2 States The Story Of My Marriage (40 page)

Ananya and I held a coconut dipped in turmeric. Ananya’s mother poured

water over it. Ananya couldn’t hold back her tears, sitting in her father’s lap. I tied
a gold necklace with a flat rectangular pendant around her neck, called the taali,

in the Mangalyadharanam.

The priests told us to stand up for the Saptapathi, or the seven sacred steps.

Ananya’s sari and my veshti were connected in a knot and held hands. I had felt

her touch after months.

‘Are you OK?’ I said as she sniffed.

‘You are not a girl, you won’t understand,’ Ananya said, and thus began a

lifetime of ‘you won’t understand’ statements married men have to endure

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everyday.

I placed my feet under Ananya’s feet and helped her take seven steps around

fire. I slipped silver rings onto her toes.

Everyone clapped as I came back up.

‘What?’ I said.

‘It’s over, now go around the room and take blessings from everyone,’ the head

priest said.

I looked at Mr Swami and his wife. They were no longer Ananya’s parents. They

were my in-laws. I had done it. The two states had become one.

‘Do namaskaram,’ the priest instructed us. Ananya and I lay fully flat on the

ground in front of every elder relative to bless us. It is the only wedding ritual in
the world that involves a workout.

‘My blessings are always with you,’ my father said as he stopped us from lying

down fully in front of him.

‘God bless you,’ Shipra masi said as I lay down in front of her, ‘But I’m sleepy.

Let’s go back to the hotel.’

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63

‘He has a speech?’ I said. Ananya and I sat on regal chairs at the venue of our

reception. At least this function felt familiar to my relatives as they saw food stalls
in the open garden. We were at the Madras Boat Club. Coloured lights twined

around the trees; the lakeside venue was a welcome change from the

unpronounceable smoke-filled mandapam.

‘Yeah, he wanted to do a powerpoint, but I stopped him. He even came to the

hotel to show the speech to you.’

‘When?’ I said, ‘I was there only.’

‘Sleeping all day,’ Ananya said. ‘He only heard snores.’

‘You didn’t sleep?’ I said.

‘No way, we have so many out of town guests. I haven’t slept for the last two

days.’

‘So, how do you manage to look so beautiful?’ I said.

She blushed. It matched her clothes. She wore a pink lehnga with heavy gold

and silver embroidery for the evening, a surprise for my relatives and a bit of

shock for her own aunts. However, it was too late and Ananya was already

married – to me. Screw you, Pure Harish, I thought, though I cursed myself for

thinking of him at all.

‘Congratulations,’ some random person came to the stage to meet us and we

smiled for pictures for the hundredth time.

Dinner did have North Indian choices, but the flavours were a bit off.

‘They’ve made gobi aaloo with coconut oil,’ Minti complained.

‘We are all going back tomorrow,’ I said. ‘You’ll have your paranthas soon. Now
don’t make a face and eat ice-cream.’

‘When are we cutting the cake?’ one of my younger cousins said, pointing to

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the eggless cake kept in the middle of the garden. Next to the cake, there was a

dais with chairs around it.

A waiter rang a hand-bell, announcing the speech and cake-cutting ceremony.

Relatives came around and sat on chairs. The Tamilians and Punjabis looked at

each other. People had not come to attend the wedding, they had come to a live

human museum of the other community.

‘But when will the DJ start?’ my cousin said.

‘Patience,’ I said.

Ananya and I stood next to the cake. Ananya took the mike to speak first.

‘Thank you everyone for coming here. I am so grateful to all of you that you

decided to share our happiness. Yes, ours is quite a different wedding, and it has

taken us a while to get here, making it all the more special. I’d like my amazing

father to share a few words with you.’

Ananay clapped and the rest of the crowd applauded as well.

My father and mother sat together with a smile on their face. At least for

tonight, they’d decided to get along.

‘Hello, everyone,’ Ananya’s dad said, ‘I’d like someone from the boy’s side later
to say a few words as well.’

He looked at my father. My father folded his hands to say no.

‘I’ll talk,’ Rajji mama said and raised his hand. He had obviously found the Boat
Club bar.

‘Welcome everyone,’ Ananya’s father started, ‘I never liked giving speeches.

However, in the last year, helped by my son-in-law, I’ve gained the confidence to

talk in public.’

Everyone turned to look at me. OK, making office presentations is one thing,

confessionals in frfont of your community auite another. I hoped he knew what he

was doing.

‘I know the number one topic all of you have discussed in this party – why is

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Swami marrying his daughter to a North Indian fellow? I know it, as we would

have done the same.

Sniggers ran through the crowd.

‘In fact, when Ananya first told us about Krish, we were quite upset. As all

Tamilians know, we are so proud of our own culture. We also thought our

daughter is one in million, she will get the best of boys in our own community.

Why must she go for a Punjabi boy?’

Everyone who wore a Kanjeevaram sari int the crowd nodded. The Punjabis

kept a straight face.

