by Farahad Zama
After they were all seated and snacks had been served, Sujatha walked in and all eyes turned to her, making her self-conscious. She was wearing an aubergine-coloured sari with a pale-pink border that set off her fair complexion. A discreet brooch, in the shape of a butterfly with shimmering purple wings, pinned the edge of her sari to her blouse. Her hair was plaited with a matching purple ribbon and she wore thin, oversized gold earrings that emphasised her round face and complemented a plain gold chain round her neck. The final touch: pale-pink nail polish – she had gone for a facial, manicure and pedicure the day before at the Blue Heaven beauty parlour – made her look beautiful and elegant. Bobbili glanced quickly at Ajay and he was pretty sure that the young man was of the same opinion. Venkat was escorting Sujatha and Bobbili signalled discreetly to his son to come away.
Sujatha sat down next to her grandfather, took a covert peek at Ajay and was satisfied that he looked just like his photograph. He faintly resembled a Telugu film star – with wide shoulders, fair skin, a long nose that was neither broad nor thin, a strong chin, beautiful eyes and a rumpled over-the-ear hairstyle. His piercing gaze met hers and she glanced away, flustered. Her eyes fell on her cousin Venkat and when he smiled at her encouragingly her heart slowed down. She had grown disillusioned with the whole marriage-viewing rigmarole after the rejections, but this time was different – she could feel it. She twisted the tassel on the corner of her sari in the fingers of her right hand and glanced at Ajay again, immediately being captured in the depths of his eyes. Yet she felt that there was no lechery in them, probably because of his shy but confident smile.
Ajay glanced at his mother and Sujatha suddenly realised that her prospective mother-in-law was asking her a question. She shook her head. “Sorry, Auntie. What did you say?”
“How are your studies going, child?”
“All right, Auntie. I am actually taking the course for the sake of keeping busy. I would like to do something practical, but Vizag is such a small city that it is difficult here.”
“I am not sure – ” began Ajay’s father.
“What would you like to do?” said Ajay, interrupting his father.
Sujatha seemed confused, her gaze flicking from father to son, not knowing whom to answer. Ajay raised his hand. “Sorry, Naanna,” he said to his father. “You were saying…”
“No, no,” said his father. “I was just going to say that you don’t need to do anything practical, but obviously it is up to the two of you. Whatever makes you happy is fine by us.”
Sujatha blushed. “I love designing jewellery. I want to do a course to learn more about it.”
“That’s a very good hobby. You could even turn it into a business if you wanted to,” said Ajay. “I am sure that a bigger city like Hyderabad will be better than Vizag for that kind of thing.”
Sujatha smiled. “Thanks!” she said.
Ajay’s father asked Sujatha’s father a question about their fields and how many bags of rice they got per acre. Sujatha’s grandfather answered quickly before his son could say a word.
The conversation moved on to the dowry. “Everything I have, I’ve put in a trust in Sujatha’s name. She will inherit everything after I am gone,” Mr Reddy said.
Ajay’s parents glanced at Mr Reddy’s son, Sukumar. “May you have a long life,” said Ajay’s father. “Why talk about such gloomy matters at an auspicious time like this?”
“But I will not allow my granddaughter to leave my house with nothing. I will give her a dowry of one crore and I will buy a flat for the couple in any part of Hyderabad that they choose. Of course, I will furnish the flat appropriately and she will bring all her jewellery with her.”
A dowry of ten million rupees was a handsome one indeed, and Ajay’s family were cultured enough to recognise that and not quibble for more.
“Is any of that jewellery designed by you?” asked Ajay.
Sujatha smiled. “No, Thaatha is talking about traditional gold stuff like the nav-lakha haar and vaddaanam.” She spoke of a diamond necklace supposedly worth nine lakhs of rupees and a lady’s cummerbund made of gold.
“Lucky for him that you are slim,” said Ajay and everybody laughed.
