The Marriage Bureau for Rich People

by Farahad Zama

  Mrs Ali laughed. ‘You are such a wicked man. You knew it would get him into hot water with his wife if he was seen talking to you,’ she said.

  Mr Ali said, ‘I was only trying to butter him up so that he will be friendly with Aruna.’

  Mrs Ali rolled her eyes.

  ‘Right,’ she said, clearly not believing him.

  Because Annavaram was quite far from the city and Ramanujam’s parents wanted to get back before it was too late, the bidaai or ‘goodbye’ when the bride leaves home to go to her husband’s house was held soon after a vegetarian lunch. Mr Ali had asked if he and his wife could leave with them on their bus. They stood outside the marriage hall with Ramanujam and his family, waiting for Aruna to join them.

  Several minutes later, just when Ramanujam’s father was looking at his watch and muttering about not wanting to go on the mountain roads after dark, Aruna came out. She was wearing a rich red silk sari, woven with gold thread - presented, as tradition demanded, by the bridegroom’s family. A golden braid ran along the parting in her hair from which hung a pendant that rested on her forehead. Earrings, nose ring, upper-arm torques, a dozen bangles, necklace, long chain, the two halves of her mangalsootram, a wide gold cummerbund, silver anklets and toe rings weighed her down. Her mother and sister walked with her and her father and Shastry-uncle walked behind as she slowly came towards them.

  In the background, somebody switched on a tape recorder and an old haunting tune drifted out:

  Go, my daughter, to your new house, with these blessings from your father:

  May you never remember me, lest your happiness falter.

  I raised you like a delicate flower, a fragrant blossom of our garden,

  May every season from now on be a new spring,

  May you never remember me, lest your happiness falter,

  Go, my daughter, to your new house, with these blessings from your father.

  When she reached Ramanujam, Aruna stopped and first hugged her mother, then turned to her sister. Vani suddenly seemed to realise the enormity of what was happening and her smile disappeared. The two sisters hugged tightly and cried. Their father put his arms round them awkwardly and after a long minute, they separated. Aruna took a step forward and looked back, like a deer caught in a tiger’s stare. One of her aunts joined her, so she would not feel lonely when settling into her new house, and helped her get into the waiting bus.

  The reception, held three days later, was grand; over fifteen hundred people were invited and almost all turned up. The hotel joined all three of their halls and opened up the French windows to the garden to accommodate everybody. Aruna wore an orange sari and more jewellery than she had ever owned in her life. Ramanujam was wearing a long, maroon Nehru jacket with a turban on his head. They both looked resplendent as they stood on the stage at one end of the hall, receiving an endless stream of guests, saying a few polite words to each. The gifts piled up in a corner of the stage.

  The wall behind them was decorated with white, red and orange flowers all the way to the ceiling, dwarfing the people standing in front of it. Exquisite bouquets of roses, specially flown in from Bangalore, were standing in baskets on the table in front of the bride and groom.

  Food stations had been set out in several places round the halls, so people didn’t have to queue too much. Waiters circulated carrying trays of soft drinks, juices and water. Mr and Mrs Ali walked around the hall. They met several people they knew. Some people said the bride and groom looked made for each other. Most ladies were envious and a few made catty remarks about a bride from a poor family making such a good match. Nobody, observed Mr Ali, remarked that Ramanujam had been lucky; though if he had not married Aruna, he would have been married off to some rich man’s spoilt daughter who would not have been half as nice to him as Aruna would be.

  ‘Let’s go into the garden for a bit,’ Mr Ali said to his wife. ‘I want some fresh air.’

  Mrs Ali nodded and they made their way through the people towards the French windows. Just as they were about to go outside, Mr Ali noticed Sridevi and stopped.

  He introduced her to Mrs Ali, ‘This is Sridevi, the florist in this place. She decorated the whole hall with the flowers.’

  Noticing that she was wearing the mangalsootram and red sindoor on her forehead, he said to Sridevi, ‘I see that you are back with your husband again.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘we got married at the register office a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘How are things going this time round?’ he asked.

