Did I dare? I ordered a low-backed sari blouse in crinkled white chiffon with sequins worked in. I still have the figure for it and courage would surely follow. I returned home in time to view the matinee episode of a new horror serial on television—it kept the adrenalin in motion. I checked my weight, as I do every fortnight. It stood steady at 62 kilos. I wondered whether to call BR in Bombay. There is an etiquette to these things. Had he already forgotten our Night of Love?
A phone call from Pooonam UmaChand. She sounded as friendly and enthusiastic as ever. ‘I have a proposal for you, Priya,’ she said. ‘Can I come over and discuss it with you? Pleeze pleeze!’
We housewives are not as stupid as we may appear. Pooonam and her astrologer friend Nnutasha were on the other side of the divide—the Righteous Indian Women team versus the Predatory Other Women brigade. Bhartiya Nari vs Husband Snatchers. In marriage, constant vigilance is the price of bondage. I was on my guard. Yet I invited her over.
My new friend staggered in wearing the most absurdly high heels I have ever seen. ‘Jimmy Choo,’ she announced, as she walked in. ‘Only eight hundred dollars!’
I converted that into rupees, and gasped. My sandals, the kolhapuri with kitten heels style that I always wear, cost not more than eight hundred rupees. That converted to twenty dollars. And eight hundred dollars converted to? My mind boggled and my eyebrows went up like car wipers on a trial run.
‘I love my feet,’ Pooonam murmured, sinking into the sofa with a blissful expression on her pert, animated face. ‘What I wear on my feet is as important to me as sex. I have a Jean Paul Gaultier, and an Alberta Ferretti, and a Valentino,’ she confided. ‘And of course some Manolo Blahnik and Ferragamo shoes. And Prada, for daily wear.’
‘That’s quite a lot of lovers,’ I replied. I thought that was quite funny but she took no notice of my friendly joke. Instead, she continued massaging her absurdly tiny feet, a sensuous expression flooding her face as she stroked them.
‘But Jimmy Choo is on top of my must-lust obsessions.’
I didn’t know quite what to say to that.
‘In the end it all boils down to accessories,’ she went on, ‘shoes and bags and glasses. Ideally I suppose one mustn’t mix brands, but I’m quite adventurous on that front. Handbags and heels! That’s what life’s all about!’
I was listening bemused. My poplin sari-blouse with its elbow- length sleeves pricked at my skin, my comfortable kolhapuri chappals shrivelled up in shame.
‘How do you manage it, Pooonam?’ I asked abjectly. ‘How do you manage to float around in such high heels?’
She looked philosophical. ‘There’s a trick to it,’ she replied. ‘The way to wear Very Very High Heels lies in disconnecting your feet from your head. Deny the pain. Refuse to feel the hurt. And, above all, don’t teeter or totter. Learn to levitate six inches above the ground. Like a hovercraft.’
With her glowing skin and her seductive confiding voice, and her languorous reclining pose, Pooonam seemed to be slowly expanding and filling up the room. ‘I ordered a Mondrian- inspired organza dress from Bhootika and Bhayanika today,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Somehow, it’s so very me. It has an empire cut, and the high-waisted bit really does things for my oomph!’
There was a wild look in her eyes now. ‘It really turns the men on,’ she murmured reminiscently. ‘An empire waist and a bit of frilly-front boob show and poof!—the man is mine!’
I was mesmerized, like a rabbit on the road hit by a hunter’s blinding headlights. ‘Just like that?’ I asked weakly. ‘That sounds great! I mean, wow, really great!’
Pooonam stared at me consideringly, sizing up my boob size, my waist. ‘You could do it too, yaar!’ she exclaimed. ‘You could go for an empire cut. A classic empire style—that’s the story this year, in New Delhi.’
She fell into a fit of giggles, soft wiggly squeals that were accompanied by a sinuous laughter-dance. Then she extended a long, curved, red fingernail towards my shoulder, and stroked my spine softly. ‘It turns them on,’ she whispered. ‘I turn them on!’
It almost turned me on too, her slithery fingers creeping over my back. Could husband and wife be turned on by the same woman? No, I decided firmly.
‘Like it?’ she said, shaping her mouth into a seductive pout. I wondered worriedly if Pooonam was on something, but she didn’t do it again. Instead, she suddenly sat up straight and looked normal once more. By her standards, that is. ‘Only joking, my darling!’ she said. ‘I have a proposal for you, Priya—a serious proposal. For your twins. Luv and Kush. Such cute boys, such sweet names. How old? Twenty-five?’