“Uncle, is it OK if I have a chat with Sujatha?” asked Ajay.
Mr Reddy looked startled and then frowned. Her father, Sukumar spoke for the first time since the guests had arrived. “I don’t see a problem with that,” he said. “Sujatha, why don’t you show the young man the garden?”
She glanced at her grandfather for confirmation and when he didn’t object – though he didn’t quite agree – she stood up. Ajay rose as well and they walked out into the garden by the side of the house.
Bobbili turned to his son and nodded towards the young couple. “Go with them,” he said, then added softly, “but don’t breathe down their necks.”
Venkat gave him a tight smile and padded out.
♦
After the guests had left, Bobbili called up one of the bridegroom’s uncles who had accompanied Ajay and through whom he had negotiated all the salient points before the actual viewing. He listened for a few moments, then hung up and turned to the rest of the family, beaming. “They like everything they’ve seen. Very positive.” He turned to Sujatha. “What about you, daughter? What do you say?”
“I like the match too,” she said, blushing.
“So the tour of the garden went well,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“Yes,” muttered Sujatha, blushing even more.
“Fantastic.” He turned to Sujatha’s grandfather. “Congrats,” he said. “We have good news.”
Mr Reddy smiled, but Sukumar said, “We’ve been here before, so let’s not jump ahead of ourselves and raise our hopes too much. That would be like the proverbial man who is still single but daydreams of naming his son Somalingam when his non-existent wife finally becomes pregnant and has a baby.”
Mr Reddy turned on his son. “Don’t open your mouth if all you can speak are inauspicious words,” he said.
“Yeah, shut me up. What else can you do?” he said.
Sujatha said, “Please don’t argue for my sake.”
Bobbili said, “Our daughter is right. We shouldn’t fight. Sukumar is also right. We’ve been disappointed before. But this time I do feel it is different. I’ve never been optimistic. The boy is great, the family is perfect – respectable and so nice. They didn’t even object when Sujatha said she wanted to do a jewellery-making course. They are very good people.”
Sujatha’s dreams that night were full of a wide-shouldered young man called Ajay with romantic eyes and a nice line in banter.
♦
In another part of town, Mrs Ali and Pari were finishing preparing dinner. Most of the dishes had already been cooked, including tomato khatta – chopped tomatoes sauteed to a gravy with onions, chillies and mustard seeds; curried fresh whitebait – which Mrs Ali had made her husband get from the fishing harbour; and mutton-fry. The rice had been cooked too and they were just finishing off the rotis, Pari flattening the dough with a rolling pin and Mrs Ali cooking them on the hot iron griddle.
Pari suddenly realised that they were cooking all these dishes not just for breaking their fast but because Rehman was coming home today. Her lips tightened at the thought.
“Are you OK?” asked Mrs Ali.
Pari brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes with the back of her hand and nodded, glancing at her watch. Less than half an hour to go for breaking the fast. She was thirsty and the smell of all the food made her mouth water, but she nodded. “When is Rehman coming?” she asked, keeping her voice as casual as she could.
“He said he’d be here before – ” began Mrs Ali and was interrupted by Vasu running in.
“Rehman-uncle is here,” he shouted, holding up a toy car in one hand. “Look what he got for me.”
Pari’s heart lurched though she was careful to keep her expression completely calm.
A tall, young man with five-day-old stubble,
wearing crumpled clothes that seemed too loose for his lanky frame, walked into the kitchen and smiled at the two ladies. “Salaam, Ammi. Salaam, Pari. How is the fast going?”
Mrs Ali looked as if a hundred-watt bulb had lit up behind her. “Wash your hands and feet quickly. We are breaking the fast soon.” They were not a very demonstrative family.
Pari couldn’t stop smiling too. She said, “Hello, stranger. Long time no see.”
Despite his unkempt attire and aversion to regular shaving, Rehman’s intense eyes, high cheekbones and rich voice made Pari go weak at the knees. She gave the roti she was rolling an extra-hard shove and it tore where the pressure made it particularly thin. Luckily, nobody noticed and Pari quickly gathered up the dough back into a ball and set about rolling it again.
