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‘Where’s Vicky?’

There is no Vicky.

‘Vicky has run away on his wedding day,’ declares Vijay. ‘He is frightened of his bride.’

Ajay is sent to find Vicky. ‘Now hurry up,’ the barat shouts after him. ‘Or should we tell this chai wallah to start our lunch?’

Five minutes later Vicky and Ajay appear. ‘He was having his bath,’ says an indignant Ajay.

His bath. Amazement ripples through the bus. Vicky has outdone them all.

‘Couldn’t wait to get ready for his wedding,’ chortles the frank aunt.

‘Now let us go,’ says the grandmother, whose legs are cramped and swollen from being dangled over the seat all night long. ‘The bridegroom may be ready but no one else is.’

The driver is woken up, and the bus sets off in a swirl of dust into the increasing heat. The stop at Rampur has taken two hours.

Murli is waiting, sweat pouring off him, a wet hanky wrapped around his head. The many Banwari Lals descend, shake out their clothes, and stretch. Yashpal asks him whether he got the STD call. Murli’s gratitude at their thoughtfulness knows no bounds. Neither does his hospitality. He has made arrangements at the Gupta Ashram. It is neat and clean, he avers, neat and clean. The barat begin to walk through the gullies of Bareilly. The luggage follows on rickshaws. From time to time they almost collide with a scooterist. The lanes grow increasingly narrow.

The large central hall of the ashram has two long rows of mattresses covered with white sheets. Quickly the baratis stuff their luggage in the alcoves above, and settle down to the serious business of getting ready. Murli hangs around the halwais in the back angan, supervising the breakfast, puri aloo and lassi.

In a corner of a smaller room, a pundit sits under a whirring fan, slowly putting out puja things. By the time breakfast is finished and the first puja starts it is 12 o’clock. Father and son have to be invested with the sacred thread. Murli sits, eyes glazed, his turn first.

Next Vicky is called. He is found, bathed yet again, lying on the mattress in the next room, talking to his younger cousins, the centre of attention.

‘Vickeee, hurry.’

Vicky’s shirt is whipped off, and the thread slung around his chest. The havan fire is lit in an old aluminium cooking pot. Water and cold drinks are passed around. Polish boys creep from guest to guest, urging their shoes off.

The puja goes on and on, as does the lunch. Smoke fills the room, the elderly sit on cots, the younger ones hand them plates of food. Guests exhort each other to eat. Flies rise and fall with each passing step. Trays of sweets give off a heavy, sugary smell.

The groom has a fresh red tilak on his forehead, conferred by the pundit and he looks self-conscious.

‘It’s just a few more hours, Vicky.’

‘How much can you delay now, Vicky?’

Vicky scowls, and his audience titters.

By four, tables are being cleared to make way for the six o’clock chaat. The press-wallah is ironing, guests retire to mattresses, children run around, Vicky plays cards, while some men think of bottles hidden in suitcases.

The ladies are getting ready to go to the bride’s house. On two large decorated trays they carry a sari, petticoat, blouse, underwear, chappals, perfume, oil, hairpins, powder, jewellery, make-up and trinkets. From head to foot the bride has to be made over in things belonging to the groom’s side.

And there is the bride, a small, thin girl hovered over by her female relatives. They watch as her future in-laws paint her nails, undo and redo her hair, apply lipstick, brush powder over the sallow complexion, stroke eyeliner on to the hopeful eyes.

‘Be careful, don’t smudge, otherwise Vicky Bhaiyya will get very angry,’ snigger the younger ones.

Now it is the turn of the sari, blouse and petticoat. At this point the bride’s side declare there is no need to go through all this disrobing and robing. The bride will wear the sari in due course.

We have to put it on her. We. This minute. She is ours.

At this, the pundit from the bride’s side comes alive and asserts his authority.

‘No,’ he says.

‘No,’ replies the boy’s side.

They confer.

It was put on me.

Me too.

The bride looks down. A younger cousin is dispatched to demand of the elders in the Gupta Ashram: bride’s side says no – are we to listen?

The cousin runs through the gullies of Bareilly, while the rest politely sip cold drinks, pick at chips, sweet and salty biscuits.

