‘Let it be, mom,’ I said.
I ignited the gas 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?’
‘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 tava 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.’
‘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. Do you like doctors?’
‘No, I don’t like any Punjabi girl.’
‘Your mother is 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 to eat 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.
My father stared at me and turned to my mother. ‘This is the result of your upbringing. All 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 only told them we are coming for tea. Let me show you off a little. You wait and see, they will ask me first.’
‘I am not interested.’ I sat up on my bed.
‘Come for the snacks. They are very rich. Even for ordinary guests, they give dry fruits.’
‘Mom, why should I come, really?’
‘Because it will make me happy. Is that reason enough?’ she said and I noticed her wrinkled hand with the bandage.
‘OK,’ I shrugged and slid back into bed. ‘Now, let me sleep.’
‘Excellent,’ she said and switched off the lights as she left the room. I allowed my mind to be trapped again by thoughts of my South Indian girl.
13
Pammi aunty lived in Pitampura, a hardcore Punjabi neighbourhood. Each lane in this area has more marble than the Taj Mahal. Every street smells of tomatoes cooking with paneer. We took an auto as my father never allowed us to take the car. My mother told the auto driver to stop a few houses away. We couldn’t tell Pammi aunty we hadn’t come by car.
‘He had a meeting, he dropped us outside and left,’ my mother said as Pammi aunty came to greet us at the door.
‘He should have come for a cold drink at least,’ Pammi aunty said and escorted us in. Pammi aunty’s weight roughly matched the decade she lived in, and that correlation had continued into the current nineties. Pammi aunty had been Miss Chandigarh thirty-seven years ago. A rich businessman snapped her soon after the title and gave her a life of extra luxury and extra calories. Now, she weighed more than the three finalists put together.
We walked up five steps to get to their living room. Pammi aunty had difficulty climbing them. ‘My knees,’ she mumbled as she took the last step.
‘You are going for morning walk nowadays?’ my mother asked.
‘Where Kavita-ji, it is so hot. Plus, I have satsang in the morning. Sit,’ Pammi aunty said as she told her maid to get khus sharbat.
We sank into a red velvet sofa with a two-feet deep sponge base.
‘Actually, even if you walk to satsang, it can be good exercise,’ my mother said.
‘Six cars, Kavita-ji. Drivers sitting useless. How to walk?’ Pammi aunty asked. She had demonstrated a fine Punjabi skill – of showing off her wealth as part of an innocent conversation.
My mother turned to me to repeat her comment. ‘Six cars? Krish, you heard, they have six cars.’
I didn’t know how to respond. Maybe I was supposed to applaud. ‘Which ones?’ I said, only because they kept staring at me.
‘I don’t know. My husband knows. Just last week he bought a Honda.’
‘How much for?’ my mother asked. It is
almost courteous among Punjabis to encourage someone who is flaunting his wealth to brag some more.
‘Seven lakh, plus stereo changed for thirty thousand,’ Pammi aunty said.
‘Wow!’ my mother said. ‘He has also got a job with Citibank, four lakh a year.’
To a non-Punjabi, my mother’s comment would be considered a non-sequitur. To a Punjabi, it is perfect continuation. We are talking about lakh, after all.
‘Good. Your son has turned out bright,’ she said.
I guess to be rich is to be bright, as she didn’t ask for my IQ.
‘Your blessings, Pammi-ji,’ my mother said.
‘No, no,’ Pammi aunty said as she gloated over her possible role in my bagging a job.
We had smiled at each other for another minute when Pammi aunty spoke again. ‘Dry fruits?’
‘No, no, Pammi-ji, what formalities you are getting into?’ my mother demurred.
‘Rani, get cashews and those Dubai dates,’ Pammi-ji screamed.
My mother gave a mini nod in appreciation of the international nuts. ‘Where’s our Dolly?’ my mother enquired, claiming the heiress of three gas station as hers without hesitation.
‘Here only. Dolly!’ Pammi aunty screamed hard to reach the upper floors of the hydrocarbon-funded mansion.
