“I made your favorite.” His mother reappeared beside him, holding out a tin stuffed with cardamom- and saffron-laced laddoos.
“What’s the special occasion? Just me?” Rishi’s eyes lit up as he took one and then reached for another as his mother almost snapped the lid on his hand.
“You’ll get a stomachache! We’ll have more this afternoon.”
“Awesome,” Rishi said, his mouth half-full. More this afternoon? “What’s this afternoon?”
“Radhika’s parents are coming today to meet you. Your father didn’t tell you?”
“What?” He couldn’t have heard her right.
“Your father didn’t tell you—”
“Wait, they’re coming to the house?” He spoke slowly, clarifying what she was saying. Why wouldn’t his parents have said something? Anything?
“Coming for tea,” his mom said in the next room as she put the dishes on the shelf.
Rishi scrambled to his feet and followed her into the kitchen. A newly made fried snack mix of spiced lentils and rice sat in a bowl, draining on newspaper. Making snacks from scratch? Laddoos? Sure signs that someone special was coming to the house.
Rishi felt like he’d been crushed by one of the cement blocks his mother had fashioned for shelving with planks. How had he not noticed those before?
He turned his attention back to her. “Why did you invite them?”
“What do you mean? I didn’t know when you were coming next, and you need to meet them. If you and Radhika are going to get married, they have to approve. But they’ll like you.” She paused and examined his face. “What’s wrong? I thought that’s why you were coming so suddenly this weekend. I sent you an SMS saying they want to meet you. It’s been weeks since you met Radhika, and she’s the only one you liked out of all the girls; I thought you had finally decided to progress with the marriage.”
“What?” Rishi’s heart pounded in his chest. What was he going to do? Make up a story to them about how he didn’t want children or was planning on quitting his job? Could he act like a madman or espouse outrageous ideologies about women so they would think he was crazy?
All that left a bad taste in his mouth. It would make his parents look equally as bad. There was nothing he could do that wouldn’t tarnish his parents’ reputation, and in their community, word could get around.
“You said you liked her.” His mother stared at him hard. Her eyes said a lot more words than her mouth: Do not disappoint me. Do not embarrass me. Do not change your mind about this. It’s too late.
When Rishi didn’t respond, she resumed washing dishes. “And they were going to try and have Radhika come too.”
Fuck. Rishi leaned against the doorjamb, his body feeling lifeless, numb.
“We’ve already gone to the astrologer, and your horoscopes match perfectly. That’s what I was calling about last week when you were too busy to pick up. We’ve already discussed dates.” His mother let out a small giggle. Nothing could have made her happier than planning his wedding.
How had this happened? He’d come to put a stop to his parents’ wife search, and all the while, they’d been exploring dates for his wedding.
“You have to stop them from coming over!” Rishi blurted out. What could he say? “Tell them to cancel it. Tell them whatever you like. I can’t get married. I think it’s the start of my elara sani! Ask the astrologer. Bad luck has been happening for the past four months.” Anything to stall. But even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t true. Emma had seemed like the start of his bad seven and a half years, but in reality, her appearance in his life had all been for the good.
His mother turned off the faucet. “What are you doing? What is this all about, Rishi? You had your elara sani in your teenage years; it started when you were seventeen. Don’t you remember how difficult university was?”
Rishi vaguely remembered the gold ring he’d had to wear with a gemstone that the family astrologer had given him. Until he lost it one night after he and his bunkmates had split a bottle of whiskey. What was the purpose of that gemstone? Elara sani, of course.
“Maybe you should get a second opinion.” He was ready to launch into how he’d met someone. How she seemed perfect, but he needed some time. Because perfect to him may not have been perfect for them.
“The astrologer said this is the year. That you’ve had a long journey to come here.” She shook her head. “You’ve had so many girls interested in you. Now here is one that you like, and she likes you. And what is this? You’re trying to destroy your father and me? Now here is another one you don’t want? What is wrong with you? Don’t you think about your sister?” His mother started sobbing as her words speared Rishi’s chest. She was probably upset, thinking about Sudhar as much as this situation he himself had put her in.
He didn’t know what to do. Stay strong or embrace his mother? The argument was stuck in his mouth. His sister. How could he do something to make his mother cry and keep his sister from the life she wanted? “Mom, I’m not ready.”
His mom sniffed hard and wiped her eyes with the edge of her sari. “All we tried to do was raise our sons to be good boys. To help us, to take care of us and your little sister. Now we have a perfect match. A girl who you like, horoscopes that line up perfectly, someone you can have a good family with. I want grandchildren!” she wailed. “And you”—she pointed at him—“you’re like your brother. You want to throw us in the dustbin like some trash. You forgot we brought you in this world, we gave you a home, we paid for your schooling, and this is the thanks we get. Embarrassment, poverty, ungrateful boy.”
She rushed past him into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Her sobs seeped through the wood.
Rishi was left alone, feeling nothing but an aching hollowness, like his mother had taken a scalpel and carved out his organs, leaving an empty cavity behind. What had he been thinking? He could just waltz into his parents’ world and disrupt it, and after all the calls, the talk of Radhika, his mother’s desire for grandchildren, his sister wanting to get married?
