes like a film star’s. Tina couldn’t help but smile and shake her head.

  “What?” Sid asked.

  “You,” Tina said with a smile. “We need to get you on camera.”

  A young boy in tattered clothes walked past the coffee shop holding a handful of colorful balloons for sale. He was licking a half-eaten red lollipop and didn’t seem particularly interested in selling any of his balloons. Tina watched him watching everyone around him.

  “My neighbor does that,” Sid said. “Balloons. There’s no money in it at all.”

  Tina waved the boy over and asked him for a balloon. He beamed at her and asked her which color.

  “Blue,” she said.

  He handed her a blue one and asked for ten rupees. Tina took out her wallet and handed him a hundred. She looked over at Sid and added, “Actually I’ll take them all. All six.”

  And she gave him a five-hundred-rupee note. The boy handed her the balloons and looked down at the money, shrugged, and wandered off into the market.

  “That’s sad,” Tina said, hoping Sid would notice her generosity.

  “Not always,” Sid said. “The kid next door does it for his own entertainment. Whatever little money he makes from selling the balloons he uses to buy more balloons to sell. It gives him an excuse to hang out near Joggers Park and watch people all evening. That kid probably has nothing to do with the rest of his day now.”

  Tina looked up at the cluster of balloons floating over her head. She looked into the market to see if she could spot the boy and return the balloons to him. But then her money would seem like charity. Would that be offensive? Was Sid annoyed at how easily she had given that money away? What was Tina supposed to do with these balloons now?

  He stood up and held his hand out to her and said, “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

  Tina followed Sid out of the main market down a quiet back lane running alongside a park. Under the trees that lined the edge of the road, there were six or seven motorcycles parked in the shade. On each of them sat a young couple, their backs to the world, their hands out of sight, huddled into each other, stealing kisses, touches, hidden foreplay that wouldn’t lead to sex simply because they had nowhere to have sex. Tina watched the first couple, the girl’s dupatta draped over both of them, their heads pressed together. From the back, they looked perfectly still, immobile. Occasionally the girl would pull her head away and laugh. She suddenly made eye contact with Tina.

  The girl stopped for a moment, her privacy interrupted, and stared. Was the couple who’d just exited the market looking for a private spot as well? the girl on the bike thought. She looked over her boyfriend’s shoulder at them and wondered what they would do since they didn’t have a bike. The woman looked rich, though. Why did they need to wander back here? Why was the woman glaring at her? Maybe she was one of those married rich women who were having an affair. She wondered if they knew that the Rose Garden, just a few streets away, had benches hidden away in different spots of the garden. It was still early enough that they would be able to find an empty one. She hoped they knew, she hoped they would find a place to be together. The woman certainly shouldn’t be carrying balloons in her hand if she wanted to go unnoticed. Silently, she wished them luck and returned her attention to her boyfriend, his hand now inching its way under her kurta, up her leg.

  Tina looked away, embarrassed that she’d been caught looking. But nobody else registered Tina and Sid.

  “In Bombay we have the sea,” Sid said. “So at least you can face that, not a dirty wall. It’s much more romantic. When the tide is low, you can walk all the way out on the rocks and it’s like you’re alone in the world. A big reason to prefer Bombay over Delhi.”

  She wondered about Sid’s love life. She knew he shared one room with his mother and brother in Dharavi. He had once told her she must come over for a meal when she was in town next but neither of them had followed up on it. Did he date, she wondered. Did he find hidden public spots in Bombay to kiss pretty young women? Or was he married to his music, as he had claimed on his audition tape?

  At the end of the road, a man stood urinating against the same wall, making use of the same privacy.

  “Do you live near Times Square?” Sid asked as they continued walking down the dusty path through the trees.

  “Not at all,” Tina said. “I live in Brooklyn. Times Square is in Manhattan. Brooklyn is…”

  She stopped herself. How could she describe her New York to Sid, who had only seen images? To Sid, her arrogant confidence in avoiding Times Square would seem confusing. Why live near such an iconic spot and avoid it? She thought that herself sometimes because she secretly loved Times Square even though she always claimed not to. It was true that it was too hectic during the day, with the sleazy men in character costumes trying to lure tourists to pose for pictures with them. She had once seen an Elmo with his head off standing in a corner near the entrance to the Forty-Second Street train station angrily smoking a cigarette while screaming into the phone about a failed acting audition. That was Times Square during the day. But sometimes, late at night, Tina liked to walk through Times Square by herself to marvel at the lights and the billboards and the tourists smiling, laughing, taking pictures, in awe of magnificent Manhattan. She thought of them sending back their selfies to family members around the world. She thought of them in line at security check at JFK or LaGuardia, waiting to go home to different corners of the world with memories of briefly having stood in the center of it. They would be tired by then, the high of New York City slowly being replaced by the exhaustion of it. Their suitcases would be filled with fridge magnets and little yellow taxicab replicas and dirty laundry and they would be sad that their vacation was over but also excited that at the end of this journey was their own bed, their own coffee mug, their own little place where they liked to wake up and take in the morning each day.

