Take One Arranged Marriage…

by Shoma Narayanan

  ‘Or for anything else you want,’ he said, and she saw him smile slightly.

  The smile was her undoing. She scooted along the seat till she was almost on his lap, and leaned over to kiss his lips hungrily. He put a hand up to hold her head against his, but otherwise didn’t respond until she started unbuttoning his shirt, her fingers clumsy. Then he straightened up and pulled her swiftly onto his lap, whispering into her hair, ‘I think we’re going to be awake for a long, long while tonight.’

  Tara gave a little gasp, and melted into his arms.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘PUT the pot of uncooked rice on the threshold,’ Vikram’s mother instructed over the phone.

  ‘Right,’ Vikram said through his teeth, vowing that this was the last time his parents would have a say in what he did.

  Getting married was like giving them an unlimited license to interfere. It was only with great difficulty that he’d persuaded them not to come haring down to Bengaluru to welcome his wife into his home when they returned from their honeymoon. So far they had thankfully steered clear of his sex life, but he wouldn’t put it past his mum to start reading out chapters of the Kamasutra to him just in case he didn’t know what to do.

  Tara stood patiently waiting for Vikram to finish setting things up. ‘You can cross the threshold now,’ he said finally. ‘You need to knock the rice over when you step in.’

  Tara thought back to the last movie in which she’d seen it done, and raised a graceful little foot to tip the pot over and step into the house.

  Vikram sighed in relief. ‘Done,’ he reported into the phone. His mother started to say something, but he cut her off brusquely. ‘Talk to you in a bit—I need to get the luggage in.’

  He’d omitted the aarti he was supposed to do, but he’d forgotten about getting a thaali ready, and didn’t even have matches or a lighter to light the lamp with. In any case, he had a distinct feeling that his mum had mixed the rituals up—the South Indian one involved large plates with turmeric and sindoor mixed in water. The rice thing was something she’d probably seen on TV.

  Once inside the house, Tara looked around delightedly. It was a large semi-detached, in a row of similar houses, but in a large city like Bengaluru where most people lived in flats it was luxury to have an independent house. The living-room décor was deceptively simple—white walls, a few pieces of austere-looking teakwood furniture, and a single large painting that dominated the room. Tara put her bag down on the dining table and walked across the room to look at the painting. It was an abstract, swirls of yellow and orange on white, and just looking at it lifted her spirits.

  Vikram cleared his throat and she jumped guiltily.

  ‘Art connoisseur?’ he enquired drily.

  Tara shook her head. ‘I did an online art appreciation course once,’ she admitted. ‘Learnt very little, unfortunately. I like this—who’s the artist?’

  ‘A friend of mine, he said. ‘Lisa. I don’t know if you remember her? She came for the wedding.’

  Tara nodded as Vikram picked up the cases and started walking towards the stairs. ‘I thought she was an interior designer or something of that sort,’ she said.

  ‘She is,’ Vikram said. ‘She did the interiors for this house. Painting is something she does in her spare time.’

  Tara was dying to ask him more about Lisa, but there was a note in Vikram’s voice that stopped her from asking further questions. ‘Do you want some tea?’ she asked instead.

  ‘That’d be nice,’ he said. ‘Green, please. There’s a tin in the cupboard above the stove.’

  The kitchen was state-of-the-art, and it took Tara a little while to figure things out. Vikram had finished carrying up the luggage and was in the living room doing something with the music system by the time she emerged.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the teacup from her. ‘I think I need to get a sound engineer in to rewire the system. There’s something off about it right now.’ A strange expression crossed his face after he took a sip from the cup. ‘Is there sugar in this?’

  ‘Yes. Shouldn’t there be?’ Tara asked, confused.

  ‘It’s green tea,’ he said. ‘It’s normally made without sugar.’

  Tara flushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and reached out to take the cup from him. ‘I guess there’s a lot I still need to learn. I’ll make you another cup.’