Mrs Ali said to him, “Have you been eating anything in the village? You look starved.”
The food was soon transferred to the table and after checking that the sun had truly set, Mrs Ali and Pari broke their fast. Rehman, Mr Ali and Vasu joined them for dinner.
“Did you finish the work in that village?” Mr Ali asked his son.
Rehman was chewing a piece of roti. “Sorry,” he said, swallowing hard. “I just went to have a look around. They are doing some really impressive work and they offered me a job, so I accepted.”
“Congratulations!” said Mrs Ali and Pari.
“What’s the pay?” asked Mr Ali.
“Not much,” conceded Rehman. “And they needed a two-year commitment to which I agreed.”
“What are the hours?”
“There are no hours as such. I can keep coming back to Vizag every so often, but while I am in the village, I’ll be working all hours.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Mr Ali, looking at his son. “The pay is measly, you have to stay in a village and work long hours, and you have to sign up for a minimum of two years. Have I missed anything?”
Rehman grinned. “Yes. After two years, the project will end or be taken over by the government. Either way, I’ll be out of a job.”
“Why don’t you go back tc that builder you used to work for and ask him if he’ll take you back?”
“Who? Mr Bhargav?” Rehman shook his head. “He doesn’t need an engineer. He just wants somebody who can push the papers through the municipal planning committees by hook or by crook. That’s not a real job.”
“The money he paid was real enough.”
Rehman shrugged. “I want to do this, Abba. Water management is very important for our country. Two thirds of all borewells in the world have been dug in India. We just poke holes into the ground and draw up the water. It is not sustainable. Surface water is the same. Many of our rivers have stopped flowing all the way to the sea…” He fell silent and went back to his food, as if he had said too much.
Mr Ali shook his head. He did not deny that water was an important problem, but why did his son have to fight the battles? One man couldn’t change anything. Idealism was all well and good, but for that one needed a full stomach not just today but the confidence that it would be full tomorrow also. From the application forms that he received in the marriage bureau, he saw that young men of Rehman’s age were earning great sums of money and building wonderful careers with national and international companies. Now that India’s economy had opened up, the youth of today had opportunities that men of his generation could not even have dreamed about. But not his son. He looked around the table and knew the women would not support him, so he kept quiet.
A couple of minutes later, Pari turned to her son. “Vasu, don’t wolf down your food. Eat slowly.”
The boy nodded and popped the next mouthful of rice into his mouth while still chewing his previous mouthful. Pari wagged her finger. “That’s exactly what I was talking about. Finish one morsel before starting the next one.”
“Yes, yes,” said Vasu, stuffing his mouth again with rice and whitebait curry.
Pari rolled her eyes and Rehman laughed. “Don’t!” said Pari. “I am trying to teach him good manners and you are not helping.”
“Can I fast with you and Daadi?” Vasu asked Pari.
“No, you are too young,” said Pari firmly.
“A boy in my class says he fasts on Sundays,” said Vasu.
“Well, I don’t think you should fast,” said Pari.
“Just on Sundays,” said Vasu.
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I say so.”
“That’s your answer for everything. You don’t let me do anything,” Vasu said, his voice rising.
When Pari looked miserable, Rehman said, “That’s no way to talk to your mother, young man. Apologise now.”
Vasu fixed his eyes on his plate, concentrating on his food. Rehman waited for a moment and then said, “I must be going deaf. I didn’t hear an apology.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Vasu.
After dinner, Pari and Rehman were left alone when Mr Ali went to his office on the verandah, Vasu made for the television and Mrs Ali slipped out to the front yard to watch the world go by.
“Thanks for your help with Vasu,” said Pari.
Rehman shrugged.