‘We did our best to discourage her. We didn’t trat Krish well even though he

moved to Chennai for us. We even showed her Tamil boys. But you know kids of

today, they do what they want to do.’

This time all gave understanding nods.

‘So why do parents object to this?’ he said and adjusted his glasses. ‘It is not
only about another community. It is the fact your daughter has found a boy

herself. We as parents feel disobeyed, left out and disappointed. We bring our

children up from babies to adults, how can they ignore us like this? All our

frustration comes out in anger. How much we hate love marriages, isn’t it?’

Ananya’s aunts smiled.

‘But we forget that this has happened because your child had love to give to

someone in this world. Is that such a bad thing? Where did the child learn to

love? From us, after all, the person they loved first is you.’

Ananya clasped my arm and clenched it tight. The crowd listend with full

attention.

‘Actually, the choice is simple. When your child decided to love a new person,

you can either see it as a chance to hate some people – the person they choose

and their families. Which is what we did for a while. However, you can also see it

as a chance to love some more people. And since when did loving more people

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become a bad thing?’

He paused to have a glass of water and continued. ‘Yes, the Tamilian in me is a
little disappointed. But the Indian in me is quite happy. And more then anything,

the human being in me is happy. After all, we’ve decided to use this opportunity

to create more loved ones for ourselves.’

When he kept the mike down, Ananya hugged him hard. The crowd burst into

applause. Ananya and I cut the cake through the resounding claps. We fed each

other and our respective in-laws a piece. The cameraman gathered both sets of

parents for a picture.

‘Ananya, see, both our parents. They are smiling,’ I said.

Rajji mama stood up and came to the mike for his speech.

‘Stop Minti’s daddy, he has had six pegs,’ Kamla aunty said.

Rajji mama took the mike and raised his hands. ‘ladies and gentleman,’ he

said.

I went up to him.

‘Rajji mama, enough. You are too cool to make boring speeches,’ I whispered

in his ear.

‘Really? We should answer them, no?’ he said.

‘It’s not a competition,’ I said.

He said into the mike, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of Tamil Nadu, thank you very

much. Now we invite you to some Punjabi-style dancing with the DJ at the

backside.’

My cousins flew off their chairs and surged towards the dance floor.

The song collection was a mixture of Tamil and Hindi film music. They had one

Punjabi music CD, which Rajji mama had instructed to play in a loop. My family

dominated the dance floor, but Ananya urged her aunts and uncles to join in as

well. I guess they were my family too now.

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Rajji mama avoided a bad fall while trying a particularly difficult Bhangra-break
dance fusion step to impress my new relatives. My cousins pushed me and

Ananya together for a close dance. I held Ananya to me as we moved on the

dance floor.

‘Ananya,’ I whispered in her ear.

‘What?’ she said softly.

‘I love you and your father and your mother and your brother and your

relatives,’ I said.

‘I love you and your clan, too,’ she said.

We kissed as Tamils and Punjabis danced around us.

‘So, the self-imposed exile is over now? You said we’ll only do it when we

cross the finish line,’ I said.

‘Is that all you men think about?’ she said.

‘Only for the sake of uniting the nation,’ I said.

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A couple of years later

‘Do I have to be here?’ I asked Ananya who lay in the delivery room. A curtain spread
mid-way across the bed separated her lower and upper body. The doctors had given her
a half-body anesthetic, which enabled her to stay awake during C-section. A team of

specialists hid behind the curtain cutting up her stomach.

‘He has a knife,’ I said, peeping at the doctors. My head felt dizzy.

‘Don’t freak me out. Talk about something else,’ she said. ‘How’s the book going?’

‘Well, the fifth publisher rejected it yesterday,’ I said and stood up again to take a
peek. ‘At least I can go to the sixth one now … wow, there is blood.’

‘Sit down if you can’t handle the sight, and stop being so scared. I can’t feel a thing
because of the epidural,’ she said. The doctor had recommended a caesarian without

general anesthesia.

‘If only you could see.’ I said, ‘wow, I see a leg. It’s like Aliens 3.’

‘Shut up,’ she said.

‘Hey, it’s a boy,’ I said.

‘Does he look like me?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen the face yet. I’ve only seen the you-know-what.’

The doctor took out the whole baby.

‘Thank you, doctor, thank you so much,’ I said emotionally and moved to shake his
hand.

‘Wait,’ the doctor said through his masked face.

‘What?’ Ananya said.

‘I don’t know,’ said. ‘Oh wait, there’s another leg. Wow, there’s another boy.’

‘Twins?’ she said in disbelief, looking ready to faint.

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‘Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘Congratulations.’

The nurse cleaned up the two babies and gave them to me.

‘Be careful,’ she said as I took one in each arm.

‘You are from two different states, right? So, what will be their state?’ the nurse said
and chuckled.

‘They’ll be from a state called India,’ I said.

THE END