  “Brooklyn is not that close to Times Square,” she said. “But I like Times Square too.”

  “Make the band happen, Tina,” Sid said, turning to face her with a smile. “Put my face up there on those billboards! And then I’ll bring my mother for a holiday and show her I’ve become king of the world.”

&n
bsp; Tina laughed and promised Sid she would work on it.

  “Or at least on one of those small billboards that line the streets in Delhi. My mother will be just as impressed by that,” Sid said. “Actually, my mother won’t even care about that. She’ll just be happy if she knows she can pay her electricity bill next month.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Tina said, unsure what else to say about his situation.

  “Relax, you’re allowed to laugh. You don’t have to look at me solemnly because I’m poor. You know you do that every time I mention my mother?”

  “Can I drop you off somewhere?” Tina asked as they reached the main road. “I have a car and driver with me so I can even drop you off at your hotel. Where are you staying?”

  “Actually, I’ve heard the train system in Delhi is really good. If you just drop me off at Hauz Khas metro station, that will be good. Unless you want to try the train with me?”

  Tina pretended she was tempted but she knew it would be crowded and hectic and definitely expose her as a local imposter so she said no, she would have to get back to the club to get ready for the night. As they walked toward the parking lot, Sid pulled out a beedi and lit it.

  “Smoking unfiltered cigarettes isn’t good for you,” Tina said.

  “Just call it a beedi, Tina ma’am,” Sid said. “In any case, nothing is good for you so you might as well enjoy whatever you want.”

  They stood again at the edge of the two-way street. Tina was reaching into her bag to call Sunil to ask him to pull around to her side of the road. Sid left the lit beedi in his mouth, looked left and right for traffic, grabbed Tina’s hand, and pulled her across the street, the balloons trailing behind her, right as a motorcycle swerved past them honking. His hand was the rough hand of someone who performed manual labor. They walked to the Mercedes and Sid went to get into the front seat near Sunil.

  “No, you don’t have to do that,” Tina said. “Sit in the back.”

  She passed Sunil the balloons and he wrestled them into the front seat. What was Tina doing with this young fellow? Sunil wondered. Was she one of those visitors who chase around poor people thinking they’re seeing the real India? Indians from abroad weren’t usually that type; they were usually more comfortable hanging around with their wealthy cousins at Colebrookes or Gurgaon or Defence Colony. He had had one recent Indian passenger from Brighton who ducked down in the backseat every time they were stopped at a traffic signal to avoid looking at any beggars or street performers who might approach the car.

  Sid dropped his beedi, crushed it with his foot, and got into the backseat with Tina. Tina wondered if she’d made him uncomfortable by insisting he sit with her. Unless the backseat was full, the front was reserved for maids and nannies and helpers and, maybe, personal trainers.

  At the station, Sid got out and Tina put the window down and he leaned in.

  “Let’s meet again,” Sid said. “If you have time.”

  “Of course,” Tina said. “I’ll make time. Tomorrow I’m tied up with wedding things all day but maybe the day after. Or tonight I might go out with some of the younger people at the wedding—you could join us, maybe?”

  “I couldn’t do that,” Sid said. “But call me tomorrow and I’ll have a plan by then. We’ll go see something or eat something or drink something. It will be fun.”

  He pointed at the front seat and said, “Enjoy the balloons. And hey, I bet that kid appreciated the money more than the balloons. I know I would.”

  Then he smiled at her and added, “It’s good to have you back, ma’am.”

  Sunil started driving but the window was still open and the wind made a balloon hit her in the face. Tina slapped it back to the front of the car and leaned back and smiled. She took out her phone and looked at the picture of Sid doing a pull-up. She imagined standing on a sidewalk in Bombay with him and eating pani puri for twenty rupees and then, like in a Bollywood movie, getting caught in the monsoon rain and running for shelter and a hot cup of tea, her hand in his rough hand.

  TUESDAY NIGHT

  Colebrookes, New Delhi: Three Young Men from St. Stephens College Have Crashed the Wedding and Brought an Empty Gift-Wrapped Box to Give as a Present; They Do This Every Night During Wedding Season in Order to Eat and Drink Free

  “WE COULD BE ANYWHERE IN the world right now,” Marianne said.