Pari felt flustered by his slow smile. A few months ago, a neighbour had seen them together on the terrace of the house and had spread rumours that they were lovers. Since then, they had been careful not to spend time together on their own. The ironic thing for Pari was that she really was in love with Rehman. But Rehman’s parents had been good to her and they had been – and still were – a great support after she had been widowed and lost her father. Pari did not want them to feel that she was like a cuckoo’s hatchling, who had taken advantage of their goodness and somehow trapped their son in an unsuitable marriage.
“I thought you were going to say something more when your father asked you about the job but you stopped yourself. What was it?”
“I can’t keep anything from you, can I?” he said and grinned. “Guess who I met on the train coming back?”
Pari thought for a moment and shook her head.
“Usha,” he said.
Her heart lurched. His ex. Did he really have to smile so much when he said her name? Usha’s parents had found out about their engagement and made a condition that, if he wanted to marry their daughter, Rehman could not go on being a social activist fighting for the rights of poor farmers. He had to get a job, and buy a car and a flat. Rehman had agreed. All had seemed to go well for a while, but then, Usha had broken it off, telling Rehman that she loved him too much to change him.
Rehman had been plunged into depression and Pari had supported him in those dark days. He had recovered slowly and seemed to be forgetting his ex-fiancée. Until now.
“That’s nice,” Pari said slowly, her expression sweet enough to cause problems for diabetics. “What is she doing now?”
“She is working on a story about how the various political parties are deploying their cadres for the election.”
“Hmm,” said Pari. That seemed like an interesting, if not earth-shaking, story to follow up. A sudden intuition struck her and she looked at him more fully in the face. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“I agreed to help her.”
“Agreed…Help…How exactly?”
Rehman shrugged. “Nothing serious.”
“How will you help?”
“Time to watch the news on the television,” he said, standing up.
“Rehma-a-a-an…Shall I call your mother into the room?”
He drew back in mock-fear. “Oooh, I am scared. I think you are spending too much time with Vasu,” he said and laughed.
“I am serious,” she said. “How exactly are you helping Usha?”
“Well…Just for a few days before I go back to the village.”
“Rehman!” Pari stamped her foot in frustration. “Stop evading and just tell me.”
“You know the HUT Party, right?”
“The Hindutva Universal Truth Party? They are a relig
ious organisation. What have they got to do with elections?”
“Usha has found out that they are training cadres of volunteers and sending them out to canvass for Hindu right-wing nationalist candidates.”
“How does that – ”
“I am going to join them. Their next training camp starts tomorrow.”
Pari frowned. “But you are not a – ”
“Hindu?” Rehman shrugged. “None of the volunteers are talking and in her report Usha wants to include a first-hand account of the training.”
“Won’t it be dangerous? What if they find out that you are a Muslim? They’ll probably beat you up. Or worse.”
Rehman waved dismissively. “I am just going to attend the training camp. I am not going to be actually campaigning for fascist candidates.”
“It’s too dangerous. Usha shouldn’t have asked you to do it.”
“She didn’t ask me. I offered to do it when I found out about her difficulties in getting a first-hand report.”
“And she accepted your offer?”
“She’s a journalist and for her the story always comes first. But if she’d thought there would be real danger, she would have stopped me.”
Pari shook her head. You are a fool, she thought.
Eight
Pari had been as surprised as anybody else when she had received, the previous year, a proposal from an aristocratic family She was a widow, an orphan of unknown parentage and also the mother of an adopted eight-year-old boy. But her fair complexion and long nose had trumped all those disadvantages. Her fiancé, Dilawar – handsome, considerate and well paid – worked as an executive in a multinational company in Mumbai. He was also gay, hiding his sexual leanings from his family and, indeed, everybody else in Vizag. He even had a secret boyfriend in Mumbai. Dilawar had finally come clean and broken off the engagement. Pari was quite sure that Dilawar’s mother had always been aware that her son was not straight, but had seen it as a temporary weakness that would be ‘cured’ by getting him married to an attractive woman.
