A Covert Affair

by Susan Mann

  As the various pairs of relatives took turns greeting each other, Quinn said to Ravi, “You seem to know a lot about Sikh weddings. I take it this isn’t your first one.”

  “No, it’s not. You know how it is when you get to be our age. It’s one wedding after another.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be in a wedding later this summer.” That reminded her. Nicole had asked to video chat with her two days before. But with the time zone differences and how busy Quinn had been, she hadn’t had a chance to do that yet. She tugged at the sleeve of James’s suit. “Can you help me remember to chat with Nicole tonight after the reception? It’ll be Saturday morning there, and I think she has the day off.”

  “Will do.”

  The delegation of male relatives was finally exhausted and the milni came to an end. Everyone began to file into the gurdwara. As Quinn approached the entrance, she tugged the royal blue chunni—the large shawl edged with intricate designs in silver thread matching those decorating her salwar kameez—up over her head. As did everyone else, she removed her shoes and stashed them away.

  The coolness of the marble floor felt heavenly on the soles of Quinn’s bare feet as she, James, and Ravi followed the rest of the party down the hallway to the langar. “Cool! A buffet,” she said quietly when they entered the room.

  Guests filed along either side of long tables laden with trays of food. Most of those who had already gotten their food sat shoulder to shoulder on long runners covering the tile floor. Others stood in small clusters and chatted while they ate.

  “This is tea,” Ravi said. “Basically, it’s some Punjabi appetizers and sweets.”

  Quinn filed past the trays of food, figuring it best to place a bit of each on her plate even if she didn’t know what it was. Once through the line, they stood together on one side of the room.

  She’d just bit into a triangle-shaped fried pastry filled with savory potatoes and peas when a female voice said, “Quinn Riordan?”

  Surprised to hear her name, Quinn’s eyes snapped up. The young woman who had befriended her the first morning she’d visited the Golden Temple stood smiling in front of her. “Amarjit?”

  “It is you. I was not sure since you are dressed in a salwar kameez.” She gave Quinn the once-over. “You look beautiful in it.”

  “Thank you. You look great, too.”

  “I am so pleased to see you again. How did you come to be at this wedding?”

  “My husband has been in business meetings with Mr. Sandhu this week. He invited us to come today.” Quinn indicated James with a hand. “Amarjit Kaur, this is my husband James. James, Amarjit was my impromptu tour guide and ambassador for the Sikh religion the other morning.”

  “Quinn told me all about her time there. Thank you for showing her around,” James said and dipped his head.

  She dug her teeth into her lower lip to fight the smile. Amarjit gaped at James like he was a movie star.

  “It was my pleasure,” Amarjit eventually said in a dreamy tone.

  “And this is our friend, Ravi Bhatia,” Quinn said.

  Amarjit turned her attention to Ravi and blinked. Had they been cartoon characters, Amarjit’s eyes would have turned into red hearts. Quinn certainly knew the flutter of an instant crush. And to her eternal amazement, the man who had been the object of that crush stood next to her. It still blew her mind.

  After they greeted each other, Quinn asked, “Are you here for the bride or groom?”

  Amarjit tore her gaze away from Ravi and looked at Quinn. “I was invited by Parveen, the bride. We are friends from university.”

  “What a coincidence for us to be at the same wedding,” Quinn said.

  “Perhaps,” Amarjit answered, regaining her wits. “I would agree if it was not Mr. Sandhu’s son’s wedding. Mr. Sandhu is very prominent in Amritsar. This is a very large wedding, and even more people will attend the reception tonight.” Amarjit cocked her head. “He must think very highly of you if you were invited to witness the Anand Karaj.”

  “The Anand Karaj?” James asked.

  “The wedding ceremony,” Ravi and Amarjit said simultaneously. While Ravi chuckled, the hearts returned to Amarjit’s eyes, and this time they pulsated. Quinn barely held back a snicker. The girl had it bad.

  “It means ‘blissful union,’” Amarjit said.

  Ravi checked his watch. “Speaking of the Anand Karaj, we should think about getting upstairs. They want everyone to be seated before the ceremony starts.”