  ‘These are early days, but it is going very well, thank you,’ she replied. ‘Now that we’ve moved out of his parents’ house and money is not an issue, we don’t have any fights.’

  ‘That’s good. Keep it up,’ said Mr Ali.

  ‘I intend to. I haven’t forgotten what you told me. I am not actually a guest here. I was closing the shop and just came round to make sure that all the decorations were still looking good,’ she replied.

  ‘The flower arrangements are fantastic,’ said Mrs Ali.

  ‘Thanks. I got this job thanks to uncle,’ she said, nodding towards Mr Ali.

  ‘I know, but you’ve done a really good job and I heard that you gave them a big discount,’ said Mrs Ali.

  ‘I am basically charging my cost price, because it is your assistant’s reception, and uncle told me that she was the one who helped find the other match for me. But you know what? I have heard so many people talking about the flowers that I think I will get a lot of business out of this,’ she said happily.

  ‘God makes sure that whatever good we do doesn’t go unrewarded, ’ said Mrs Ali.

  They said goodbye to Sridevi and they moved on into the garden.

  Mr and Mrs Ali walked round the lawn among the guests. The turnout was truly amazing. They saw many important people of the town. They overheard somebody saying that even the district collector and the deputy inspector general of the police were among the crowd. Suddenly, they heard a voice say, ‘Saibamma! How are you doing?’

  They turned round and saw Anjali - the washerwoman who had been their neighbour a long time ago and who still refused to call Mrs Ali by name and always referred to her as ‘Muslim lady’.

  Mrs Ali exclaimed, ‘Hello, Anjali! How are you doing? Which side invited you?’

  Even though Mr Ali was too well mannered to show it, he was surprised to see Anjali there. It was not common for a low-caste woman to be invited to a Brahmin wedding.

  ‘My younger son works in the same hospital as the bridegroom and that’s how we got invited. My husband didn’t want to come, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. After all, it is not often that we are invited to such grand parties. Hello, Babugaaru, ’ she said turning to Mr Ali.

  Mr Ali smiled at her in greeting.

  Anjali turned to Mrs Ali and said, ‘I heard that Lakshmi’s son has taken her back. I also heard that you had something to do with it. Is that true?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Ali. ‘You know that she went to live with her sister after she and her daughter-in-law fell out with each other and her son asked her to leave the house?’

  Anjali said, ‘That’s right. I was the one who told you that.’

  Mrs Ali nodded and continued, ‘I decided that the situation had gone on long enough and went and had a chat with the son and daughter-in-law. I told them that whatever fights they had, a family had to stay together. I told the son that his mother was widowed and that it was his duty to look after her. It took a while, but I convinced them. I then took Lakshmi’s son with me and we went to her sister’s house. Before her son invited her back, I asked her why she was living with her sister instead of her son. I pointed out to her that she had brought this on herself with her attitude. She had to get along with her daughter-in-law. She might think her son was not being well taken care of or that her daughter-in-law was lazy; it didn’t matter. She had to let go. The relationship between her son and daughter-in-law would be different from the relationshi
p she had had with her husband. The people are different; the times are different. Only when she agreed to change her attitude did I let her son invite her back. It’s been over a month now and things seem to be all right.’

  Anjali said, ‘That’s fantastic, Saibamma. You’ve done very well.’

  Cheered by the conversation, Mr and Mrs Ali went back into the reception hall and mingled with the guests for a while before queuing up for dinner. ‘This is a Brahmin wedding, there won’t be any meat here,’ Mrs Ali said to her husband.

  ‘You are wrong,’ said Mr Ali. ‘Look over there. That’s a non-vegetarian food station.’

  Mrs Ali laughed. ‘I guess the rich do things differently,’ she said.

  While they queued up for dinner, a tall, straight-backed man behind them said, ‘Hello, sir, madam. Aren’t you the parents of Rehman Ali?’

  They turned back. The man shook Mr Ali’s hand, and then said ‘Namaste’ to Mrs Ali with folded hands.

  Mr and Mrs Ali looked puzzled.

  The man said, ‘You don’t know me. I am the superintendent of police for Vizag rural district. I had to arrest your son at Royyapalem.’