I nodded, still speechless and a little shaken from her earlier performance.
‘Two two boys—you are really lucky yaar. I hope you realize how lucky! You just must listen carefully to me pleeze. Quietly! Bilkul chup! My partner—my biz partner Manoviraj Sethia—has a bee- ooo-ti ful daughter. Suzi’s sister, Suki . . . you saw her at the wedding. Now my Manoviraj wants his daughter Suki to settle down in a decent cultured family. Like Suzi did. And he is ready to pay for it. Dowry is a dirty word—bada ganda lagta hai. We are not talking dowry here. We are talking about a settling-down sum. A settlement. A flat in Golf Links—or Jorbagh. And six crores in cash. Totally, it’s several million dollars plus. Negotiable on the table. Besides that, all the shaadi vaadi ka tamasha, fancy five-star wedding, VIPs, Cabinet ministers, industrialists, all that lot. A beach reception in Bali for everyone. Not Amrana fort again. And Bangkok is so vulgar, you know.’ She had begun to squirm around on the cushions, like a beached mermaid.
Luv? or Kush? Which of them had a beautiful heiress in their destiny?
‘But they don’t know each other,’ I said, breaking in nervously as she stopped to take a deep breath. ‘And they may not like each other!’
‘Like-shike nothing!’ Pooonam replied firmly. ‘None of that matters. Love is a lottery. Besides, marriage is not forever.’
Junior’s sister-in-law Suki. The girl in the golden lehnga. The wannabe Bollywood babe. Might she make one of my sons happy?
‘Think about it again,’ Pooonam said gaily. ‘It’s value for money. Cash and kind and a bee-ooo-tiful girl. Take it or leave it!’
She stroked my back again, with her long nails, and pursed her plum-shaded lips into a tight rosebud. Struggling to get up from the sofa, she re-hoisted and balanced herself into her eight- hundred-dollar Jimmy Choo footwear. ‘These shoes are killing me,’ she winced. ‘I wish I was tall enough to wear flats.’ She thrust a gift-wrapped perfume into my hands and teetered out into the late-afternoon heat, scattering air kisses in my direction as she left.
I unwrapped the bottle of ‘Sublime’ and sprayed it on my wrists. Nothing. I could smell nothing. It’s a frustrating experience not to be able to smell perfume. I poked a finger into my armpit and put it to my nose. No whiff of sweat. Nothing. No smell. I felt desperate. And disoriented. It was like losing one’s instinct.
That evening, I sat in my bedroom, wearing my oldest Janpath batik kaftan, sipping a lime-soda, and surveying the rack of soft well-worn Kolhpuri chappals and modest out-of-style high-heeled sandals. What was wrong with me? Was something wrong with me? Was I losing my senses, to consider selling one of my twins to an eager family of arms-dealers? I had an arranged marriage myself, but this was different somehow.
I broached the subject with Suresh over a simple meal of dal, bhindi fry, potatoes and cucumber raita. (Pooonam was doubtless nibbling on foie gras or asparagus spears or ricotta cheese in her corner of the universe.) ‘Pooonam discussed a marriage proposal with me today,’ I said tentatively.
‘Oh, so she brought it up, did she?’ Suresh responded, digging intently around the potatoes as though excavating, and expecting something different to appear.
‘The girl seems to be from such a super-rich family. I’m not sure . . .’ I said.
‘Oh Priya! What’s wrong with that? Let’s be practical for a change!’ he snapped, giving up in disgust on t
he potatoes.
I sat back, rebuked, stricken by shame and doubt. Had he already discussed this with Pooonam UmaChand? Or with Nnutasha?
‘You never asked my family for a dowry. When we got married, you told my mother you expected nothing. “Dulhan hi dahej hai,” you had said. I remember that still. But you seem to have forgotten, Suresh!’ I couldn’t keep the hurt out of my voice .
‘Priya my rani. Those were different days. We must move with the times, with our status. After all, we don’t need to make the same mistake twice. Do we?’
‘I was a mistake?’ I asked, tears stinging my eyes.
‘Don’t be silly, Priya, you know exactly what I mean. It’s a good family—good enough for Bucky Bhandpur, good enough for Paro’s son. It could settle Kush forever. Or Luv. Cash and kind never hurt anyone! And darling, can’t we please move on from this boring dal and potatoes menu sometimes? It’s loaded with carbohydrates and so very predictable.’