  “Quinn, would you like to sit with my friends and me? The men and women will sit on different sides of the room. You would not have to sit alone. I can explain what is going on during the ceremony if you like.”

  “Wow, that’s really sweet of you to offer. I’d love to sit with you, but I don’t want to be an imposition on your friends.”

  “They will not mind,” Amarjit waited a beat and then added with a twinkle in her eye, “after I tell them you are married. Otherwise, I am afraid they may not have been very nice to you. With your beauty, your exotic blond hair and blue eyes, you catch the attention of men. They would not welcome the competition.”

  Quinn blinked in disbelief. “I’m exotic?” That was a word she’d never considered using to describe herself. She eyed the women around her. If it meant “different,” she supposed she could be called exotic. “I guess it’s all about context.”

  James slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her possessively to his side. “Amarjit is right, Quinn. Men have been staring at you the entire time we’ve been in India. Not just today.”

  She cut her eyes up to James’s face. His serious expression told her he wasn’t kidding around. Hoping to lighten his mood, she said, “I haven’t noticed. The only man I pay attention to is you.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched as he considered her from under lowered eyelids. “Smooth talker.”

  She laughed, delighted at his response. If propriety hadn’t forbidden it, she would have tugged at his necktie until he was low enough to give him a kiss. She grinned and waggled her eyebrows at him instead. She received a clandestine wink in response.

  Finished with their snacks, they set their empty plates on a table and exited the langar. Amarjit’s friends joined them as the group climbed the stairs. Along the way, Amarjit explained to them who Quinn and James were. Or at least that’s what Quinn assumed, since the conversation was in Punjabi. At first, the glances sent Quinn’s way were rather furtive, but as the conversation continued, the women’s faces grew friendlier and more accepting. By the time they reached the top of the staircase, there were smiles all around.

  They filed into a large room. A long red carpet ran down the middle, making a center aisle that led to a square stage. Quinn’s eyes were immediately drawn to the shiny golden dome atop four equally burnished golden posts at the center of the stage. A raised platform sat under the dome with an ornately embroidered gold-fringed cloth draped over it. The area in front of the stage was decorated with flowers and garland-draped framed pictures of various gurus. High above it all, a canopy of rich, red cloth was suspended from the ceiling.

  Unless Quinn missed her guess, a saroop of the Guru Granth Sahib was protected under the fringed coverlet.

  As the guests entered the room, each approached the altar, bowed, then knelt and touched their foreheads to the floor. Once on their feet again, they backed up a couple of steps before turning and finding a place to sit on the floor.

  “My friends and I will pay respect to the Guru Granth Sahib in its takht,” Amarjit said. “You are not Sikh. It is not necessary for you to do so. You may go sit. We will find you.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said. She gave James’s hand a quick squeeze before they split off. While he and Ravi headed for the right side of the room, Quinn moved to the left. She sat toward the back in an area large enough to accommodate Amarjit and her friends. She hoped they didn’t mind not being toward the front, but she really didn’t want to call any more attention to herself than she already w
as by just being there. From what she had seen so far, she and James were the only non-Indians in attendance. She was at the same time honored and self-conscious. At that point, her primary goal was to make it through the day without accidentally causing offense.

  While Quinn waited for Amarjit and friends, she listened to the three musicians seated to the right of the takht. One tapped out a complex rhythm on two drums using his fingertips, palms, and heels of his hands. The other two played harmoniums, small pump organs powered by bellows attached at the back. They worked the bellows with one hand while playing the keys with the other.

  A few minutes later, Amarjit and crew sat down next to Quinn. While Amarjit’s friends chatted and giggled with each other, Amarjit grilled Quinn for details on Ravi. Quinn noticed the cloud of disappointment cross Amarjit’s face when her suspicions were confirmed: He wasn’t Sikh.

  Amarjit’s interrogation ended when the bridegroom and his entourage arrived. He proceeded slowly up the aisle carrying his scabbard and a small ornamented pillow. The rest of the family members stopped at a short distance from the takht, and Gopal approached it alone. He placed the pillow at the front of the stage, gave respect to the Guru Granth Sahib, stepped off to the side, and sat down. Then the rest of the family bowed before the sacred text in groups of twos or threes.

