Sister of the Bollywood Bride

by Nandini Bajpai

  “Kake Di Hatti, right?” Vir asked. “KDH Spices—Homemade Is from the Heart! Don’t tell me your great-grandfather is Kake!”

  Kake is Punjabi for a little boy—like “buddy,” or “laddie.” Kake Di Hatti would translate to Buddy’s Shop, I guess.

  “No, he’s not Kake.” The idea of my tall, refined, white-haired great-grandfather being Kake made me laugh. “He named it after his son!”

  “Your grandfather is Kake, then?” Vir asked.

  “No, Kake Tauji is,” I said. It was kind of funny that the name had stuck to my dad’s uncle. I guess people do have buddy uncles too, don’t they? “Will you stop laughing at my family?”

  “I’m not laughing!” Vir said. “I think very highly of KDH Spices! Sprinkling some on my food made my boarding school meals almost edible! And I’ve been to the restaurant they have in New Delhi in… what’s that market…”

  “Karol Bagh,” I said. I had happy memories of the place where Bauji grew up. Mom had grown up there too, but her family—Nanaji was minor Rajput nobility—lived in the huge old houses around the park, far from the bustle of the main market where the Punjabi refugees got their start. But things reversed over the years—the old houses crumbled, and the Punjabi entrepreneurs made fortunes and moved to South Delhi. “I haven’t been there since I was seven.”

  “You should go back,” Vir said. “It’s changed a lot in ten years.”

  The music had stopped, but there was a crazy beat pounding in my ears—Vir still had his arms around me. For a minute we just stood there as people milled around us in the dim light.

  “Duty calls,” Vir eventually said, and let me go.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Yogi’s barking broke through my concentration as I carefully took apart a vintage Chanel trench coat. It had no commercial value, since it was torn beyond repair. The Turnabout Shop stock that could not be resold or donated went to me. If I saw something that had a cool cut or silhouette, I pulled out my seam ripper and tried to learn its secrets, the way my dad took apart radios and computers when he was a kid.

  “What is it, boy?”

  I should have known even before I looked out the window. The DHL van was parked at the curb.

  Yes! I tore downstairs. The delivery guy was waiting at the door with a humongous parcel. I scanned the box as I signed for the package. A familiar handwriting stared back at me.

  OMG, it was from Masi—it had to be Vinnie’s lehenga!

  The box was nearly as big as I was, and heavy too. I got it in the door, tottered upstairs with it, and laid it carefully on Vinnie’s old bed. Yogi sniffed it thoroughly—it must have had some really interesting smells.

  “Wait,” I told the dog. “This has to be opened very carefully.”

  I sliced through the packing tape and opened the box—scrunched-up tissue paper hid the contents from view. The crisp smell of packaging paper and… sandalwood filled the room. It smelled like India. It smelled like Masi’s office.

  Casting off the tissue paper, I got my first glimpse of the lehenga.

  Wow! The gold organza fabric was beyond anything! And the exquisite handstitched embroidery made it look so rich, and yet so understated, if it’s even possible for spun gold to look understated. It was stunning!

  I lifted it—the weight of it was surprising. Beneath it was the dupatta—a light-as-air red silk, edged with the same old-gold embroidery as the lehenga. It looked like something royalty would have worn two centuries ago, not something Vinnie would wear in a few weeks!

  A sense of calm washed over me. It was going to be all right. Whatever else happened with the wedding planning now, Vinnie would be a gorgeous bride. And the dress was made to showcase Mom’s jewelry. Vinnie was really, actually getting married, and things were going to turn out fine. Thanks to Mallu Masi.

  Just to be sure, I held the lehenga up to me. Way too short, but I’d worn enough of Vinnie’s hand-me-downs to know that it would fit her. The top was loose for me too. Not much at the waist and bust, but a lot on the shoulders. It would totally fit Vinnie.

  I did a twirl, swinging the heavy edge of the lehenga out slightly, and threw some packing peanuts in the air in celebration.

  I folded the lehenga and put it back into the box. That’s when I noticed the blue silk in the box—there was another lehenga beneath.

