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Pooja was more than willing. She even asked Nisha to show her how she priced the suits – ‘for when you are not here, Didi.’

Pricing was the heart of the business. Every night when Nisha sat down to do it, the different strands of her work came together. According to a formula her father had worked out, she calculated first her base costs, rent and electricity, then payments to staff, then money spent on material and accessories, then transport expenses. Once this was done she added the 50 per cent that made up the wholesale prices she charged her retailers. Every figure attached to a suit proved she was a businesswoman, making profits, and she hugged this precious feeling to her heart. No matter who helped her, the final act of control had to be in her hands.

She left the delicate matter of family billing to her mother. Sona grew adroit at urging relatives to go to Gyan’s or Deepson’s, see Nisha’s label, compare the prices there, and then decide whether they were getting a good deal or no.

‘Do you like it, beti?’ asked Yashpal, bringing home her wedding sari from the shop.

Nisha looked at the gold mangoes and peacocks on the dark pink palla. Pooja and Rekha had got married in heavy brocade lehngas, with sheer gold tissue odhnis, crusted over with gold and silver embroidery. A registry wedding did not encourage this kind of finery.

‘Let’s see how it looks on you,’ continued Yashpal, drawing out the crackling tissue paper inserted into the folds and draping it around Nisha.

Sona joined them on the bed with the tea tray. ‘So beautiful,’ she remarked, ‘shows off her colour.’

‘It is fine, Papaji,’ said Nisha, turning her attention back to the sketches she had brought upstairs. ‘I am sure he does not care what I wear.’

Yashpal found himself wishing his daughter’s wedding day over so she could quickly get down to enjoying the home every woman needed.

The day before the wedding the sangeet cum mehndi ceremony took place. Just a few people, Sona averred, as fifty female relatives assembled to apply henna, choose bangles, and beat a dholak while singing loud and tuneless songs. At their centre sat Nisha in her new salwar suit, hands and feet outstretched. Two women crouched over her, painstakingly applying the bridal mehndi. If it turns out dark, her mother-in-law will love her, giggled the cousins.

All night Nisha slept with her mehndi on. She slept badly, the mehndi flaking on to the sheet, getting into her face and hair as she tossed and turned. As the sky grew lighter, she could hear the twittering of waking birds outside. Finally when the darkness had turned bluish grey she got up, and went into the kitchen. It was four-thirty on her wedding morning and she wanted to be alone before the others got up.

She lit the gas, carefully added tea leaves, milk, and sugar to one cup of water, and waited for it to boil. Her hands were sticky from the sugar-lemon mixture that had been smeared on to deepen the colour. She rinsed them and peered at her palms. Now she had a face to put to the word mother-in-law.

The intricate, lace-like patterns were an intense brown, the skin between the lines lightly stained with orange. It had been years since she had applied mehndi, though she had loved it as a child.

Holding her mug of tea, Nisha sat in the veranda, observing the growing brightness that illuminated the dust-coated leaves of the scraggy trees that bordered the park.

In a few hours she would be married. She wished she could see beyond the ceremony, but she couldn’t. His family was just him and his mother. Such luck, her relatives had exclaimed, comes only once in seven lifetimes.

She thought of her sari. Maybe Arvind would notice it after all.

She thought of her eczema. She hoped she would not itch during the function, she hoped that all the recent cortisone injections had done their work. They were going to cover her face and neck with foundation, her sleeves would hide most of her arms.

They had an eleven o’clock appointment with the registrar at Tees Hazari. In the evening there would be the reception at the Sartaj Hotel, followed by a free bridal night.

And there, in the bridal suite, he would see her body, see those patches. That was on the surface, what about the rest? Would he find her lacking in some virginal essence? He, who was a widower, and she, who was so scarred and scared?

After tonight, the worst would be over. The seeing done, the shocks of physical realities absorbed. Then she could focus on being a good wife, daughter-in-law, maybe mother, along with the business she clung to so doggedly in her mind. Had she been younger she would not have been faced with giving up anything; now what she had created was the most real thing in her life.

By ten-thirty the family, in four cars, are on their way to the lower courts. Ring Road is as usual jam-packed with traffic and the lights are not working. At each intersection policemen exercise despotic power over converging roads. With calculating eyes, they survey the lengthening line of cars that pour forth from the city. The bride sits in a car and sweats, no doubt the groom is doing the same on some other part of the road.

