Deranged Marriage

by Sushi Das

  On the way in I noticed an attractive girl with auburn hair, perhaps in her twenties, wearing a red dress waiting in the corridor with an anxious expression. Perhaps I should have worn a red dress that day – it might have been a conciliatory gesture to my parents’ heritage. But it hadn’t occurred to me to make conciliatory gestures. Unthinkingly, I had picked a white dress. White: the colour of mourning for Indians.

  We milled around in the waiting area until the registrar’s assistant approached me. ‘Excuse me. Awfully sorry, but there’s been a bit of a delay. There’s a lady who’s booked to be married before you, but her, er, the groom has not arrived yet.’ The assistant turned to look at the girl in red who was still standing in the corridor. ‘We can continue waiting, or perhaps you and Mr Hobson might like to go first.’ John and I looked at each other and decided to go first.

  The registry office was housed in a listed Georgian building and the ceremony room was suitably decorated in dignified tones. There was a pale-blue carpet underfoot and cream-coloured wallpaper. A couple of large gilt-edged mirrors stood above the fireplaces and flowers on the mantlepieces added a little understated cheer. Everyone bustled in and the registrar, a smartly dressed, middle-aged woman with the wonderfully appropriate name of Mrs Lusty, introduced herself as we stood before her.

  ‘Hello, John; hello, Thootheela,’ she said. I noticed she had lipstick on her teeth.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said John politely, ‘but her name’s Sushila.’

  ‘Thorry, Tootheela,’ said Mrs Lusty, correcting herself.

  John looked at me, but I dared not look back for fear that I might start laughing. Behind us I could hear a kerfuffle. I turned around to see John’s dad, a large presence in a camel-coloured wool coat, fussing over ‘the ruddy camera’. He was in a last-minute panic, struggling to get the loose end of the film through the slit. A picture of Vin’s missing coconut wrapped in a red ribbon flashed through my mind. I turned around again and Mrs Lusty smiled, revealing the full extent of her lipstick mishap. A few minutes later, somewhere between Mrs Lusty reading vows and whispers of, ‘There, hold that bit down and grab the end of the film,’ John and I became huthband and wife.

  There was a smattering of applause that died out quickly as our friends realised they were the only ones clapping. John and I signed a piece of paper before leaving the room to have our photos taken outside on the lawn. An arctic February blast blew through the corridor as someone opened the door and I noticed the girl in red was still alone. Had she been stood up on her wedding day? Somebody threw a handful of confetti in my face. I shivered. John had arrived in my life just in time to save me and I was immensely grateful.

  On the lawn, someone took photos. I can’t remember who. But, again, no one knew the etiquette of mixed-marriage photo expressions. No one knew whether to smile or frown, whether to express joy or offer commiserations, or whether to just look neutral. My parents opted for the funereal expression. John and I went for the uncomfortable smile. Family members adopted a look of profound discomfort, while friends brandished faces that said nothing more than what-the-fuck!

  When we arrived at The Winning Post for lunch, the manager, upon seeing my posy, screeched, ‘Oh my goodness me, I didn’t know the booking was for a wedding party.’ Turning to my dad, she said, ‘Mr Das, why didn’t you say?’

  I didn’t mind that the tables had not been decked out in the manner befitting a wedding luncheon. After all, there would be no mischievous or boring speeches, no three-tier cake to cut, no champagne or dancing in a marquee. There were just twenty-five people eating a warm lunch on a winter’s day. But there seemed to me to be a surreal quality about the way the sun was setting on my long teenage rebellion: a dash for Paradise Road, an encounter with Mrs Lusty, before, finally, remarkably and bizarrely, I reached The Winning Post.

  John and I moved into our new house in North London to start our married lives. He ploughed on with his PhD and I spent my days administering inheritance tax.

  Now that I was a married woman, I no longer came under Dad’s jurisdiction – so to speak. Under the Indian system I would have come under my husband’s jurisdiction now, but because my husband was a Westerner and I had formally taken up a Western life, I did not have to come under anybody’s jurisdiction. I was, technically speaking, a free woman. (Proviso: the West does not require a woman to come under her husband’s control. However, it sometimes expects her to act as his appendage.)

  John and I had only known each other for about ten months before we got married, so, as would have been the case in an arranged marriage, we spent the next few years getting to know each other. Often we would be invited to Sunday lunch at John’s parents’ spectacular Edwardian house just outside London. His mother would pour me a glass of sherry before lunch and ask after my parents. I never saw anybody play the baby grand piano in the dining room but I noticed one year that John’s parents’ Christmas card list included the names of several peers. John’s famous great-grandfather and his father had been awarded knighthoods, which both had turned down for similar, political reasons.

  John learnt things about me too – mostly things that left him asking more questions. ‘Why is it that every time we meet an Indian person, they want to know where in India you come from?’ he once asked. He was thinking about the old Indian man in the cornershop near our house who had asked me that question.

  ‘Because Indians are always trying to pigeonhole other Indians. The man in the cornershop was trying to work out my caste.’

  ‘What is your caste?’ asked John, blinking like a baby. I recalled my dad once telling me never to ask anyone their caste as it was an offensive question. Dad was vehemently anti-caste. It degraded humans, he said.