  Quinn sat up straighter and watched Mr. Sandhu and the woman she assumed was Mrs. Sandhu step forward. He knelt but wasn’t flexible enough to fold forward and touch his forehead to the floor. Quinn suppressed a smile. Her dad wouldn’t have been able to do it either. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure he’d even be able to sit cross-legged on the floor. In her head, she could hear him grouse that he “just didn’t fold that way.”

  The thought of her dad triggered an unexpected wave of homesickness. As much as she loved seeing new and exciting parts of the world, she missed her parents. She silently vowed to video chat with them as soon as possible, even if it meant she had to be up in the middle of the night to do it.

  Quinn corralled her wayward thoughts and watched until everyone had approached the takht.

  The musical trio continued to sing while several women laid out a white sheet on the floor in front of the takht. Once it was ready, Gopal sat on the right half.

  A man in a dark blue turban and a long white beard took his place behind the covered Guru Granth Sahib. He slowly waved a silver-handled animal-hair fan over it as if shooing away bugs.

  After the bride’s family paid their respects, Parveen stepped into the room. She was positively stunning, swathed in a long burgundy dress decorated with sparkling and flashing gold and silver beading, jewels, and sequins. Her head was covered with a shawl with a four-inch-wide band of gold and silver embroidery lining its edges. Red and gold bangles encircled her arms from her wrists to halfway to her elbows. Between the bejeweled necklaces Parveen wore and what looked like fifty pounds of clothing, Quinn wasn’t sure how the bride was even able to move. Her mind flitted to Nicole and she wondered how things were going. She really needed to talk to her friend.

  Parveen, flanked by her parents, slowly proceeded down the aisle. In both hands she carried flowers atop a folded piece of cloth and set them next to Gopal’s pillow. Then, with the help of several dress wranglers, she sat on the white sheet beside her groom.

  After another prayer, the man on the stage carefully folded back the cloth covering the Guru Granth Sahib. He proceeded to read in a melodic chant, reminiscent of what Quinn had heard over the loudspeakers the first day she visited the Golden Temple.

  When he finished, Parveen’s father rose and went to the bridal couple. He knelt behind them, took one end of the burgundy sash around Gopal’s neck, and placed it in his daughter’s hand. As he did, Parveen rested her head on her father’s shoulder. The sweetness of that spur-of-the-moment gesture caught Quinn off guard. She was completely unprepared for the tears that sprang up.

  While the granthi read from the Guru Granth Sahib again, Amarjit whispered, “There are four Lavan, or marriage hymns, in the Guru Granth Sahib. The couple will circle the Guru each time a hymn is sung. When they complete the final round, they will be considered man and wife.”

  The granthi finished reading the first Lavan and covered the book. As the musicians sang, Gopal held one end of his scarf and slowly walked clockwise around the takht. Parveen followed a few steps behind him and held the other end of the scarf trailing over his shoulder. During their circumnavigation, various men near Parveen’s age took turns walking beside her.

  “Parveen’s brothers?” Quinn whispered.

  “Yes. And cousins. They are there to guide and support her.”

  Great, Quinn thought as her eyes burned and her nose started to itch. Now she missed her brothers, too.

  “It is said that Sikh marriage is like a horse and carriage,” Amarjit whispered. “Both partners have an important role. The husband is like the horse pulling it along. The wife guides it like the driver. The palla, the scarf, is the symbol that they are tethered together.”

  Quinn nodded and watched the couple slowly circle the canopied platform again. At the end of the fourth and final circuit, Gopal’s two sisters walked with her.

  Quinn whispered, “His sisters welcoming her into the family?”

  “Yes. I had the privilege of doing that for my brother’s bride a few months ago.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  There was more singing, which went on for a while. Quinn noticed some in the crowd began to get fidgety, especially the younger children sitting with their mothers. They weren’t really sitting, though. It was more like squirming. Those that weren’t wiggly simply wandered around. As long as they didn’t get too close to the front, their mothers seemed content to let them roam. Quinn couldn’t blame them. Her almost five-year-old niece, Bailey, could have sat through the ceremony provided she had a notepad to draw on. On the other hand, Wyatt, Bailey’s two-year-old brother and their cousin Hunter, age three, would have maybe made it five minutes before joining the band of roving toddlers.