  It was firoza blue—the color of turquoise, late summer evenings, and sea glass washed up on the beaches of Cape Cod. It had once been my favorite color, and though I had several other favorites now I still loved it. Masi remembered.

  The lehenga was an ankle-length circle skirt lavishly embroidered in gold and silver dabka and semiprecious gemstones. It reminded me of the first time I had ever seen a lehenga being embroidered. It was in Mallu Masi’s workshop in Rajasthan. A circle of blue silk fabric had been stretched into a massive embroidery frame, and four of Masi’s best embroiderers were working on it simultaneously with spools of golden thread.

  “See the pattern, Mini?” Masi had said, showing me the intricate lines stamped lightly on the fabric. “That’s my design.”

  I’d watched as the men painstakingly brought Masi’s design to life—one stitch at a time. It would take months to finish that one piece. That’s when I fell in love with fabric.

  But something was wrong. This lehenga was too short, for one. I quickly checked the hem, and there was enough fabric turned in that I could unpick the edge of the fabric and lengthen it by several inches. Big whew! And it was too wide in the waist. Mallu Masi had gotten my size backward and hadn’t bothered clarifying.

  The drawstring waist meant I could tighten it to fit, but that would make the fabric bunch up. And that’s the thing with a circle dress design—once it’s been cut and stitched, you can’t size it down without ruining it. There was no way I could wear it without it looking extra bulky around the middle.

  I smiled ruefully.

  Masi still thought of me as the gawky thirteen-year-old I’d been when she saw me last. Partly my fault, I suppose. After she ditched me that winter, I had stopped communicating with her. And things had changed a lot since then. I’d had a late growth spurt and shot up several inches, for one, and my cross-country running in high school had made sure it was all muscle. Mallu Masi thought Vinnie was the only sporty one, clearly.

  The year I got fit started with my Beeji and Bauji packing up and going to India. Bade Bauji was undertaking a major expansion at KDH Spices—he wanted our Bauji’s help to set up the automated plants. Also, both my grandparents were sick of the snow. Other snowbirds go to Florida—my grandparents went all the way around the world instead.

  Also, my dad turned into a health fanatic, started cooking all our meals, and sucked at it. I’m not saying he didn’t try to cook well. He tried very, very hard. But most of his efforts were aimed at making sure there were enough nutrients, antioxidants, and vitamins in our food, and minimal amounts of trans fats, free radicals, and other nasty stuff—with cancer in our genes, he wasn’t taking any chances with my health or Vinnie’s. We didn’t eat any fast food. The meals he made were always perfectly balanced as per the food pyramid. But even after I flung liberal amounts of KDH spices on them, they stubbornly tasted like cardboard.

  How he could be related to the founder of KDH Spices, I have no clue.

  About the same time, I finally discovered a sport that did not involve hitting a ball with any degree of precision—cross-country running. All I needed to do was put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over, and some ingrained tenacity made me good at it.

  So between Dad’s healthy food and cross-country practice, I gained a new lifestyle.

  Masi still hadn’t gotten the memo, I guess.

  On the positive side, Vinnie literally had tears in her eyes when I showed her the lehenga via video chat.

  “It looks so filmy,” she said. Which was what Mom called things that could be right out of a Hindi movie.

  “It is right out of a Bollywood film,” I told
Vinnie. “Look!” I held up a poster of Meri Bollywood Wedding with Koyal Khanna wearing the same gold lehenga as Vinnie’s. I got it from the noticeboard at Ace, where someone had pinned it a few weeks ago. I had recognized it instantly.

  “Wow, it was in a movie?”

  “The same style was,” I said. “It’s kind of famous, I guess. And sold out everywhere!”

  “That’s hilarious,” Vinnie said. “Guess it helps to have relatives in the business. But what about your lehenga?”

  “It’s really, really beautiful,” I said. “But it doesn’t fit. Way too short.”

  “That’s tragic!” Vinnie said.

  “Hey, I’m not the one getting married. And I’ll fix it, if I have time,” I said. “But I’ve been thinking, Vinnie—what about getting saris for all your bridesmaids—including me?”

