2 States The Story Of My Marriage (9 page)

‘Krish and I, we like each other,’ Ananya smiled.

‘I told you. I smelled something fishy……’ My mother tore her chapatti.

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‘There’s nothing fishy. There’s nothing to be worried about. We just wanted to

share our happiness. We are just two people in love,’ Ananya said as her mother

interrupted her.

‘Shut up, Ananya!’ Ananya’s mother glared at her. I wondered if she would

slap her. And I wondered if Ananya would offer her second cheek considering we

were in Gandhi’s ashram.

‘This is what I meant when I said about South Indian girls. There are so many

cases in Delhi only,’ my mother said, itching to slam Ananya’s mom again.

‘Mom, chill,’ I said.

‘What have I said? Did I say anything?’ my mother asked.

‘Get up,’ Ananya’s mother said to her husband. Like a TV responding to a

remote, he stood. Ananya’s brother followed. ‘We will take an auto back,’

Ananya’s mother said.

Ananya sat under the tree, perplexed.

‘Now you will stay with them?’ Ananya’s mother asked.

‘Mom, please!’ Ananya sounded close to tears.

Ananya’s mother tugged at Ananya and pulled her away. The guide noticed

them leave and looked puzzled. I paid him off and came back to my mother. She

finished the last few spoons of Topaz’s paneer tikka masala under the tree.

‘They are gone,’ I said.

‘Good. There’ll be more space in the car,’ she said.

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ACT 2:

Delhi

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12

‘What are you reading with such concentration?’ my mother asked as she

chopped bhindi on the dining table.

‘It’s the Citibank new employee form. I have to fill fifty pages. They want to

know everything, like where was your mother born.’

‘On the way from Lahore to Delhi. Your grandmother delivered me in a

makeshift tent near Punjabi Bagh.’

‘I’ll write Delhi,’ I said.

I had come home for the two-month break before joining Citibank. Even in

April, Delhi temperature had already crossed forty degree centigrade. There

wasn’t much to do, apart from calling Ananya once a day or waiting for her call. I

sat with my mother as she prepared lunch. My father wasn’t home, nobody really

sure or caring about where he was.

‘Is this the form where you fill your location preference?’ my mother asked.

I looked at her hands, a little more wrinkled then before I left to join college.

She cut the top and tail of a bhindi and slit it in the middle.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You chose Delhi, right?’

I kept quiet.

‘What?’

‘Yes I will,’ I said.

The phone rang. I rushed to pick it up. It was Sunday and cheaper STD rates

meant Ananya would call at noon.

‘Hi, my honeybunch,’ Ananya said.

‘Obviously, your mother is not around,’ I said. I spoke in a low volume as my

own mother kept her eyes on the bhindi but ears on me.

‘Of course not. She’s gone to buy stuff for Varsha Porupu puja tomorrow.’

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‘Varsha what?’

‘Varsha Porupu, Tamil new year. Don’t you guys know?’

‘Uh, yes of course, Happy New Year,’ I said.

‘And have you sent in your Citibank form yet?’

‘No, have to fill a few final items,’ I said.

‘You’ve given Chennai as your top location choice?’

‘I will….wait.’

I picked up the phone and went as far from my mother as the curly landline

wire allowed me. ‘My mother expects me to put Delhi,’ I whispered.

‘And what do you want? HLL has placed me in Chennai. I told you weeks ago.

How are we going to make this work?’

‘We will. But if I come to Chennai, she’ll know it is for you.’

‘Fine, then tell her that.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. They didn’t give me a choice, else I would have come to Delhi. I
miss you sweets, a lot. Please, baby, come soon.’

‘I’m someone else’s baby too, quite literally. And she is watching me, so I

better hang up.’

‘Please say “I love you”.’

‘I do.’

‘No, say it nicely.’

‘Ananya!’

‘Just once. The three words together.’

I looked at my mother. She picked up the last bunch of bhindis and wiped

them with a wet cloth. Her shiny knife, symbolic of her current position in my love

story, gleamed in the afternoon light.

‘Movies I love. You should see them, too.’

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‘Aww, that’s not fair,’ Ananya mock-cried at the other end.

‘Bye,’ I said.

‘OK, love you. Bye,’ she ended the call.

I came back to the dining table. Out of guilt, I picked up a few bhindis and

started wiping them with a cloth.

‘Madrasi girl?’

‘Ananya,’ I said.

‘Stay away from her. They brainwash, these people.’

‘Mom, I like her. In fact, I love her.’

‘See, I told you. They trap you,’ my mother declared.

‘Nobody has trapped me, mom,’ I said as I thwacked a bhindi on the table. ‘She

is a nice girl. She is smart, intelligent, good-looking. She has a good job. Why

would she need to trap anyone?’

‘They like North Indian men.’

‘Why? What’s so special about North Indian men?’

‘North Indians are fairer. The Tamilians have a complex.’

A complexion, complex?’ I chuckled.

‘Yes, huge,’ my mother said.

‘Mom, she went to IIMA, she is one of the smartest girls in India. What are you
talking about? And not that it matters, but you have seen her. She is fairer than

me.’

‘The fair ones are the most dangerous. Sridevi and Hema Malini.’

‘Mom, stop comparing Ananya to Sridevi and Hema Malini,’ I screamed and

pushed the bhindi bowl on the table aside with my arm. The bowl pushed the

knife, which in turn rammed against my mother’s fingers. She winced in pain as

drops of blood flooded her right index fingers.

‘Mom, I am so sorry,’ I said. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘It’s OK. Kill me. Kill me for this girl,’ she wailed.