The servants were summoned to call Dolly downstairs.
‘She takes forever to have a bath and get ready,’ Pammi aunty said in mock anger, as she took a fistful of cashews and forced them in my hands.
‘Don’t stop our daughter from looking beautiful, Pammi-ji,’ my mother said. Yes, Dolly was already ours.
‘Who knows ji about whose daughter she will become? We only have two girls, everything is theirs,’ Pammi said and spread her arms to show everything. Yes, the sofas, hideous marble coffee tables, curios, fans, air conditioners—everything belonged to the daughters and their future husbands. I have to say, for a second the thought of owning half this house made me wonder if my mother was right. But the next second the thought of losing Ananya came to me. No, I wouldn’t give up Ananya for all the cashews and cash in the world. If only Pammi aunty allowed me to live in this house with Ananya.
Dolly came scurrying down the steps with her perfume reaching us three seconds before her. ‘Hello Aunty-ji,’ Dolly said and went on to give my mother a tight hug.
‘How beautiful our daughter has become!’ my mother exclaimed.
Dolly and I greeted each other with slight nods. She wore a winered salwar kameez with vertical gold stripes running down it. She was abnormally white, and my mother was right; she did remind me of milk. She sucked in her stomach a little, though she wasn’t fat. Her ample bosom matched Pammi aunty’s and it made me wonder how these women would ever wean their children off without suffocating them.
‘What are you doing these days, Dolly?’ my mother asked.
‘BA pass, aunty, correspondence.’
‘You are also doing computer course, tell that,’ Pammi aunty said and turned to my mother, ‘I’ll get more snacks?’
Dolly tried to say something but was ignored as we had moved on to the more interesting topic of food.
‘No, Pammi-ji. This is enough,’ my mother said, obviously daring her to serve us more.
‘What are you saying? You haven’t come at meal time, so I just arranged some heavy snacks. Raju, get the snacks. And get both the red and green chutneys!’ she shrieked to her servant.
Raju and another servant brought in a gigantic tray with samosas, jalebis, chole bhature, milk cake, kachoris and, of course, the red and green chutneys. Twenty thousand calories were plonked on the table.
‘You shouldn’t have!’ my mother said as she signalled the servant to pass the jalebis.
‘Nothing ji, just for tasting. You should have come for dinner.’
I felt I would come across as a retard if I didn’t talk to Dolly now. ‘What computer course are you doing?’
‘Microsoft Word, Power Point, Email, I don’t know, just started. Looks quite hi-fi.’
‘Sure, it does sound like a challenging programme,’ I said, and instantly felt guilty for my sarcasm.
‘My friends are doing it, so I joined. If it is too difficult, I’ll stop. You know all these things, no?’
‘Sort of,’ I said.
My mother and Pammi aunty had stopped talking the moment Dolly and I began a conversation. Dolly and I became quiet as we noticed them staring at us.
‘It’s OK. Keep talking,’ my mother beamed and looked at Pammi-ji. Both of them gave each other a sly grin. They winked at each other and then folded their hands and looked up to thank God.
Dolly looked at my mother and smiled. ‘Aunty-ji, tea?’ she asked.
‘No ji, we don’t make our daughters work,’ my mother said. The work in this case being screaming at the servant.
‘Raju, get tea,’ Dolly exerted herself and earned affectionate glances from my mother. Why couldn’t my mother give Ananya one, just one, glance like that?
‘Son, tea?’ Pammi aunty offered me. I shook my head. ‘You young people have coffee, I know. Should we get coffee? Or wait, what is that new place at the District Centre, Dolly? Where they sell that expensive coffee? Barsaat?’
‘Barista, mom.’ Dolly switched to a more anglicised accent when asked to describe something trendy.
‘Yes, that. Take him there in the Honda. See ji, we are quite modern, actually,’ she said to my mother.
‘Modern is good ji. We are also not old-fashioned. Go Krish, enjoy,’ my mother said. Of course, hating Tamilians is not old-fashioned at all.
I stood up to partly enjoy myself with Dolly, but mainly to get away from here and ride in the new Honda.