  ‘Sit down young man,’ I said, mimicking my dad, ‘and I will explain.’ John slumped onto the sofa, dangling one leg over the side. He wore pink suede boots. He always wore suede boots. I began my story. ‘A long time ago, when I was about fourteen years old, I needed pocket money to buy a Boomtown Rats album. So I went to the newsagent and asked for a job as a newspaper girl. The lady behind the counter was Indian. She asked me my name and my age and then she said, “What’s your caste?”

  ‘Well, I didn’t know my caste. Mum and Dad had never told me, but they had told me no one should ever ask anyone their caste. I knew the woman had asked me something she shouldn’t have, so I legged it out of her shop and ran home. I told Dad what this woman had asked me and Dad said to me, “Sit down, young lady, and I will tell you your caste.”

  ‘So I said to him, “No! Don’t ever tell me my caste. I don’t want to know.” I figured that if I didn’t know my caste, I could never judge other Indians and they couldn’t judge me. And to this day, I don’t know my caste and nor do I want to know, because as long as I don’t know, I can’t pass it on to my kids, if I ever have any, and that’s the only way to put an end to this vile system.’

  ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Very good indeed. I’m proud of you.’

  ‘And I’m proud of my dad for never telling me.’

  I thought about my parents frequently after I left home. Sometimes I imagined them sleeping soundly at night, glad to see the back of me, relieved they no longer had to stay up late waiting for me to come home. Perhaps I was projecting my own relief. Other times, I imagined them avoiding shopping in Indian areas for fear they might run into someone who would cast disparaging looks their way, or cross to the other side of the road to signal their disapproval. I tried not to think about the fallout from my actions that Mum and Dad might be suffering, but even when I didn’t think about it, I could still feel the guilt ossifying in my bones.

  I would have given a great deal now to fall about laughing with Vin like we used to. But all that was over. We were married women now. She to a man chosen by Mum and Dad and I to someone I had chosen. I wondered if she was happy. I would have liked to have asked her but we didn’t communicate much. We were both too busy feeling the parameters of our new roles.


  On the occasions when Vin and Dinesh and John and I visited Mum and Dad, we all got along well. Everyone was civil and I felt no discomfort talking to Dinesh and he showed no signs of feeling any discomfort talking to me. All very pragmatic. Sometimes, but not frequently, John and I visited my parents alone. Again, everyone was always polite. We marked birthdays and Christmases with muted fanfare, but even then there would be a light dusting of tension on everything.

  I recall John and I visiting my parents once, perhaps for someone’s birthday. Mum greeted us shyly at the front door and ushered us in. I walked in first and John followed behind. We had barely got as far as the kitchen when Mum turned to me and said, ‘You should let John walk before you.’ I looked at her quizzically. ‘He should enter the house first. He is the man.’ I let her comment slide past me. I could have started a row right there in the hallway, but it wouldn’t have been a good look.

  After lunch that day, I started gathering the dishes to take them into the kitchen. ‘Give us a hand,’ I said to John, who helped me with the plates at his end of the table. Mum shot me a sharp look. Later, in the kitchen, when John wasn’t there, she said, ‘You shouldn’t ask John to help you with the dishes.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, because he’s the man,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Mum, we always do the dishes together.’

  This time Mum rolled her eyes, tutted and busied herself at the sink.

  ‘Iss the Kurwa Chauth ceremony next week,’ she said. ‘Are you going to keep the fast?’

  ‘I don’t need to fast to show John I’m a devoted wife.’

  ‘Iss good thing to do. Good for marriage,’ she said, as John entered the kitchen.

  ‘Mum wants me to keep a Kurwa Chauth fast for you,’ I said turning to John.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. There was a note of resignation in his voice that suggested perhaps I should keep the fast just to make Mum happy.

  ‘Yes, why not?’ repeated Mum.

  ‘Okay, I tell you what. I’ll keep a fast if John keeps a fast. That way we’re equal.’

  Mum put her hand to her chest, aghast. ‘Hai! Man no need to do,’ she said, looking at John kindly.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said John. ‘I don’t mind fasting.’

  ‘Hai, hai!’ she said to the pot plant on the windowsill in front of her and plunged her hands into the sink.

  I sensed Mum was, despite herself, beginning to like John. He had time for her and never corrected her crooked English. I once found the pair of them standing in the kitchen talking about the economy.

  ‘The interest rate’s far too high,’ John was saying. ‘You simply can’t rely on rates to bring the economy under control. They’re too blunt an instrument. Monetary policy, you see . . .’

  ‘Oh, I know, John,’ said Mum. ‘Iss terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, well,’ continued John, looking at her distractedly, ‘You’re not wrong there. Certainly the impact on the ordinary family is frightening.’

  ‘Yes, frightening,’ said Mum.

  I suspect, but perhaps I’m wrong, Mum had little idea what John was talking about, but she was enjoying his attention, enjoying his company – enjoying being English, I dare say.

  The following Wednesday, as promised, John and I fasted. Around mid-morning I was contemplating my rumbling stomach when he rang me in the office.