Finally, at ISBT they turn off towards Tees Hazari. ‘We are nearly there,’ whispers Sona to her daughter. Nearly there, nearly there.

Everybody stares at Nisha as she steps from the car. All the locals, the hangers-on, the typewriters-wallahs in sheds and shacks, touts waiting for those in need of lawyers, notary publics, or stamp-paper – all stare at the bride, so conspicuous in her pink sari with the gold peacocks. With her head down, Nisha follows her father inside. The corridors are dirty, the walls smeared with betel-juice stains. Masses jostle together, united by legal wrangles.

They take several wrong turns trying to find the place for registered marriages. They march up and down flights of narrow stairs – Nisha, Sona, Rupa, Pooja, Shuchi, Rekha (plus child), Seema (plus her two), Raju, Vijay, Ajay, Yashpal, Pyare Lal, Prem Nath.

They find the groom and are made to wait in three different rooms. Finally they collect in front of a magistrate in the nicest room of all, airy, high above the clusters of desperate humanity. Here Arvind and Nisha sign their names in several places. Pooja takes out a box from her heavy leather hand-bag and unwraps the paper covering to reveal fat white squares of cashew barfi. She firmly holds a piece out to Arvind. ‘Now you are married,’ she says laughing, ‘you should be the first to sweeten the mouth of your bride.’ As Nisha shyly accepts this love token, everyone, magistrate included, watches with approval.

From the court they drive straight to the Sartaj Hotel in Karol Bagh. The family mill around the check-in counter, complete the formalities, then pack into the lift to escort the newlyweds up.

The bridal suite is on the top floor. In the centre is a big double bed, strewn with a few rose petals, on the coffee table is a bowl of fruit, with a little white card inscribed ‘With Compliments from the Management’.

Family members crowd in, deposit the suitcases, relax on the bed, while children run from bathroom to room to corridor to room, shouting and screaming. Raju switches the TV on and off to check whether it is working. Those who have to use the toilet do so, splashing water liberally around the sink. Sona whispers to her daughter that Pooja, Rekha, and Seema will come early to help her get ready for the reception, they will bring her jewellery with them. Half an hour later they leave. Nisha and Arvind are alone for the second time.

They are seated opposite each other.

‘Would you like to eat something?’ he asks, clearing his throat. She wonders whether there is something wrong with his throat the way he keeps clearing it.

She looks down and shakes her head.

‘Something to drink? Limca?’

More negatives.

‘Tea?’

She recalls herself to herself. Activity is necessary to lighten the silence between them. A waiter would come, tea would be poured, milk and sugar added, spoons rattled. ‘All right,’ she agrees.

Arvind can now busy himself with phoning and ordering, and Nisha can feel free to move. She unlocks her suitcase.

‘Go and change,’ advises Arvind. ‘You must not be very comfortable.’

She takes out one of the salwar suits she had made. It is a deep pink organza, heavily embroidered, with sequins scattered across a chunni in two shades of pink, edged with a broad gold band.

‘Nisha’s Creations,’ she offers, holding it out to him.

He turns it about. ‘Yours?’

She nods.

‘Are these the ones you supply?’

Again she nods.

‘Where all?’

‘Gyan’s, Deepson’s, Ahuja and Sons in Karol Bagh.’ (She never mentions the steady supply to Banwari Lal and Sons – people might assume she is incapable of making it on her own.) ‘Later I want to branch out to Connaught Place.’

He looks startled. ‘I had no idea your business was so large.’

She informs him that during the wedding preparations she made nine suits a day. She cannot keep the pride from her voice.

He says nothing.

Does he mind? ‘Doing this I found some peace, and now I cannot stop.’ Her explanation brings tears she cannot help.

He sighs, ‘Work is good when the mind is disturbed.’

She gets up from the floor, gently tugs her salwar suit out of Arvind’s lap, and disappears into the bathroom.

The tea comes, along with paneer pakoras and a plate of biscuits. She pours the tea, he hands her a pakora sprinkled with black salt and chillies. She eats it. It tastes good, he hands her another. She feels looked after, and wonders whether this is an aspect of marriage that will continue or fade.

They eat pakoras and drink tea. Arvind says, ‘You rest, I will have a bath.’

She smiles but remains sitting till he locks the bathroom door, only then does it seem safe to lie down. After a few tense minutes she drifts into a doze, so tired is she; after all, she has been up since four-thirty. Some time later the bed sags, he too has lain down, she remains as still as stone. But it is all right, he turns on his side, and in a while she can hear gentle snores. Reassured, she drifts back to sleep.