  “We can’t possibly pull that off as well,” Vinnie said. She looked very comfortable today in loose-fitting blue scrubs. But she’d just come off a night shift and also looked completely exhausted.

  “We can,” I said. “Saris are one size fits all, so we don’t have to worry about fittings.”

  “What about the blouses?” Vinnie asked.

  “I can stitch them,” I said. “I’ll just buy an extra sari and use the silk for the blouses. That way they’ll match perfectly.”

  “I’ll ask the girls if they’ll wear saris,” Vinnie said. “But won’t it be a lot of work to stitch the blouses?”

  “Yeah, but it’s doable,” I said. “And imagine how great it’ll look in the pictures. Do you think they’ll wear red silk saris with a gold border? It’ll make such a nice contrast to your gold lehenga. I found a place online where you can order ten of them!”

  “I’ll email everyone, Mini, and cc you,” Vinnie said. “Can you make sure they’re okay with it?” She yawned and stretched. “I’m sooo sleepy. Such a long day at the hospital, but we had some really interesting cases. You see a bit of everything in the ER and it’s go time all the time. It’s really satisfying to finally get to help people, though. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m actually a doctor.”

  “You are going to be an amazing doctor.” I was so fiercely proud of her.

  “Not yet.” She shook her head tiredly. “But I’m getting there.”

  “Go to bed!” I ordered. “I’ll email them!”

  “No, Mini, you’re already doing so much!” Vinnie said. “I’ll email them tomorrow. I’m sorry the lehenga Masi sent didn’t fit you. Why didn’t you send measurements?”

  “Because I thought she was sending me a sari when she didn’t ask for more measurements!” I said. “I’ve been thinking, though.…I can let down the hem to fix the length and change it from a full-circle skirt to a three-quarter-circle skirt. I’ll just have to see if Amy can let me use the sewing machine at the store—mine can’t sew such thick fabric.”

  “Maybe you should send it back,” Vinnie said. “What if you ruin it?”

  I folded my arms and tilted my head at her. “I won’t.”

  “Okay, I believe you.”

  “You should.”

  “How’s Vir?” Vinnie asked. “Did he end up DJ’ing Jason’s Bar Mitzvah?”

  “Uh-huh.” My heart did a backflip, and I’m pretty sure a “YMCA” as well. “He did great. But you do need to go over the schedule and the songs and the announcements with him, now that he’s definitely doing your wedding. That way it will be just how you want, okay?”

  I spread out the lehenga fabric into a perfect circle on the living room floor. I had already unpicked the hem, and thankfully even the fabric that had been turned in was embroidered, so it lengthened seamlessly. It looked like a pool of blue silk spangled with gold and silver.

  Then I raised my best pair of scissors.

  Normally I’d be petrified to cut through one-of-a-kind hand-embroidered silk of this quality, but I was mad. Mad enough not to care how it would turn out, if I did end up ruining it. In fact, I was sure that cutting the lehenga up was going to be positively therapeutic.

  With steady hands, I cut out a quarter slice of firoza-blue silk like a piece of a giant pie chart.

  There, done.

  Amy had said I could stitch the skirt on the Turnabout Shop sewing machine—the store’s machine is industrial-strength, and they have an overlocker and serger and everything. Even though I usually prefer using my twenty-year-old low-end Singer that used to belong to Mom for my personal alterations, I was taking NO more risks with this fabric.

  It would work, I knew it would.

  In a bid to shake off the blues (no pun intended), I packed my watercolors, bottle of water, and brushes into my French easel and headed to Fellsway with the dog. Painting en plein air always helped me slay whatever was bothering me. Besides, I had to add to the portfolio that I’d been neglecting for weeks. Now that I wasn’t retaking the SAT and Vinnie’s wedding planning was off to a good start, it was time to focus on college app stuff. My portfolio was exactly where it had been when junior year wound down and I finished submitting everything for AP Studio Art. It would be good to paint something that wasn’t going to be graded and evaluated!

