The Marriage Bureau for Rich People

by Farahad Zama

  I recently read a joke in English that didn’t make sense to me. The joke was:

  Q. What do you call your son’s mother-in-law?

  A. Dragon!

  How can they make fun of such an important relationship? In Urdu, your son’s mother-in-law is your samdhan.

  Another rule in India is that you normally do not call people older than yourself by name. So my younger brother Azhar calls me aapa (Urdu) and Vani calls Aruna akka (Telugu). Aruna and I call them by their names.

  This is a list of some words for relatives:

  Extract 3

  There are supposed to be four castes among Hindus: Brahmins, the priestly class; Kshatriyas or warriors; Vaishyas or merchants and Shudras or workers. The system, of course, is a lot more complicated than this.

  There are sub-castes within castes and sub-castes within sub-castes. As Muslims, we are not part of the caste system and, until my husband started the marriage bureau, I wasn’t fully aware of how complex it all was. Aruna explained to me that the caste system was based on people’s traditional professions. Over thousands of years, the system became rigid and hereditary. When I asked her about sub-castes, she said that they too were based on people’s jobs. She said that we might think that all leather workers were one sub-caste of Shudras but within that, the people who tanned leather were a different sub-caste from those who made shoes and they were again different from people who made saddles.

  Among Brahmins too, those who carry out priestly duties, like Aruna’s family, are Vaidiki Brahmins. They tend to be well-versed in Sanskrit. Ramanujam’s family are Niyogi Brahmins. These Brahmins do not officiate at religious functions. They are well educated in English and Telugu and are village heads or clerks and accountants.

  The most controversial part of the caste system is, of course, untouchability. The lowest castes, who work in ‘unclean’ professions like handling dead bodies or human waste, are called scheduled castes. Hindus from higher castes do not allow the scheduled caste people to come into their houses or even to touch them. In villages, they have to live away from the rest of the people and there are a lot of restrictions on what they can and cannot do. For example, they cannot use the wells that the other villagers use. Their children may have to sit outside the classroom so that they are away from the upper-caste children. Untouchability is banned and the government reserves a portion of jobs and college seats for scheduled caste people, but it will take time to get rid of a problem that has grown over two thousand years. Not every upper-caste person is rich, but most lower-caste people are poor.

  Extract 4

  I start cooking breakfast between seven and seven thirty in the morning. When Rehman was a boy and my husband was still in service, I used to start cooking by half past six, but now there is no need to be so early.

  We never have the same breakfast two days in a row. If I make parathas one day, I make dosas or idlis the next day. The day after that, I might make upma or pesaratt. To make dosa or idli, I have to soak black grams for a few hours and wet-grind them into a thick paste the night before, so they ferment. I normally make a chutney as a side dish - coconut and onion are two favourites. Sometimes, I also make sambhar, which is a thick liquid made of lentils, onions, tamarind and other spices. Sambhar can be used as a dip for breakfast or to mix in rice for lunch or dinner. Rasam, on the other hand, is only used for lunch or dinner. It is a thin liquid made with tamarind and spices and used to mix in rice.

  In all the years that I’ve been married I have made sure that my family always ate a hot breakfast before leaving the house - even if it meant waking up at four in the morning if we had to catch an early train. Rehman used to love his breakfast as a boy. Sometimes I get tears in my eyes when I think of him in some small village - what does he eat? How can food prepared in a hotel, without love, stick to his body? No wonder he is so thin. I wish he would get married soon. I will teach his wife how to make all his favourite dishes, just as my mother-in-law taught me all my husband’s likes and dislikes.

  When we were younger, we used to eat meat only once a week and chicken was an occasional treat. Now we have more money and can afford to eat meat more frequently, but as we’ve got older, we don’t want to eat rich food so often. We usually eat meat on Sunday. I rarely make a pure meat dish. I mix vegetables and meat - it is tastier that way and cheaper too!

  I also make sweets at home sometimes. One pudding that is very easy to make is halva. This is the recipe I use.

  ½ cup ghee (or unsalted butter)

  4 pods cardamom

  4 sticks cloves

  2 pieces cinnamon

  50g cashew nuts

  25g raisins

  1 cup (about 200g) fine semolina

  2 cups water

  1 cup sugar

  Melt the ghee in a flat-bottomed pan over a medium flame then add the cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Fry the cashew nuts and raisins along with the spices in the ghee until light brown. Add the semolina and fry till the colour changes. Then add the water and stir well.

  Cover the pan and cook over a low flame for two minutes. By now, the water should have been absorbed and the semolina will be cooked. Add the sugar and stir well. In a couple of minutes, bubbles will start popping through the semolina. Cover the pan again and keep on a low flame for one more minute.

  Serve while still warm.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book would not have been possible, but for:

  My father who got me into story writing and always believed that I had a book in me.

  My mother for her paranoid belief that if her children did not study, they would have no roof over their heads and they would starve.

  My sister, Nilofar, who gave me the halva recipe.

  Ramachandran uncle and Suseela aunty, for being wonderful hosts and giving me a view into a Brahmin household.

  My friends and early readers of this manuscript, Tom, Sue, Suchi and Jasmine, and for their comments and encouragement.

  Marion Urch of Adventures in Fiction for going through my first draft and pointing out the importance of point of view and the concept of scenes in a novel.

  Jenny McVeigh, my wonderful agent, for liking my writing so much and pushing me to improve my work.

  Jenny Parrott, my editor at Little, Brown, for her enthusiasm and many ideas.

  My wife, Sameera, for supporting me throughout this exercise and taking on even more of the running of the household than usual while I disappeared into the study practically every evening after long hours at work. Very simply, I could not have written this book without your encouragement.

  My two boys who think that all writers will be as famous and rich as J. K. Rowling. If only.