Yes, I deeply wanted to get married. I associated it with love and commitment and security – plus all the parties and new saris and a trousseau full of pretty dresses. But a family wedding in Bombay was one thing; a lifetime in Accra something else entirely.
‘Mummy, I decided a long time ago that it was going to be G Eight only. You know, developed nations or nothing. Plus, there is the issue of compatibility here. We don’t look compatible.’
My father interjected.
‘What? Is he too short for you?
‘No!’ I said emphatically. ‘Look, there’s got to be a vibe that happens between two people; you know, kind of a connection. You just get it – either it’s there, or it’s not.’
‘Aarey, I don’t know what you’re saying,’ my mother replied.
‘I just want to be happy, Mummy.’
‘Beti,’ she replied, ‘I don’t want you to be happy. I want you to be married.’
It is considered highly improper for a young man or woman to take the initiative for his or her marriage. With the spread of education nowadays the boy and the girl are given a chance to see each other unlike the old days when the newlyweds saw each other after the marriage.
Hinduism: an Introduction by Dharam Vir Singh
There seemed to be nothing more for it but to call Delta Airlines and change my flight. My mother had implored me to stay in Bombay just a few more days, convincing me that since the wedding had only just finished, calls would be made and somehow between all my family members we could find out if there were any interesting, suitable boys floating around. Of course, my mother then had to casually suggest it: ‘Beti, while you are still here, why don’t you meet the boy from Accra? You can’t just look at how he was dressed, a wife can always change her husband’s clothes,’ she had reasoned. ‘And so? What’s wrong with white socks?’
Maharaj Girdhar worked quickly and set up a meeting for the following evening at the Sea Lounge in the Taj Mahal Hotel. He wasn’t going to waste any time. If this thing went through, he would collect twenty-five thousand rupees as a matchmaker’s fee – about the price of a small Louis Vuitton handbag – certainly more than enough for him to live on for the next six months. He had organized Nina’s match, so he felt he was on a roll as far as my family was concerned. Unlike with dating agencies, there was no payoff for him until the deed was done; he wouldn’t collect a paisa for simply setting up a meeting. This was an interesting metaphor for the Indian-style matrimonial game. The jackpot is a wedding, and there are no consolation prizes. It’s all or nothing.
The Accra boy project had begun to acquire a momentum all its own, and it had swept me away. No matter how hard I looked, there simply was no good enough reason to say no – the whole ‘I don’t like the way he looks’ excuse just didn’t fly any more. On the instruction of my parents, I had emailed my boss, Marion, and told her I had caught a touch of dysentery, and the doctor thought I shouldn’t travel. Marion emailed back, and said fine, absolutely, we’ve got everything under control. Evidently she was aware I was fibbing too, because she added a PS: ‘Have you found a husband yet?’
At six the following evening, my parents and Anil – the older of my two brothers – walked ahead of me as we all trod up the wide, red-carpeted staircase leading from the lobby of the Taj to the Sea Lounge. This was one of my favourite haunts in Bombay: a couple of times in the past week, while the rest of the family had been busy with wedding preparations, I had escaped here with a copy of the latest Vanity Fair, and sat and sipped fresh young coconut water while occasionally looking through the open windows on to the Gateway of India and the sea beyond. Neutral ground, light and breezy: it was not surprising that the place was a popular venue for fix-ups of this nature.
Aunt Jyoti had wanted me to go ethnic, in just a simple salwar kameez. ‘It’s better, Anju, you’ll look more Indian, more domesticated.’
But I had said that I would feel much more comfortable, and therefore exude a more relaxed air, if I slipped into a silky BCBG dress. It was sufficiently modest not to offend any sensibilities, yet feminine enough so that, when I was fully dressed, my mother had glowed at me in delight. She wanted me to wear some nice jewellery – enough to show the Accra family that we were people of means, yet not so much that the man in question would think that I was some high-maintenance diva-de-luxe. It was a delicate balance.
They were already there, seated at a corner table, with Maharaj Girdhar. The spacious, comfortable lounge – all cosy aqua-green chairs and natural lighting – was filled with the genial buzz of conversation.
The name of the intended was Puran. Next to him was his mother, the woman I had seen him with at the buffet table at Nina’s wedding. With them was also a sad-looking man – the father, I figured. Puran was still chewing gum, and I fervently hoped it wasn’t the same stick from the other night. I tried not to stare at his one eyebrow, bushy and unkempt, reminding me of two baby ferrets lying nose-to-nose. But there was something else … he was wearing the same semi-transparent black shirt and the same black trousers that he had worn at the wedding. As I walked closer, I noticed that his trousers had little flowers embossed up and down the leg. Someone, I thought, should get this man a stylist.
They stood as we approached, and awkward handshakes and introductions were exchanged all round while I smiled nervously, wanting to be pleasant and affable and enter into the spirit of this thing, yet utterly convinced in my soul that this was never going to happen.
‘Anju, why don’t you sit there,’ my mother entreated, pointing to an empty seat on the other side of the prospective groom. Good thing I was wearing my slides, as Puran appeared shorter than I remembered him. Drinks were ordered, small-talk made (‘So hot here these days, Bombay is getting worse and worse,’ announced Puran’s father), and both mothers complimented one another on their saris. I said nothing. I had been through so many of these that by now I knew the drill intimately. It went something like this:
1. Wait until the boy speaks first.
2. Smile.
3. Reveal as little as possible. (In the words of my mother’s guru from years ago: ‘Don’t show you have any opinions or intelligence. Boys don’t like it. You can say what you want after you’re married, but until then, be quiet.’ It was straight out of The Rules. And it hadn’t worked thus far.)
‘So, you like Bombay?’ Puran’s mother asked me.
I smiled and nodded
‘You must be liking New York also?’ the father asked. ‘What is your work there?’
‘I, um, just work in an office, they do like, um, an advertising type of business,’ I replied, knowing I should dumb-down my life. Puran still hadn’t uttered a word to me or to anyone else at the table, immersed as he was in the task of stirring his mango juice with a plastic straw. I had opted for a lassi, but, at that moment, would have sacrificed a Fendi bag for a Cosmopolitan. I smirked at the thought of how ordering a vodka-heavy drink would look to my potential in-laws.
‘So, Puran,’ my father began, taking on the tone of a paternal job interviewer. ‘I understand you have some shops in Accra?’
Puran finally spoke, in a voice that sounded a bit more helium-enriched than I had imagined. ‘Yes. Groceries, general provisions, like that,’ he said, with no further elaboration.
‘And how’s business these days?’
‘Up and down. There were some riots last year, and our stores were looted.’
I was not encouraged. Talk of anarchy