He’d had Emma write up that stupid algorithm that had brought Radhika into his life. And now he had to pay for it.
His father came home and looked at Rishi and then toward the bedroom door. “What happened?”
Rishi opened his mouth to explain, but all that came out was a sigh. His father knocked on the door and opened it, and his soft voice volleyed with the sharp acrimony of his mother’s.
When his parents’ room grew quieter, he pushed the door, and it creaked open.
His parents were sitting on their bed, side by side, hunched over. His father looked over his shoulder, shooting him a glassy-eyed stare of accusation that stung his very soul. He’d never seen his father cry, had never seen that look of utter disappointment and blame.
“I’m sorry,” Rishi said. He walked over to the bed and sat beside his mother.
“You’re killing your mother,” his father said in a low voice.
“I need to lie down,” she said and then leaned back on the bed, clutching her chest.
His father got out the blood pressure monitor. “Let me check your BP.” As he wrapped the fabric around her arm, Rishi examined the care he gave to his mother. They were just two people, thrown together on their wedding day, sight unseen. Here they were, thirty-one years later, still married, still helping one another. They’d made it work, and they’d had no algorithm, nothing except for the stars aligning in their favor.
Except he doubted either of their hearts had been captured by someone else before the marriage.
“Your mother’s BP is too high,” his father said. “She needs to rest.”
Now Rishi had upset his mother so much she’d had to take to her bed.
Killing your mother.
What could he do? His mother gave him a vacant look, still rubbing at her eyes. He’d have to think of some excuse, one that wouldn’t give away what was really going on with Emma but would still keep him from marrying Radhika. T
here had to be some carefully worded reasoning that could keep his parents from this despair while still protecting them from the truth. The truth would surely be worse than this.
His mother’s high blood pressure had plagued the family since before Rishi had known what blood pressure was. Was he truly the cause of such an attack? He could suck it up and hide the truth from her a little longer. He’d been doing it his entire adult life.
As Rishi walked away from his parents, he thumbed through his brain to figure out how he could get out of meeting Radhika’s family without upsetting his mother. Or some reason Radhika and her family wouldn’t want him.
Through ridiculous scenario after ridiculous scenario, he came up with nothing. Nothing that would be a calm, rational explanation his parents would understand. And the truth certainly wouldn’t help.
But what was the truth?
That he had feelings for a woman his parents would never approve of. That they would disown him if he married her. Would it come to that? Could he end up like his brother, without family members who would speak to him?
Rishi sat on the back stoop and stared at the pepper plant vine that climbed up their garden’s banana tree. The leaves had dried up, the pepper berries ignored. Instead of bright green, they were blackening, withering on the vine.
Rishi had to ask himself whom he was doing all of this for.
CHAPTER 32
Rishi sat quietly in his parents’ living room chair, feeling like an imprisoned man preparing to be judged. The cushion was flat, like all the stuffing had dripped out of it. Around him, his mother and sister scuttled around the house, as if he weren’t there, getting ready for their guests. His dad read the paper for what seemed like the fifth time that day. His body was still except for his right leg, which wouldn’t stop shaking with its endless nervy tapping on the floor. What was Rishi’s story? How could he not embarrass his family and still come off as the kind of man who was not husband material?
Brakes squealed to a halt in front of the house. A man’s deep voice carried over the small garden, quieting the birds that always gathered and squawked at this time before dusk. His own father walked straight and slow to the front porch to greet the guests, while his mother, now recovered, fussed with her sari and seemed to float an inch over the floor, her feet invisible, hidden by the gold threading that embroidered the silk at the hem.
As he heard the needlessly flattering greetings outside, the weight of this event fell on his chest like a rock. His heart pounded against it, this invisible pressure. He wanted to shout at the guests outside.
You know the house is not lovely. It’s falling apart.
My mother does not look well. She was just on the verge of a heart attack.
Instead he sat quietly, staring at the currently empty room. His sister brought a tray of sweets to the table and then a bowl of snacks, shooting him a look out of the corner of her eyes. Rishi straightened up at her request and tried to look normal. Not like his organs were crumbling on the inside. The robust father—Radhika’s father—entered the room, taking up more space with the aura that seemed to surround him. “You must be Rishi!”
“Hello, uncle,” Rishi said, standing and shaking the man’s outstretched hand. Behind him peeked a delicate woman, his mother’s size. The first thought Rishi had upon seeing the two of them was if he ever suffocated her when they had sex. “Hello, auntie.” He bowed slightly, his hands pressed together, staying formal.
Radhika entered in a peacock-blue sari with gold trim. His voice caught in his throat. She looked beautiful. Her makeup was done, the sari fitted around her slim but curvy body. Her nose was slightly pointed. Would his actions make these kajal-lined eyes shed tears today? He swallowed the guilt that stuck hard in his throat. “Hi, Radhika.”
“Hey, Rishi,” she said, her eyes reflecting the beadwork on her sari. A light of hope for a future with him was so apparent that Rishi had to look away.
“Please, sit down.” He gestured to the daybed and the sofa.