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‘Mom, I am not…..’ A drop of blood fell on my Citibank form. Now would be the

time to betray your mother, you idiot, I thought.

‘I am going to write Delhi,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Where are the band-aids? Don’t worry, I will cook the bhindi. Give me
the masala.’

I bandaged my mother and had her recline on the sofa. I switched on the TV. I

tried to find a channel with a soap opera that didn’t show children disrespecting

their parents. I filled each bhindi with masala over the next hour.

‘Do you know how to switch on the gas?’ she screamed form the living room

as I hunted for matches in the kitchen.

‘I do. Don’t worry.’

‘I can show you Punjabi girls fair as milk,’ she said, her volume louder than the
TV. I ignored her as I checked the cupboard for a vessel. ‘Should we give a

matrimonial ad? Verma aunty downstairs gave it; she got fifty responses even

though her son is from donation college. You will get five hundred,’ my mother

said.

‘Let it be, mom,’ I said.

I ignited the stove and kept the pan over it. I poured cooking oil and opened

the drawers to find cumin seeds. It was kept in the same place as when I left

home for college over seven years ago.

‘Actually, I have a girl in mind. You have seen Pammi aunty’s daughter?’

‘No. and I don’t want to,’ I said.

‘Wait,’ my mother said as a new wave of energy was unleashed within her. I

heard her open the Godrej cupboard in her bedroom. She brought a wedding

album to the kitchen. ‘Lower the flame, you’ll burn it. And why haven’t you

switched on the exhaust?’ she snatched the ladle from me and took control of the

stove. She stirred the bhindi with vigour as she spoke again. ‘Open this album.

See the girl dancing in the baraat next to the horse. She is wearing a pink lehnga.’

‘Mom,’ I protested.

‘Listen to me also sometimes. Didn’t I meet Jayalalitha’s family on your

request?’

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‘What?’

‘Nothing, see the picture.’

I opened the album. It was my second cousin Dinki’s wedding to Deepu. The

first five pages of the album were filled with face shots of the boy and girl in

various kaleidoscopic combinations and enclosed by heart-filled frames. I flipped

through the album and came to the pictures with the horse.

I saw a girl in pink lehnga, her face barely visible under a lot of hair. She was in
the middle of a dance step with her hands held high and index fingers pointing

up.

‘Isn’t she pretty?’ My mother switched on the other gas stove and put a tawa

on it to make rotis. She took out a rolling pin and dough.

‘I can’t make out,’ I said.

‘You should meet her. And here, keep stirring the bhindi while I make the

rotis,’ She handed me the ladle.

‘I don’t want to meet anyone.’

‘Only once.’

‘What’s so special about her?’

‘They have six petrol pumps.’

‘What?’

‘Her father. He has six petrol pumps. And the best part is, they have only two

daughters. So each son-in-law will get three, just imagine.’

‘What?’ I said as I imagined myself sitting in a gas station.

‘Yes, they are very rich. Petrol pumps sell in cash. Lots of black money.’

‘And what does the girl do? Is she educated?’

‘She is doing something. These days you can do graduation by

correspondence also.’

‘Oh, so she is not even going to college?’

‘College degrees you can get easily. They are quite rich.’

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‘Mom, that’s not the point. I can’t believe you are going to marry me to a

twelfth pass….oh, forget it. Put this album away. And are the rotis done? I am

hungry.’

‘We can get an educated Punjabi girl.’

‘No, I don’t like any Punjabi girl.’

‘Your mother is a Punjabi,’ my mother said in an upset tone.

‘That’s not the point, mom,’ I said and opened the fridge to take out curd. ‘I

don’t want any other girl. I have a girlfriend.’

‘You’ll marry that Madrasi girl?’ my mother asked, seriously shocked for the

first time since she found out about Ananya.

‘I want to. In time, of course.’

My mother slapped a roti on the tawa and then slapped her forehead.

‘Let’s eat,’ I said, ignoring her demonstrations of disappointment. We placed

the food on the living-room coffee table and sat down in front of the TV.

The doorbell rang twice.

‘Oh no, it’s your father,’ my mother said. ‘Switch off the TV.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said.

My mother gave me a stern glance. I reluctantly shut the television. My mother

opened the door. My father came inside and looked at me. I turned away and

came back to the table.

‘Lunch?’ my mother asked.

My father did not answer. He came to the dining table and examined the food.

‘You call this food?’ he said.

I glared at him. ‘It took mom three hours to make it,’ I said.

My mother took out a plate for him.

‘I don’t want to eat this,’ my father said.

‘Why don’t you say you’ve already eaten and come?’ I butted in again.

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My father stared at me and turned to my mother. ‘This is the result of your

upbringing. All the degrees can go to the dustbin. You only have this at the end.’

This, and a job at Citibank that pays me three times at the start than what you
ever earned in your life, I wanted to say but didn’t. I pulled the Citibank form close
to me.

My father went and touched the TV top. ‘It’s hot. Who watched TV?’

‘I did. Any problem?’ I said.

‘I hope you leave home soon,’ my father said.

I hope you leave this world soon, I responded mentally as I took my plate and left
the room.

I lay down in bed at night, waiting to fall asleep. My mind oscillated between

wonderful thoughts of Ananya’s hair as they brushed against my face when we

slept in campus and the argument with my father this afternoon. My mother came

to my room and switched on the light.

‘I’ve fixed the meeting. We’ll go to Pammi aunty’s place day after tomorrow.’

‘Mom, I don’t…..’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve told them we are coming for tea. Let me show you off a little.