  Vikram shook his head. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry about not knowing stuff—I told you, there’s a cook and housekeeper who manage the kitchen. You don’t need to worry about it. Sit down. I have to go into work for a few hours now, and I need to make sure you don’t feel too lost.’

  Tara sat down obediently, tucking her legs under the chair, feeling a bit like an underling being briefed on an important project.

  ‘The housekeeper will be coming in at around three—I asked her to come in a little late today. She takes care of most of the stuff to do with the house, so you don’t have to bother about meals or laundry or anything. There are some shops down the road if you need to buy anything. We’ll have to share a car right now, but on the weekend I’ll see about getting you a car of your own and hiring a second driver. For now, if you need to go somewhere give me a call and I’ll send the car back for you.’

  Tara wanted to protest that she didn’t need a car or a driver, but she was feeling a little out of her depth. The chauffeur-driven luxury car that had come to pick them at the airport had been a bit of a shock, and so had the house—till then, in spite of the diamond ring, the business class travel and luxury honeymoon, it hadn’t dawned on her exactly how wealthy her husband was.

  Vikram got to his feet, leaving his tea unfinished. ‘I’d better change and get ready to leave,’ he said, and headed towards the stairs. Halfway there, he came back. ‘Not sure how you’re doing for money,’ he said, and handed her a wad of notes and a debit card. ‘Use this for now. I’ll figure out getting you a separate bank account in a few days. And a new mobile phone.’ He scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed to her along with a set of keys. ‘That’s the PIN for the card, and here are the house keys.’ He gave her a brief smile and headed back towards the stairs.

  He was different now, she thought dismally as she watched him run up the stairs two at a time. Ever since they had come back she’d felt like a slightly unwelcome intruder into his busy, ordered life. She looked at the money in her hand—it was at least fifteen thousand. Three times the amount of money she had ever handled at once.

  She wandered around the ground floor of the house. There were two doors leading out of the living room—one led to a small but very well-equipped home gym and the other led to a library. Tara lingered to look at the books, and Vikram found her there when he came downstairs. She was making a face at all the legal tomes that lined one side of the room.

  ‘The fiction section is on the other side,’ he said.

  ‘I saw,’ she said. ‘Not my kind of books.’

  She turned around and almost knocked into him. Two warm hands came up to steady her. Her heart was beating a lot faster than normal, and she had to almost physically restrain herself from not leaning into him, losing herself in his arms.

  She stepped back, and to defuse the sudden sexual tension touched his tie briefly. ‘Cute,’ she said, indicating the procession of little grey sheep on a pale yellow silk background.

  ‘Very,’ Vikram said, but he wasn’t looking at the tie, he was looking right at her, and then he pulled her close for a brief, hard kiss. ‘I’ll see you in the evening.’

  The door shut behind him and Tara gave a little sigh and flopped on to the couch. The smell of his expensive cologne still lingered in the air, and she couldn’t help wishing he’d stayed. Weird. At home, she’d always welcomed the rare moments of solitude she got when both her parents were away. She frowned. Marriage shouldn’t be changing her in any way. The sex was unexpectedly good, and that was a bonus, but she shouldn’t need to keep reminding herself that theirs was a marriage
of convenience.

  The house felt very empty, Tara realised. Even though she was an only child, she wasn’t really used to an empty house—her mother had always been around most of the time. Tara grimaced. She could start unpacking. Or she could call her mother. Or she could go exploring the neighbourhood. The last sounded the most appealing and, slipping the house keys into her pocket, she went out. There was a middle-aged woman in the garden of one of the neighbouring houses, and she smiled cheerfully at Tara as she went past.

  Vikram had a crazy few hours at work. His wedding had clashed with the annual leave of the senior partner he worked with, and things had begun to slide horribly while they were both out of office. One of their most important clients was a software company that was entering into a complex multi-country partnership with a Chinese firm, and the deal had run into serious trouble. The team had been working all hours to get things sorted out, but they weren’t fully there yet.