His parents talked with Radhika’s parents while he and Radhika sat there like store dummies, sipping tea and smiling whenever either of their names was mentioned. Their parents volleyed strengths about their children back and forth, using keywords like they had developed their own search engine optimization to maximize their results.
Rishi wanted to contradict his parents each time they blurted out some hyperbole about his job, but it was impossible to contradict his mother. He might as well have called an ambulance.
His heart slowly sank to meet his stomach, eclipsing his will, fraught by his family on one side and his desire for a happy future on the other.
The rest of their short visit went much the same, and by the time they’d left, Rishi felt wrung out and exhausted. Like the Rishi he knew on a day-to-day basis had been squeezed out, and a lifeless sack was all that was left.
“Rishi, you were well behaved. Thank you for not embarrassing us with these notions of yours,” his mother said, cheery and bright. No one would have thought that four hours ago she was lying in bed, clutching her chest.
“Amma,” Rishi said, warning her in a tone used only when they were alone. She was testing his patience. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You like her. She’s a pretty girl. I can tell.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, but she turned into the kitchen, oblivious.
If his mother knew who Rishi truly liked, they would be rushing her to the hospital.
Rishi went to sit on the veranda. It was quiet in this area of Madurai. Too quiet. Rishi had become accustomed to the constant soundtrack of honking, rickshaw engines rattling, and lorry horns announcing their too-wide path down his narrow Bangalore street.
His father and mother came out and settled into the sofa.
“This neighborhood used to be more active when I was a kid. We used to play cricket in the street and run around. Now there’s nothing. No one,” Rishi said.
Everything seemed to be empty: these streets, his parents’ gazes as they looked into the darkness. His mind was empty too—of ideas about how to get out of this marriage—and his heart because all meaning had been poured out of it, and it was left with nothing more than wanting Emma. He pulled out his phone and texted Emma. What are you doing?
“Most of your school chums now have families of their own. But the children stay inside, watching television,” Rishi’s mother said. “You will see soon. You and Radhika will have children. I hope you let them breathe fresh air, not spend all their time inside.”
Rishi sat back, sighing. Emma’s message appeared. I told you I was catching up on my movies. Trying to see if my Hindi lessons are working.
Anything good?
I just watched Veer Zaara. So depressing.
We should continue the tour of India—the film version when I get back. : )
I miss you.
Rishi smiled at the phone. He texted the same message back.
“What is making you so happy? Radhika?” his father asked, halting his conversation with Rishi’s mother about the neighbors’ families.
How’s everything going? Emma wrote.
“Nothing.” Rishi shook his head. His mother seemed fine now, but would one more confrontation today be the turning point in her health? She seemed so happy. His father pleased. And Rishi felt like he was dying inside.
His fingers paused. What could he say that wouldn’t wreck her with worry? He’d find a way to fix this. No sense in her getting worked up over it.
Everything is okay so far. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.
And what would he tell her? He could either destroy himself or destroy his family.
The truth was that he’d been hiding who he was and what he wanted for so long that his own parents didn’t even know him. He loved them, he took care of them, and he wanted a wife who would be everything to them. But when he wasn’t around them, he lived a life they didn’t approve of, and there was no reason not to continue hiding it from them. He’d s
een what a hint of the truth could do to his mother today. His ex-girlfriend, his lifestyle, Emma, the duality of what they wanted and what he wanted were like a crack that split him up and down. And that crack was splitting wider and wider with each of the lies he’d told to protect them.
CHAPTER 33
While Rishi always enjoyed the night train to Madurai—the visits from the tea wallahs and the somehow soothing clank and whir of the train—when he went back to Bangalore, he took a plane. He wanted to be back in his world as soon as he could. A city where he felt like he could be himself, he could be with Emma, that felt like his chosen home.
He texted Emma as he got in the auto-rickshaw and told her he was on his way to her house. Damn the traffic—he couldn’t get there fast enough.
It was good to see his family, even if the conversation hadn’t gone as he’d planned. It was like something in him got swallowed up whenever he was home. In Bangalore, he was his own person, with a career and friends and Emma. But back in Madurai, his parents and his house and the town seemed to suck the independence out of him. He reverted to his inner child, and not in a fun way. He had to work on this. Regardless, he’d call his parents tomorrow and tell them to put a stop to their planning.
Maybe face to face hadn’t been the best idea. If he’d just done it over the phone, then his mother would have cried to his father and ripped Rishi to shreds. She could have said all she’d wanted out loud, and neither of them would have had to feel guilty and apologize later.
Dharini, the sole logical person in the house, would ease his mother’s worries, and somehow Rishi would make it up to her. Surely, she could wait a little while longer. She loved Rishi and would understand. He was the older brother, after all.
When the rumbling auto paused outside Emma’s house, she opened the door and waved. She looked so happy. Her smile was broad, her teeth standing out white in the darkness outside. As he walked toward her, she seemed to be doing a little dancing shuffle. She was so excited that he had cleared the wedding slate with his parents; how could he disappoint her? He was calling them tomorrow anyway. He’d find a quiet spot, a time in the afternoon so his mother could rail against him before Dharini got home from work, and it would give him time to talk to his sister too. It was a plan.
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