  I set up the easel by the small stone bridge at the far end of the lake. The water lilies were blooming in the creek below, and if I was lucky a few of the lake’s resident swans would visit to inspire me. Yogi flopped down on the ground and watched the ducks sailing by, resigned to his fate. He knew what to expect after I set up the easel—hours of sitting around for him, while I messed around with paint and ignored him.

  An hour later I stepped back and surveyed my work.

  Not bad! I always did my best work when I had something to get out of my system. My low spirits were gone too. I wiped my hands on a rag and decided to let the paint dry before doing more with the scene.

  “Hey, that’s awesome!” Vir had somehow materialized next to me and was examining the painting with interest. “Is that for your art supplement?”

  “It is,” I said, trying to play it cool. “Do you like it?”

  “You had better not give this up when you go to uni, that’s all,” he said. “Did you decide which design schools you’re applying to?”

  I smiled. Was he a college counselor too, as well as a DJ? He pushed back the damp strands of hair that had flopped onto his forehead and fixed me with a stern look. Something about it made me forget to inhale.

  Through strategic breathing—short, shallow breaths worked well, I found—I was able to get enough oxygen to my brain to actually function.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want to go out of state.”

  “But you’re selling yourself short,” he said. “Seriously!”

  “My dad won’t even consider it. Do you want me to move away or something?” I meant it as a light comment, but his eyes warmed in a way that sent a shiver tingling down my spine.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want you to move, actually.” Before he could say more, Yogi started a low warning growl that made me jump.

  “NO!” A bolt of black fur dashed toward Yogi. It was that danged black poodle again.

  I moved to block the poodle’s path and she swerved to get around me, with a laser focus on Yogi, who had his fighting face on—hackles up, lips drawn back in a snarl. Then it happened so fast I could do nothing to stop it—the dog slammed into my easel and sent it flying.

  “Whoa!” Vir had stepped on the dog’s trailing leash, bringing her to an abrupt halt, more by accident than design, and grabbed my canvas with his other hand.

  How fabulous was he?

  “Good save!” I said.

  “Shadow!” The owner came into view at a flying run. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  Vir handed her the leash, adding a firm request to keep that “blasted beast” under control in future.

  She had dragged Shadow out of sight before I saw the damage to my easel. One of the legs was completely destroyed!

  “No!” I crumpled to the ground where the splintered wood from the easel’s leg la
y, looking totally and irreparably smashed.

  “Is it expensive?” Vir asked. “That woman should pay for it, you know.”

  I spread my fingers helplessly, at a loss for words.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  It was all too much! I wrapped my arms around myself and burst into tears.

  “Hey, hey.” Vir put a heavy arm around me. “It’s okay, it’s just a… stand or whatever. You can replace it, can’t you?”

  “No,” I said fiercely. “I CAN’T.”

  “Okay,” Vir said. “Then… we’ll fix it.”

  “You can’t fix that!” The tears came fast and furious and I couldn’t talk at all. Yogi’s whining brought me back. “It’s okay, Yogi, the bad dog’s gone.”

  “It’s special somehow, isn’t it?” Vir asked. “Your stand?”

  “I got it on my thirteenth birthday,” I said. “From my mother.” The tears started up again.

  To his credit, Vir thought it through before speaking.

  “You said your mother died when you were ten,” he said. “Do I have it wrong?”

  “No,” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “She bought it before she died and asked Dad to give it to me on my thirteenth birthday.”

  “Wow,” Vir said, putting an arm around me. “That’s definitely irreplaceable.”

  “She did that a lot,” I said. “She even bought a doctor’s-bag-style handbag for Vinnie’s med school graduation. Dad kept it locked up all these years and we gave it to her in May. It looks cool even now—in a vintage kind of way.”

  I stopped on a hiccup, aware that I was babbling.

  “Wow!” Vir said, as if handbags were the kind of thing that wowed him normally.

  “And she designed some amazing gold jewelry for Vinnie’s wedding,” I said. “That’s why I want the wedding to be perfect. She’s not around to do it, but someone should, right?”

  “Right,” Vir said. “She loved you both a lot, clearly.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. And then I didn’t speak for a while, just sat there on the grass with Vir and Yogi next to me.