  Mr Ali said, ‘Sorry he gave you such trouble.’

  ‘We were just doing our job. No problem at all. Anyway, you should be proud of your son. How many people go to any effort to fight for other people’s rights?’ he said.

  Mrs Ali’s face broke into a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Once they had finished their dinner, they went on to the stage where Ramanujam and Aruna were sitting down. Aruna tried to stand up when she saw them, but they asked her to continue sitting.

  ‘How are you?’ asked Mrs Ali.

  Aruna smiled. ‘Life is good, madam. Do you know what happened just now? We were both standing, receiving all the people, and Ram noticed that I was flagging - my smile was strained and I was shifting my weight from one leg to another. He immediately told his father that he was getting tired and would like a break. Wasn’t that kind?’

  Mrs Ali cracked her knuckles on the sides of her head. ‘May the evil eye never fall on you,’ she said.

  Mr Ali said, ‘We are just here to say goodbye. Enjoy yourself today. When are you leaving for your honeymoon?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Aruna, her cheeks reddening.

  ‘Great. Have you got warm clothes? Kulu Manali, up in the Himalayas, will be cold,’ said Mrs Ali.

  ‘We are not going to Kulu Manali. We’ve decided to go to a mango orchard just outside Simhachalam,’ said Aruna.

  ‘What? Kulu Manali is beautiful and you told me you’ve never been there before,’ said Mrs Ali.

  ‘It was Aruna’s idea,’ said Ramanujam, joining the conversation. He lowered his voice and told them confidentially, ‘It’s actually worked very well. When Aruna said that she didn’t want to go for an expensive honeymoon, it finally convinced my parents that Aruna is no gold-digger. My father now thinks that Aruna is the best daughter-in-law he could have got and even my mum is practically civil to her now.’

  ‘Noo . . .’ said Aruna, scandalised. ‘How can you talk like that? Your mum is such a kind woman.’

  ‘Darling,’ her husband drawled, ‘I know her better than you.’

  The affection between them was clear to everybody. Mr Ali knew from long experience that this romantic love would not last for more than a couple of years and they would have to forge a different kind to last them a lifetime, but it was still heart-warming to see.

  ‘We’ll see you after a couple of weeks,’ they said to Aruna.

  Ramanujam’s father came up to them. ‘Let me see you out,’ he said.

  At the door Ramanujam’s father said to Mr Ali, ‘You were right, you know. I don’t need more money; I need a good daughter-in-law. It may be a cliché to say this, but thanks to you, I haven’t lost a son. I’ve gained a wonderful daughter.’

  Mr and Mrs Ali left the reception hall and went outside the hotel. Mrs Ali pointed to the sea nearby and said, ‘Let’s go to the beach. It’s been a long time since we’ve been here.’

  They walked down to the beach where the surf was crashing noisily on the sand. The sun had set but it was still quite bright because it was full moon. Most people had already left and the vendors were packing up.

  As they walked towards the water, Mr Ali said, ‘You’ve been writing a lot recently. Aren’t the English lessons all finished now?’

  ‘The lessons have finished,’ said Mrs Ali. ‘However, the lecturer who wrote those lessons in the paper said that the lessons were just the beginning and that we should read an English newspaper or magazine regularly and write an essay on some topic or other every week to improve our skills.’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ he said, impressed, but not really surprised by his wife’s discipline.

  Mr Ali sat down on the sand, several feet above the level reached by the highest waves. Mrs Ali left her shoes with him and went closer to the water, lifting her sari to just above her ankles.

  ‘Don’t forget you are wearing an expensive sari,’ he called out.

  She nodded, but continued forward.

  Mr Ali started thinking about his marriage bureau. It had been successful beyond his wildest dreams - not just financially but also socially. India was changing and his success was one sign of it. A fly on the wall of his office might think that Indians were obsessed with caste and that nothing had changed in a hundred years. That’s not true, thought Mr Ali. Marriage was one institution where caste was still important, but in other matters it was losing its hold. People of different castes went to the same schools and offices; they mingled and became friends with each other. Just a few years ago, people of lower castes, or Muslims for that matter, would not have been invited to weddings of upper-caste people. Today, it went unremarked. India was changing and Mr Ali just hoped he would be around for a while to see the changes. But he groaned at the prospect of the next few weeks without Aruna - it was going to be hard work in her absence.