  Marianne, Tina, Rocco, and Kai were sitting in the living room of Rocco and Kai’s cottage sharing a bottle of wine. The room had an artificial fire in the corner that flickered and even hissed like a real fire and made the room seem cozy and warm. But it had a setting that allowed you to turn off the heat since it wasn’t quite cold enough yet in Delhi. The wine sat in a metal ice bucket on a stand, and on the table in front of them Rajesh had put out a cheese platter and a bowl of onion and spinach pakoras with a coriander chutney.

  Marianne picked up the schedule of events and said, “It started at seven. Aren’t we really late?”

  “It’s an Indian wedding, Marianne. Nobody is going to show up before ten, we’re fine,” Tina said. “And anyway, there will be literally several hundred people there. All we need to do is make sure Shefali sees our faces so she knows we came and marveled at the lavish decorations.”

  “Are you sure?” Marianne asked. “I feel weird being so late. What if they have something special planned for a specific time?”

  “They don’t,” Rocco said. “Tonight is basically for Shefali’s parents to preen a little and for everyone who is invited to be able to say they were invited. Right, Tina?”

  “He’s right,” Tina said. “Relax. It means a lot to Shefali that we’re here but Indian weddings are meant to actually be fun for the guests, not just a laundry list of events they have to show up for at a specific time in specific clothes. By Indian weddings, I mean the ones where eight hundred people show up even if my spoiled-but-lovable cousin doesn’t know more than two hundred of them. It’s meant to be a general celebration for the whole community.”

  Tina took a sip of her wine and added, “Listen to me pretending to be all knowledgeable. But Indian weddings really are actual fun.”

  “I remember being made to hold my pee in for a really long time when I was at my aunt’s wedding when I was nine because she was just about to walk down the aisle and I’m still traumatized,” Marianne said.

  “Where did you get that anarkali?” Tina asked. “You had time to shop today?”

  “I borrowed this from your mother,” Marianne said, looking down at the outfit that made her feel like a queen, or at least a Bollywood star. “Rocco, how long have you lived in India for?”

  “Five years next month,” Rocco said. “Mostly in Bombay but sometimes, depending on how my year has gone, I rent a bungalow in Goa for December and January.”

  Originally from Melbourne, Rocco worked as an editor on Bollywood films. His career had picked up surprisingly fast over the past five years, and he now rented an airy two-bedroom apartment on the twelfth floor of an apartment building named Le Chateau on Fifteenth Road in Bandra West, Bombay’s poshest neighborhood.

  “And you like it here?” Marianne asked.

  “You should all wish that if you’re reborn, it’s as a white man in India,” Rocco said.

  “Or a white man anywhere in the world,” Marianne said.

  “Says the oppressed white woman,” Tina added.

  “Adds the wealthy Indian woman,” Marianne said.

  “But when people look at me, they don’t know whether or not I’m privileged and that itself is a lack of privilege,” Tina said. “Like when most people see you, they see white skin and they assume you’re privileged and treat you accordingly, thus increasing your privilege. Do you see that? So even if you’re underprivileged, as a white man, you’re still treated as privileged.”

  “In India it’s easy to see which Indians are privileged, though—the way you dres
s, the way you inhabit space. It’s not just about skin color,” Rocco said.

  “How long are you going to stay in India for?” Tina asked Rocco.

  “How long are you going to stay in New York for?” Rocco asked her.

  He got up and took the wine bottle out of the ice bucket and refilled Marianne’s glass. He poured the last remaining drops into Tina’s glass, put the empty bottle down on the low round coffee table, and sat down on the sofa next to Tina to use the club phone. The sofa, despite its neat appearance, hadn’t been changed in years and it sank in the middle, causing Rocco to press into Tina.

  “That’s different, I live in New York,” Tina said.

  “And I live in India,” Rocco said.

  “One more bottle of the same, please, Rajesh,” he said into the phone. “And two bottles of Bisleri water, cold.”

  He put the phone down and turned to the others and said, “Did Tina tell you about our wild night of lovemaking in London a few years ago?”

  “You know each other?” Marianne asked.

  “Tina ate a potpourri leaf that night,” Rocco said.

  “What?” Tina asked.

  “Don’t you remember? We ended up at that warm bar that looked like a library with armchairs and bookshelves and you ate a dried leaf out of a bowl of potpourri on the table.”

  Tina suddenly had a flashback to that night. She had done that. She had pretended it was deliberate and chewed and swallowed the whole thing even though it left her mouth tasting like soap. Then she had eaten a second one in order to make it seem intentional. Rocco hadn’t said anything and she thought she had gotten away with it; so much so that she had forgotten about it until now.

  “You’re the London guy!” Marianne said. “I remember now. I heard about you. Tina tried to—”

  “We didn’t have sex,” Tina cut her off. She shook her head at Marianne. She didn’t want Rocco to know she had searched for him. “I was Rocco’s second pick after the hot Pakistani comedian left.”