  And now, predictably, Quinn missed her niece and nephews.

  The singing ended and everyone stood.

  Quinn peeked side-eyed at the men’s side of the room, curious to see how James was faring during a particularly long prayer. He, like most of the other men, stared stoically ahead with his hands clasped in front of him. Her only clue that he was getting antsy was when he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again.

  As Quinn surveyed the room, she noted three distinct groups amongst the men in terms of head coverings and beards. The first were those who wore bandanas. The men with the bride wore shiny pink kerchiefs and those attached to the groom wore light blue. Parveen’s father and male family members wore the bandanas.

  The second group comprised those who, like Mr. Sandhu, wore Western clothes, turbans, and beards that were trimmed. Most, but not all, of the Sandhu clan fell into that group.

  The third group wore turbans, long, untrimmed beards, and traditional clothing. They included not only the granthi and musicians but a number of men in the congregation as well. There were also three women standing ahead of her who wore turbans under their scarfs.

  Perceived levels of devotion didn’t necessarily translate to the desire for the establishment of Khalistan or any connection to the Falcon. Nor did it mean those who didn’t appear to be as devout couldn’t zealously agitate for a separate Sikh nation. They could be driven by a nationalistic fervor that wasn’t necessarily connected to the religion itself. It was hard to argue, though, with the fact that the spokesman for the Falcon, Samir Singh, appeared to be a member of the third group. They might get a little more scrutiny from James, Quinn, and Ravi, but it was pretty clear they’d have to keep their eyes and ears open for any unusual activity.

  When the prayer ended, everyone sat again. Amarjit whispered, “They will give everyone a piece of karah prashad to eat. It is a sacred sweet made of flour, sugar, and ghee. It can be an acquired t
aste, so if you do not care for it, you can hand it to me when the ceremony is over.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Quinn replied in a low tone.

  The bride and groom were served their karah prashad first. Then pieces were distributed to everyone. A light brown blob of thick paste was dropped in her cupped hands. Quinn tried a small bit. It was a little gooey, but overall sweet and pretty tasty. She had no problem finishing her portion. Her only complaint was that it left a small slick of ghee, or clarified butter, on the palm of her hand. Amarjit was well prepared to handle the problem, though. She covertly opened her purse, removed two tissues, and slipped one to Quinn, who smiled her thanks as she wiped her hand.

  The ceremony was now over. Guests congratulated Gopal and Parveen before heading downstairs for lunch in the langar.

  James, Quinn, Ravi, and Amarjit sat on the floor side by side while they ate. It was the perfect time to find out if Amarjit had contact with anyone involved in the Khalistan movement.

  “I was reading a biography of Maharaja Ranjit Singh last night,” Quinn said, striking up a conversation. “He’s a fascinating character. He must have been an incredible warrior and leader to turn the Punjab into the Sikh Empire.”

  “He is still known as Sher-e-Punjab, the Lion of Punjab. Sadly, it was his power that held the empire together. It was no more than only ten years after his death. It only existed for fifty years.”

  “The pinnacle of Sikh power.” Quinn cocked her head and tried to maintain a casual tone. “Are there people today that want to recapture those glory days?”

  “Yes. There are those who would make a new nation called Khalistan, land of the Pure. There was a strong movement for it in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, most who are supporters are not violent. However, there are still a few militant groups who do terrible things. I do not understand how exploding trains and buses helps their cause.” She scowled and her voice turned sharp with disdain. “They are nothing but terrorists.”

  “It’s awful they keep hurting innocent people like that,” Quinn said. “Are there a lot of these militant types around here? Have you ever run into people who sympathize with them?” When Amarjit’s frown deepened, Quinn added hastily, “What I mean is, universities are often places where people can be radicalized. Do you see anything like that on your campus? At UCLA, there’s always some group protesting something.”