We had been eating dal bhindi aloo all our married life. And now he wanted to move on.
The third proposal came from my old office friend Mary Gonsalves, who had caught up with me on Facebook. ‘Remember vada pao and aamchi Mumbai and your old friends Ivy and Mary?’ she wrote on my wall to announce herself.
Mary and I used to work together at the head office of Sita Sewing Machines. Her husband Robert was currently Special Secretary to a Gujarati billionaire—one of the ‘Big Five’, she told me. ‘Mr Melwani’s eklauti daughter Ina is sterling swayamvar candidate for one of your handsome sons,’ she wrote. ‘Look her up on FB for details.’
I summoned up Ina Melwani but there was only a picture of her pet poodle on view.
The last proposal. It came from Paromita herself. ‘Cn I c u tonite, Priya aunty?’ she asked, in an urgent, cryptic sms message. ‘10 pm plz if not 2 late?’
Our dismal dinner over, Suresh had settled himself in his study, where he was poring over a stack of files. ‘Pls cm’ I messaged back to Paromita, and waited in my room, watching a mindless Saas Bahu soap on television.
Paromita rushed in wearing a vermilion crinkled cotton skirt with gold khari work motifs, and a white cotton man’s shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Her lovely hair was open, fanning out around her tiny waist. She was wearing gold jhumkas in her ears, silver payals on her feet. Kohl-lined eyes, glass bangles and a man’s watch completed the strange but charming ensemble.
‘I don’t know how to say this, Priya aunty,’ she began, without any preliminaries. ‘I want to make a proposal. I want to marry your son. Luv. Do you think he would agree?’
Was she crazy? What was wrong with her?
‘I know you must think I’m crazy, aunty Priya, but the world has changed, and then it hasn’t. My parents won’t arrange a marriage for me, they are much too preoccupied with their own lives. There aren’t that many suitable boys around in Delhi. And all the nicest ones are gay so that counts them out.’
She took a long deep breath. ‘I must tell you this too. I was in a relationship but it didn’t work out. And now my biological clock is ticking away.’
Paromita was wringing her hands in agitation, and flicking her long hair this way and that as she spoke. ‘And then I met your son—and it was as though I had known Luv already for thousands of years. You know what I mean. I think I love him. And so I thought—why not take my own rishta to his family? And then, I’m sort of traditional, so I thought why not go about it the old fashioned way?’
I was staring at her, flabbergasted. She reached for her bag and took out a red cloth-bound booklet.
‘I brought my horoscope along,’ she explained, ‘just in case you needed to see it. And you already know my family—I mean I’m your friend’s daughter, you know my parents already—I think.’
I took her in my arms and hugged her, ‘You sweet silly girl,’ I said. ‘You are Lenin’s daughter—and it shows! I would love you to be my daughter-in-law, but . . .’ Even as I spoke, an army of tanks rolled over my imagination, all labelled CAUTION! ‘But we have to ask Luv first. And his father.’
‘Well, then, I’ll leave this with you,’ Paromita said, handing me her horoscope. ‘And yes, I can cook and I’m well trained in housework by a very strict mother!’ An unexpected dimple appeared on her cheek and a mischievous look lit up her eyes. ‘The world has changed, you know, aunty Priya, since you were young. One has to be proactive, and ask for what one wants, or else someone else will grab it.’ And she matkoed out.
An sms message flicked on my screen minutes after she had left. ‘DNT TLL PPA PLZ’ it urged.
I didn’t mention Paromita’s proposal to Suresh or to Luv. My artist son seems to be caught up with all sorts of things. He’s busy contemplating his future. He’s occupied designing a range of male fashion accessories for a new luxury outlet in Mumbai. He’s obsessed with luring the huntress Ranu out for dinner. He’s constructing a mixed-media memoryscape dedicated to Monalisa Das Mann. It’s titled ‘Tryptich of RegretS’ and has torn-up pictures of her stuck around three fanned-out boards covered with laminated egg-trays. I hope that is a negative signal.
Luv displayed ‘RegretS’ to his father with trusting enthusiasm. The egg-tray tryptich had Suresh flummoxed. He scratched his head, then pulled at his ear, trying to conceal his puzzlement. ‘Very nice, very nice,’ he murmured. ‘Really quite original work.’