  A particularly big wave rose high above the surface of the water and Mrs Ali rapidly walked backwards, giggling half in fear. The wave crashed back and water rushed rapidly up the beach. Mrs Ali shrieked, raising her sari almost to mid-calf to prevent it from getting wet. She came back to sit next to Mr Ali. Together they watched the silver tops of the waves shimmering in the moonlight. In the distance, the silhouettes of a long line of ships could be seen as they waited on the horizon to get into port. A broad beam of light swept across the sea from the light-house on the peak of Dolphin’s Nose.

  Mr Ali turned to his wife and said, ‘Call Rehman and ask him to come for lunch tomorrow. It’s been a long time since I’ve argued with my son.’

  Mrs Ali looked at him in disbelief for a second. Then tears slowly rolled down Mrs Ali’s cheeks and her face glowed brighter than the surf in the moonlight.

  EXTRACTS FROM MRS ALI’S ENGLISH ESSAYS

  Extract 1

  Visakhapatnam is also called Vizag. On one side of Vizag is the coast and on the other side are green mountains. The population of Vizag is 3.5 million people. When I was younger, it used to be much cooler and Vizag was known as a retirement town, but now the number of people has grown a lot and every summer it becomes very hot.

  There are many tourist spots in and around Vizag. Tribal people live in the forests of the Araku valley. They sometimes come into town, wearing colourful clothes, to sell brooms, soap-nuts, jackfruit, honey, tamarind and peacock feathers. When I was a little girl, my uncle used to work in the agency that looked after the tribal people. He told me that he used to see tigers when he rode in the forest. People don’t see the animals any more. There are also ancient limestone caves there. We once went there and the guide took us inside. It is very silent and cool in the caves; massive pillars grow up from the floor and down from the ceiling towards each other.

  The temple at Simhachalam is about one thousand years old. It is a very important temple for Hindus. In Vizag itself there are three hills - the first has a Hindu temple, the
second has the tomb of a Muslim saint and a mosque and the third has a big church. The papers print stories of riots and communal problems in other parts of India, but we never have such problems in Vizag. People of all religions and castes live together without any trouble. I am proud of this.

  The Beach Road is very beautiful. The sand dunes (is that the word?) stretch along the road. If you drive for about fifteen miles on this road, you come to the town of Bhimili. The beach here is really special. It is like a big round circle cut in half. If we ever go there, I try to reach it by two in the afternoon. The fishermen’s boats come to the shore at this time and you get really fresh fish - vanjaram and chanduva are the best, but I don’t know their English names. There is supposed to be a two-hundred-year-old Dutch cemetery in Bhimili, but I have never visited it myself. Some years ago, we were watching a Hindi movie called Silsila which had a song shot in a big field of bright yellow and red flowers. Rehman told me that these beautiful flowers are called tulips and they grow in the country of those people. I looked, but could not find this country called Dutch on the map.

  Extract 2

  Most people in Vizag are Hindus, like Aruna, and speak Telugu, the elegant South Indian language of this part of India. An Englishman named C. P. Brown called Telugu the ‘Italian of the East’.

  Is Italian beautiful?

  There are many Muslims like me in Vizag and we speak Urdu. My husband tells me that our beautiful mother tongue, so suited for writing songs and poems, was created in the army camps of the Mughal emperors by soldiers from different countries speaking Persian, Turkish and Hindi. I find this difficult to believe, but sometimes you can see a lovely lotus growing in the middle of a dirty green pond.

  Another thing I find difficult to believe is how English people can get by without words for so many kinds of relatives. Aren’t family relations important in England? For example, when an Englishwoman talks about her grandmother, how will her listener know whether she is talking about her mother’s mother or father’s mother? Also, we have different words for mother’s brother, father’s younger brother and father’s older brother but in English they are all just called uncle.