As they wait the bride’s side clarify their links to the girl, the groom’s side specify their connections to the boy. From time to time the girl’s relatives ask, ‘How is she?’ The groom’s side swear she is the nicest thing they have seen. The bride flushes.

The message comes back

She has to change.

A sheet is held against the corner of the wall. With her back to them the bride changes. Her blouse is tight. She mutters something, struggling to get the hooks together, the silk quickly revealing rings of perspiration.

‘These are your measurements,’ say the groom’s side tartly. ‘How can it be tight?’

But the bride is wearing a bra padded with much cotton. Her cousin whispers, ‘You should have given your measurements with this one on.’

‘It’s all right,’ murmurs the bride.

In a corner the bride’s sister begins to cry. Ladies cluster around her – do not think your sister is gone, think you have another family to call your own.

She doesn’t stop.

Then she is scolded: how can you cry on such an auspicious day?

She does not listen. Her mother joins her. The bride’s side looks pleased. To lose their girl is a sacrifice they hope the other side will register.

Finally the bride is dressed. With a final dusting of powder and spraying of perfume, the ladies of the groom’s side disappear.

Back at the ashram everybody is consuming vast amounts of chaat. It is close to eight o’clock.

The two bathrooms are full. The baratis are running around, clothes under their arms. The press-wallah looks harassed as suddenly a mountain of garments materialises on his table for him to iron without a second’s delay.

Tempers rise.

‘Get out, get out, get out of the bathroom.’

Bang, bang, bang. The chain hanging from the old wooden doors shudders with each bang. If the person inside is lower in status – that is, woman or child – the banger gets abusive.

‘You think no one else has to have a bath?’

The splashes get louder. The water flowing into the drain outside gets a soapy scum. The waiting person screams, ‘You are still soaping yourself? You think the whole world is going to hang around for you?’

The world has no choice. There are only two bathrooms in the ashram.

Meanwhile the men are drinking. The women look the other way: it is a wedding, what can you expect?

The children are tired, some whimper, others droop with exhaustion – the non-drinking men dandle them while the ladies get ready, peeping surreptitiously into secret mirrors to indulge the vanity of believing that how you look matters.

At last the barat sets off in the glare of portable tube lights, the band screeches in the background, and people line the gullies to watch.

The wedding is to take place in an empty lot near the bride’s house. The bride is inside, dressed and patient. ‘Where are they now?’ the women ask from time to time.

‘In the Kapur walli gully.’

‘Still two hours for them to come.’

‘Now where are they … now … now?’

‘Bank gully, chowk, Agarwal Dharamsala gully, temple gully.’

‘Oh, still another hour and a half … another hour … another half-hour.’

The older family members stretch comfortably and yawn. It is eleven-thirty. The sound of the band can be heard as the barat circles the house, taking the longest possible route.

The more adventurous of the barat dance in the streets, others clap and egg them on. Children are whirled about on shoulders. The band plays in a frenzy, the men carrying the rods of fluorescent light are drenched in sweat. Vicky, high on his horse, watches through the tinsel strings that dangle from his light-pink turban.

Nisha is following the procession in her father’s arms. Sushila chucks her under the chin, tells her what a pretty girl she is, and that one day it will be her turn.

The gullies are crowded, the men’s dancing gets wilder, and the women are unable to keep up with their alcoholaided abandon. They stop to watch, absorbed, half-smiles playing on their lips. Their feet are trampled on, some get pushed towards the drains; just as they are about to slip into the sewage, they are pulled back.

Finally they reach the bride’s house, with its glittering, blinking welcome sign in huge coloured lights. But the young men refuse to stop. The bride’s mother, waiting with garlands stretched between her hands, gazes with tears in her eyes, her shrunken, widowed lips twitching. The drums beat, minutes pass, then quarter-hours, before the baratis decide to be welcomed at the entrance of a pink tunnel. White gathered bands drape its length, chandeliers hang above.

The bride is hiding in the depths of the house.

‘He has come, he has come, he has come,’ they shout at her. The bride rises, balancing herself on her extremely high heels.

Her shortness has already been canvassed extensively.

‘How do you like her?’ This inevitable question is now the property of Murli’s side, the people associated with the engagement.

‘We like her very much, very much, very much.’