‘Come here, Dolly,’ Pammi-ji said and did the unthinkable. She slid a hand into her bosom ATM and pulled out a wad of notes. I wondered if Pammi aunty’s cleavage also contained credit cards.
Dolly took the wad and put it in her golden handbag without counting it. She screamed at the servant to scream at the driver to scream at the security guard to open the gate so the Honda could be taken out.
We reached the District Centre, a ghetto of salwar-kameez shops, beauty parlours and STD booths. Dolly insisted on going to her favourite clothes boutique. I watched her choose clothes for half an hour. I wondered if it would be appropriate to call Ananya from one of the STD booths. I dropped the idea and hung around the shop, watching Punjabi mothers and daughters buy salwar kameezes by the dozen. The daughters were all thin and the mothers were all fat. The boutique specialised in these extreme sizes.
‘Healthy figure range is there,’ one salesman said as he pointed a mother to the right direction.
Dolly finished her shopping and paid for three new suits with her wad of notes.
‘You like these?’ she asked, opening her bag.
‘Nice,’ I said as we entered Barista. The air-conditioning and soothing music were a respite from the blazing forty-degree sun outside.
‘One cold coffee with ice-cream,’ Dolly said. ‘What do you want?’
I ordered the same and we sat on a couch, sitting as far apart as possible. We mutely stared at the music channel on the television in front of us.
‘I’ve never spoken to an IITian before,’ she said after some time.
‘You are not missing much,’ I said.
She shifted in her seat. Her clothes bag fell down. She lifted it back up.
‘Sorry, I get nervous in front of hi-fi people,’ she said.
‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘Enjoy your coffee.’
‘You have a girlfriend, no? South Indian?’
‘What?’ I jumped off my seat. ‘Who told you?’
‘Kittu told me,’ she said.
Kittu was my first cousin and Shipra masi’s daughter. Kittu’s father was Pammi aunty’s cousin. In some sense, Dolly was my third or fourth cousin, though we weren’t related by blood.
‘Kittu? How did she know?’
‘Shipra masi must have told her. And your mother
must have told Shipra masi.’
‘And now the whole clan knows,’ I guessed.
‘Sort of.’
‘What else do you know about her?’
‘Nothing,’ Dolly said as her eyes shifted around.
‘Tell me.’
‘Oh, some stuff. That she is very aggressive and clever and has you totally under her control. But South Indian girls are like that, no?’
‘Do you know any South Indian girls?’
‘No,’ Dolly said as she twirled her straw. ‘Sorry, I didn’t want to tell you. You guys serious or is it just time-pass?’
I tried to curb my anger. ‘What about you? You have a boyfriend?’
‘No, no. Never,’ she swore.
‘Not even time-pass?’
She looked at me. I smiled to show friendliness.
‘Just one colony guy. Don’t tell my mom, please. Or your mother, or even Kittu.’
‘I won’t.’
‘He sent me a teddy bear on Valentine’s day.’
‘Cute,’ I said.
‘Have you kissed anyone?’ she asked. ‘Like this South Indian girl.’
I thought hard about how I should answer her question without saying the truth, that I lived with Ananya in one tiny hostel room for two years.
‘No,’ I said.
‘OK, because this guy is insisting I kiss him. But I don’t want to get pregnant.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘It’s a very sweet story. He called a wrong number at my home one day. And we started talking. I’ve only met him once.’
‘You are seeing someone who called a wrong number?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend yet. But you know I have a didi in Ludhiana who married a guy who called her as a wrong number. They have two kids now.’
‘Wow,’ I said. I wondered if I should gulp my coffee down so we could leave sooner.
‘Do you like me?’ Dolly asked.
‘What?’
‘You know why we have been sent here, right? For match-making.’
‘Dolly, I can’t marry anyone but Ananya.’
‘Oh, that’s her name. Nice name.’
‘Thanks, and she is nice, too. And I am involved. I am sorry my mother dragged me into this.’
‘But you said you haven’t even kissed her.’