  Within a few minutes of his reaching his office Vikram was up to his neck in work, switching between client meetings and teleconferences, and trying to catch up on his e-mails in the gaps.

  It was past eight-thirty when his secretary popped her head into his office and said reprovingly ‘Shouldn’t you be going home?’

  He was about to snap at her when he realised Tara would be all alone at home, on her first day in a new city.

  ‘Forgotten you were married, hadn’t you?’ Lillian chided as he muttered an exclamation and closed his laptop without shutting it down properly.

  ‘No, I’d lost track of time,’ he said, and got to his feet. ‘Thanks, Lillian. I’d be lost without you. And I’m sorry I kept you back—your kids must be waiting.’

  The door didn’t open when he tried to turn his key in the lock—it was latched from inside. One of the many things he’d have to get used to, he thought as he rang the bell. Tara opened the door almost immediately. He’d expected her to be upset, or irritated at the delay, but she was neither, giving him a happy little smile as she let him in. She was wearing a long dark-coloured gipsy skirt with a little white T-shirt, and she looked exotic and completely irresistible.

  ‘The cook made a whole lot of stuff she said you like,’ she said over her shoulder as she led the way in. ‘There’s chicken something-or-other, and rotis and biryani, and all kinds of pickles and paapads. I’ll lay the table. You must be hungry.’

  He was, he realised. He’d skipped lunch, and other than several cups of coffee hadn’t had anything since he’d left home. It was nice coming back to a house with someone in it, he thought. Most days the housekeeper had left by the time he came home, and he ended up eating in front of the TV while going over files. Today the table was neatly laid, and Tara was waiting expectantly for him when he got back after freshening up and changing his clothes.

  ‘I should have checked with you—are you OK with meat being cooked in the house?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘I’m fine. My friend Ritu’s Bengali, and I used to spend loads of time at her place—they cook either fish or chicken every day. And I started eating eggs myself a few years back.’ She was touched by his considerateness, however, and even more surprised when he pushed a little box across to her. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, opening it.

  This turned out to be a pair of diamond solitaire earrings, and she stared at them for a while in disbelief.

  ‘I ordered them to match the ring, but they weren’t delivered in time,’ he said. ‘My secretary picked them up for me today.’

  She didn’t look as pleased as he’d expected—actually, she didn’t look pleased at all. She looked horrified. He tried to remember if there was anything about diamonds that could potentially upset her. He thought not. He’d been careful to check that there was no plastic in the packaging—that was something she was paranoid about—and to the best of his knowledge diamonds were not part of any kind of fragile ecosystem or anything.

  ‘Don’t you like them?’ he asked finally, a little irritated by her silence.

  She nodded, and turned a troubled face up to him—she looked very young and very confused.

  ‘I do … But you already got me the ring, and your parents gave me heaps of stuff. You didn’t need to get me more jewellery.’

  He smiled and bent down and kissed her lightly. ‘This is a welcome home gift,’ he murmured.

  ‘But I haven’t got you anything!’ she exclaimed.

  He laughed. ‘You don’t need to,’ he assured her.

  ‘Actually, I did get you something,’ she said shamefacedly. ‘Rather, I made it—before we left Jamshedpur. But I didn’t give it to you, because, well …’

  He was looking at her curiously, and she turned and ran upstairs, coming back in a few minutes with what looked like a bundle of wool.

  ‘It’s a scarf,’ she said. ‘My mum told me I should knit you a sweater, but I’m not that good. It’d have taken me a year to make something your size.’

  Vikram shook it out. It was charcoal-grey, a shade he liked, and very neatly and simply made. She must have put hours of effort into it, he thought, feeling absurdly touched.

  ‘This is beautiful,’ he said, meaning it, and her face brightened.

  ‘My mum wanted me to put in stripes,’ she said. ‘But I looked up some designs and copied one I saw on a website for this very posh-sounding British brand. I thought that was the safest.’ She dimpled. ‘Apparently when my mum was married she made five sweaters for my dad—and two mufflers and dozens of socks. I don’t think my dad gave her anything other than her thaali and a couple of saris. I’m a complete disgrace to the family, turning up with one measly scarf while you’re showering me with diamonds.’