Two hours later Pooja and her daughter arrive to take her to the hotel beauty parlour for the free bridal make-up and hairdo.

‘How do you like our sister?’ asks Pooja coyly, her eyes flickering over the slightly rumpled surface of the bed.

Arvind smiles but vouchsafes no opinion on this delicate matter.

Nisha blushes. What can the poor man say?

‘Now you must be on your own, we are taking her to the parlour.’

‘Leave her with me,’ says Arvind, pointing to Shuchi.

Shuchi clings to her mother’s Nisha Created suit, and refuses to be coaxed away.

‘So naughty at home, so shy outside,’ explains Pooja.

‘Are you her sister?’ they ask Pooja at the beauty parlour. They have many brides coming in and are democratically curious about all.

‘No, sister-in-law.’

‘Such a pretty smile she has.’ This they can say safely. Eczema hasn’t touched her teeth.

‘Yes,’ agrees Pooja, baring her own lips in the mirror.

‘Do you want a body wax?’ they ask. ‘Very popular with brides. Leaves the body smooth as silk.’

‘No,’ replies Nisha reddening, thinking of the marks on her body and the roughened texture of her skin.

They go over her face with a magnifying glass, thread the few stray hairs on her upper lip, tweeze her eyebrows. They give her a facial, while Pooja has a pedicure, and Shuchi has nail polish put on her hands and feet.

‘Relax, relax,’ exhorts the small Chinese woman, gently massaging Nisha’s face, neck, and shoulders, going into routine patter: what kind of marriage, love or arranged, what kind of job, business or service, what kind of household, joint or separate?

A mudpack (the one Nisha prefers) is applied, cotton pads put on her eyes, and the overhead light turned off. As she lies there Nisha thinks of all the treatment she has undergone at the Nature Cure Centre. Would she still need to go there? Mudpacks and she are old familiars.

Finally the make-up. First the foundation, a thick uniform white, then the cheeks coloured a definite, unambiguous pink, with a touch of rouge on the forehead and chin. The mouth is painted bright red, the eyes lined in black, a faint purple eye shadow applied, and her whole face given a light silver dusting.

‘Isn’t she looking beautiful?’ they enthuse, as they pull her hair into an elaborate arrangement that has ringlets brushing her neck and shoulders.

Finally, when Nisha’s face is finished, Pooja opens the suitcase in which Nisha’s mother-in-law has put the clothes she is to wear for the reception. Out comes a lehnga. Nisha gazes wordlessly at this auspicious sign. It is not the most elaborate she has seen, but she likes the colour, a pearly pink with a gauzy silver dupatta, and silver embroidery. As she slips on the heavy skirt, the beauty-parlour women exclaim, so beautiful, such good taste, and Nisha feels a sense of personal accomplishment.

She is ready. The three of them take the lift upstairs to wait for Rekha and Seema to come with the jewellery.

At the far end of the hall the bride and groom are seated on two high carved wooden chairs on a dais covered with a green carpet. The bride wears four thick necklaces: gold with enamel work, gold with the nine precious stones, gold filigree, and gold embedded with pearls and rubies. Pearls and rubies dangle from her ears. The matching bangles of each necklace are on her wrists, along with a dozen ordinary gold bangles for everyday use.

The guests come to the dais one by one and press presents, mostly envelopes of money, into the couple’s hands, envelopes which are passed on to Pooja, standing behind them with a little bag. The women admire Nisha’s mehndi and incidentally examine her ornaments. They finger her necklaces, ask which ones are hers, which ones her in-laws have given her. They look satisfied as they delve into these secrets.

As each guest comes up, the photographer takes pictures.

After two hours plates laden with food are thrust at the married couple. Nisha picks at hers, Arvind eats heartily.

‘Aren’t you eating?’ he asks, turning to her.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Arre, is this any way to treat your wife? Feed her, feed her, nah,’ laughs a cousin’s daughter, a fourteen-year-old girl versed in marriage ritual. ‘Don’t be so shy.’ She arrests the groom’s hand travelling towards his mouth, pushes Nisha’s face towards it, saying to the bride, ‘Now you are married Didi, you won’t get anywhere being shy.’ Nisha’s mouth closes on the morsel, her teeth graze his fingers, and there was contact, sanctioned contact.