  ‘Sorry, I had a Mars Bar,’ he announced. ‘I was starving.’

  ‘Never mind. I didn’t think you’d last. I suppose I can eat something as well now.’ That was the first and only time we attempted to keep the Kurwa Chauth fast. It was no big deal that we didn’t succeed, but I confess I felt a pinprick of dejection knowing that John had been unable to discipline his physical self with the mental rigour required to achieve spiritual devotion. But the feeling didn’t last long. After all, I might have succumbed to a Mars Bar too. He’d just got there first.

  Communication between my parents and I fell away silently over the next few years. They didn’t call me very often. I didn’t call them. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to keep in touch, it was more that I continued to struggle with my own feelings of guilt. Every time I saw Mum and Dad they looked older and more fragile. And with every visit they seemed to have less to say to me. Or perhaps it was I who had less to say to them. I never asked them how they were coping. I suspect that even if I had, feelings would have been too raw for them to talk about it. I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in their eyes. I had done an ugly thing and I didn’t want anyone to look at me. Quasimodo. I didn’t want to continue offending Mum and Dad with my presence. I needed to put myself into voluntary exile.

  It’s hard to believe that it took me more than twenty years to ask my dad what he went through after I left home. The day I picked up the phone and rang him to ask, my heart’s ferocious pumping was reverberating in my head. I didn’t want to hear what he might tell me.

  ‘Dad, how did the Indian community react towards you after I married John?’ I asked him nervously. There was silence for a while and then a small sigh.

  ‘Nobody said anything to my face,’ he said. ‘They don’t talk face to face. People talk behind your back. They didn’t say good things.’

  ‘But how can you be so sure if you never actually heard what they said?’ I asked, hoping he had been mistaken.

  ‘You, Sushila, were the first person to marry someone outside our community. It was very shocking to everyone. Others followed the trend after you.’ He paused. I thought he wasn’t going to say anymore, but then he continued. ‘People did not say good things. Some people I knew – they simply did not call me anymore. Other people called less. I did not receive as many invitations to functions and other social things as I did before. People didn’t ask me for advice anymore. Our family lost standing.’

  He said everything I didn’t want to hear. And he said it with the disconnected straightforwardness of a man describing someone else’s experience. Guilt had its hands around my throat. Would there ever be a time when the past would simply be the past? Or would the sea keep washing ashore the debris of years gone by?

  The first four years of my marriage were superbly tumultuous – like riding on the waltza at a fairground. Right from the outset it was clear there was a third person in our marriage: Margaret Thatcher. John was unnaturally obsessed with her. She had smashed the miners and bombed the Falkland Islands but her work was not done yet. There was still the poll tax to come – a community charge that took no account of people’s income and therefore their ability to pay.

  For the next few years John and I watched helplessly as interest rates rocketed and our monthly mortgage payments soared into the stratosphere. The rate went from 9 per cent when we married to 15 per cent the following year to 14 per cent the year after. John was still completing his PhD and on my income alone we could barely survive. John’s parent’s came to our rescue several times. ‘It’s like taking a wage cut every bloody month,’ yelled John, stomping around the house. ‘This is going to kill us. No wonder it’s called a mortgage. It’s a gauge of our mort!’

  We stopped griping about the mortgage to our friends after vegan Tony with the dreadlocks called us ‘a pair of capitalist home-owning shits’. Indeed, we were luckier than most – we had a house in central London. But the mortgage was strangling us. For John, every financial blow was personal and the government’s policies were to blame.

  The late 1980s and early 1990s had a surreal quality, because so many mad things were going on. My memory of that time is dominated by two explosive events that affected me deeply: the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the introduction in Britain of the poll tax. They made the world feel like a bad place.

  Being an unhealthily nervous person, I suppose a level of bearable anxiety pulses through me on any given day. But when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni, the supreme leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death on Valentine’s Day 1989, my anxiety levels rose. Some Pakistanis in Britain were very vocal in their cri
ticisms of Rushdie’s book and I feared this might lead to a backlash against brown people. I feared a fresh round of racism on the streets. But that’s not what happened.

  A British-Indian author was the epicentre of a gigantic earthquake that sent shockwaves around the world. It was almost certainly the first time Britons (and anyone outside the Muslim world) became aware of the meaning of the word ‘fatwa’ or the idea of a religious edict. There were pictures of burning books on TV and animated conversations at dinner parties. Suddenly multiculturalism was back on the table.

  Just as the Enoch Powell era had, unintentionally, paved the way for life in the time of multiculturalism, now I feared the Salman Rushdie affair would pave the way, unintentionally, for life in the time of cultural relativism.

  While I joined the throng of wellwishers signing petitions and postcards in support of the right to free speech, John was signing petitions against the evil poll tax. All around us scary things were happening. A Pan Am flight exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing everyone on board. The agriculture minister appeared on TV feeding a child a burger to show that Mad Cow disease couldn’t be transferred to humans. Nelson Mandela, who had been in prison since I was born and was still there, turned seventy. I found myself signing a birthday card for him at a stall at a shopping centre. John and I seemed to be forever on an endless procession of protest marches singing ‘FREEEE-HEEEEE, NELSON MANDELA!’