  He laughed, but looked at her curiously. ‘Are you missing your parents?’ he asked. ‘I know you wanted to get away to study, but it must be hard being away from them for the first time. And I travel a lot, so you’ll be alone often.’

  ‘I think I’ll like being alone once in a while,’ Tara said. ‘I love my parents a lot, but they can be a real pain. My mum’s this fountain of guilt. She’ll do something really awful, and when I yell at her she’ll make me feel so guilty I end up apologising to her. And my dad—well, let’s leave that for some other time. He’s … complicated.’

  ‘I figured,’ Vikram said. ‘I guess my parents are a lot easier to deal with. Though they’ve had a really tough time since my brother died.’

  There—he’d said it now. His father had been surprised and sorrowful when he’d found out that he hadn’t spoken to Tara about Vijay. But it was a topic he avoided even with people who had known his brother. Tara had stopped eating, and was looking at him sympathetically. Vikram felt he wouldn’t be able to bear it if she asked him anything.

  ‘Did you speak to your research guide?’ he asked, and thankfully she took the hint and started talking about the work she needed to do for her PhD.

  She’d had a full day. She’d met up with one of the other research students who lived nearby, with whom she’d been in touch via e-mail. She’d also picked up some books, and made a friend in a local handicrafts store. She was going to start spending most of the day at the institute from the next week onwards, and Vikram was conscious of a sense of relief. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he travelled a lot, and even when he was in town he worked crazy hours. He’d have hated the thought of Tara sitting alone in an empty house all day while he was away.

  Halfway through dinner they had their first argument after the honeymoon.

  ‘I don’t need a car,’ Tara said. ‘A two-wheeler will do.’

  Vikram gave her a brief look. ‘No,’ he said, a little too emphatically

  Tara cocked her head to one side. ‘Just … no?’ she asked, wrinkling up her nose. ‘People don’t just say no to me. They give reasons, and then I argue …’

  ‘Not going to happen here.’

  ‘What if I buy it using my stipend?’ Tara asked.

  Vikram put his knife and fork down. ‘Tara, let’s get this straight
. You’re not using a two-wheeler while you’re living with me, and that’s final.’

  She digested that carefully. ‘But is there a reason? Or are you being autocratic just for the fun of it?’

  For a second Vikram remembered the weight of Vijay’s lifeless body in his arms, and his heart twisted within him so painfully that he could barely breathe. There was a reason he didn’t want Tara to buy a two-wheeler—a very good reason—but he couldn’t bring himself to state it.

  ‘I have certain social standards to maintain in my line of work. I can’t have my wife ruining things by careering around on a two-wheeler like a crazy college kid,’ he said finally, his voice sounding cold even to his own ears.

  ‘I was a college kid till a few months ago,’ Tara said quietly. ‘And I’m still a student. My family isn’t well-off, Vikram. I’m not used to being taken around in a chauffeur-driven car.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it soon enough,’ Vikram said, getting up and carrying his plate to the sink.

  Tara gave him an exasperated look. This particular issue wasn’t that important, but she could see life becoming difficult if she gave in to his every whim.

  ‘I’ll buy a two-wheeler with my stipend, then, once I get it,’ she announced. ‘You can—’ She stopped mid-sentence as Vikram slammed his plate into the sink and whirled around.

  ‘No!’ he said. He looked furious, and the veins on his temple were throbbing as he spoke. ‘What part of no, you can’t have a bike, do you find difficult to understand, Tara?’

  No stranger to shouting matches, Tara was about to answer him in kind when she realised that he was almost shaking with rage. There was something going on that she couldn’t understand, and puzzlement made her own annoyance abate.

  ‘Why are you getting so upset?’ she asked, trying to sound as reasonable as she could. ‘It’s not such a big deal.’

  She watched as Vikram visibly fought for control over himself.