‘Have you ever considered studying law, Luv?’ Suresh ventured a little later, at breakfast. My husband was working through a bowl of fluorescent-orange seedless disco-papaya, and a bit of it had attached to his chin. Otherwise he was the very portrait of paternal concern. ‘All this art shart—I wouldn’t depend on it, son,’ he said. ‘Whereas law is a steady and stable profession.’
Luv looked alarmed, then betrayed. ‘Really papa, what are you suggesting?’ he said, after chewing on the idea for a minute. ‘Do you really expect me to go waddling around, dressed like some wacky penguin, pimping for weird criminals and cheats, M’Lording judges with exaggerated opinions about themselves? Let me concentrate on correcting the aesthetic aberrations and design catastrophes in our culture!’
What long words he uses, I thought. Like Paromita, really. Are they soulmates?
Suresh reacted to this rambling retort by ignoring it altogether. ‘And what about marriage, son?’ he continued, wiping the papaya off his chin. A confiding man-to-man note had entered his voice. ‘Have you thought about getting married? Finding a life partner?’
Luv looked embarrassed and tugged awkwardly at the safety pin on his lip. ‘Actually, there are a lot of babes who seem to be on your wavelength too, but count me out of the action, Pitaji.’
Suresh sent me a secret, conspiratorial look. ‘There is a young lady we would like you to meet,’ he said, ‘the daughter of a dear friend. If you married her, you could continue painting shainting without any financial worries.’
‘I’m still young, pops!’ Luv protested, ‘Give me a break. One day I’ll walk in here with the devi of my dreams—until then, be patient please.’
Luv and Suki? they belonged to different worlds. I thought of Paromita, with her long hair and crinkled skirt, and her determined proactive proposal. I could see Paromita as his wife. But I said nothing.
Suresh was by now distracted by two simultaneous phone calls and some breaking news on television. Luv slid off on one of his mysterious errands and I settled into a cane chair in the verandah and surveyed my bungalow-kingdom over a cup of coffee.
It was the prettiest sight in the world. Parrots cavorted about the mango trees. Crows cawed wisely as they dunked their scavenged snacks into the terracotta bird bath I had artistically placed in the centre of the lawn. Doves cooed among the cornices of the pillars in the verandah. Bees buzzed about the flowerbeds, while birds twittered and waited patiently for their turn in the birdbath after the crows had left. This idyllic calm was broken as a ginger cat leapt from a tree and caught a dove in mid-flight. Suddenly there was a fluttering and flapping around me—panic in the avian wo
rld—and I was left reflecting on the vulnerability of all happiness.
I got on with my day, my life. I checked the dust-levels in neglected corners of the bungalow to ensure the peon on duty had reached out with his blue checked duster for eye-level dirt and above. It’s anyway perplexing for a 1BHK-born girl to supervise the upkeep of a 4-bedroom-2-pantry-3-living rooms-twelve staff- quarters-plus annexe two-and-a-half-acre bungalow. And 18 Darah Shikoh Marg is in constant need of first aid and emergency repairs. The plumbing in the spare bathroom had returned to nature. I got the office to request the CPWD to send someone to tackle it. But the Central Power and Works Department dedicates itself to the whims of the high and mighty and, as a junior minister’s wife, they never pay much attention to my complaints. I will tell Suresh to tell his PA to tell the PA of the Urban Housing minister. There is no other way.
Mayaram, the washerman from the staff quarters, came to see me about a new electrical point for his heavy iron. Coal was becoming unaffordable, he lamented, and the electric iron just didn’t have the same weight and pressure. Then there was the matter of my new spaghetti-strap sequinned blouse. The sequins fell out on being ironed, he said. ‘No good, no good,’ he added, suddenly switching to English. I’d been cheated by some third- rate designer, he commiserated in Hindi. His daughter Dayavati was studying Fashion Technology at the Vocational Studies Polytechnic. ‘My daughter Daya, she is making blouse for you Madom,’ he said, again in English, although I was speaking to him in Hindi. ‘Daya is very latest fashion designer.’
He presented me with a bound portfolio of Daya’s designs. They were surprisingly good, very understated and sophisticated. ‘Daya designing sari blouse for you Madom,’ the dhobi persisted. ‘She will make the visit to you tomorrow.’
What was wrong with the man? Had he suddenly forgotten how to speak in Hindi?
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