‘She is short,’ remark a few.

This truth hangs accusingly in the air. The bride in her high heels comes up to Vicky’s shoulder. The listeners look shifty. The chooser of the bride looks aggressive.

The topic is changed.

Dinner is served at one in the morning. Puris, kachoris, naan, tandoori parantha, aloo sabzi, channa, fried potato, grilled paneer and mixed vegetables, paneer in tomato gravy, dahi pakori, soft pink ice-cream, gulab jamun, spiced sweet milk served in kulhars, then paan, sweet and plain, and lots and lots of bottled drinks, enthusiastically swung around by children, drunk, spilt, finished, drunk, spilt, finished again.

The guests have all eaten. It is now the bride and groom’s turn; they descend from their gilt red velvet thrones, and are led to chairs in front of the still-laden tables. Excited young ones surround them. A single plate is piled high with food and thrust at Vicky. He is to feed himself and his bride. The romance has begun. Someone pulls the sari covering the bride’s head back, so that Vicky’s hand can make its way unhindered to her red-painted mouth, to lips that open to receive the food, to a heart that is ready to receive a husband’s love.

It is two a.m., the auspicious time for the union has started. The bride and groom are escorted towards the pandal, where the priest is setting out in a leisurely fashion the paraphernalia necessary for the three-hour ritual that is to follow.

At six in the morning Vicky returns to the Gupta Dharamsala a married man. The newly weds touch the elders’ feet, ask for blessings, have money pressed on to them. The bride cries continuously. She is patted and soothed continuously. Young sisters-in-law clutching babies look sympathetic. The older ones look indifferent, their attention taken by collecting wedding presents, distributing saris and suit pieces brought from Delhi, ensuring everyone has a box of sweets.

One last meal at the Gupta Dharamsala – breakfast, which is sevar with aloo, puri with aloo, kulcha with chola, chutney, lassi, and rooafzah.

The bridegroom is again handed a plate for his bride and himself.

Everybody watches.

The question goes around once more: ‘How do you like her?’

She is nice, she is good, sweet, and docile. All this was predetermined by the mechanics of choice. There is no room for anything but hopeful, fervent liking.

A meal is packed for the journey back. ‘Packed lunch, there is packed lunch for everybody,’ shouts Pyare Lal. At the term packed lunch, Murli looks important – it is he who has arranged it on instruction.

The barat, along with bride and luggage, pile into rickshaws that will take them to the bus on the main road. There is no space in these gullies for buses.

The whole wedding procession is the standard two hours late.

The bride continues to weep as she is escorted inside the bus by her mother and sister, both crying as much as she. Her aunts and cousins look covertly at her new relatives jammed on the seats-who is what relation to their girl is remembered, noted, and filed away, to be brushed up later. The local menfolk stand around waiting. Vicky scuttles in, anxious to avoid his father. He is seated next to his wife, Lala Banwari Lal sits next to them. At eleven o’clock the bus sets off, travelling to Delhi during the hottest part of the day.

The bride stops crying. She can feel her husband’s arm down the length of her own, each lurch momentarily increases the pressure. Love is going to begin. Fated, ordained love, unquestioned, unexamined love.

Vicky looks down at his wife’s head. It is covered by a sequinned magenta sari palla; its smooth material slips and is pulled up, slips and is pulled up again and again. The hands that do this are dark with mehndi, gold glitters on the wrists. That gold is his, he realises, as is the gold around her neck, the rings on her fingers, and the body underneath it all.

Satisfaction pervades the bus. Vicky is married, another job done, another responsibility over. The men dance in the aisles.

‘Vicky, come dance.’ They pull him by the arm.

‘No, I am not in the mood,’ he mumbles.

‘Just married, and won’t leave his wife.’

‘So soon, and hanging on to her. Arre, Bhabhi, leave him. You have a whole lifetime with your husband. Then you will say, take him away.’

‘Take him away now,’ responds Asha, the new wife, her lipstick creasing with her smile.

Vicky violently shrugs off their pulling hands, the men laugh and shout at the bus driver to put on another cassette.

Bale, bale scream the loudspeakers into the bus, bale, bale echo the wedding guests, long into the journey.

VIII

Growing children