Sideways on a Scooter (39 page)

I couldn’t tell her how to behave in bed, so I filled the space between us with optimistic platitudes. You’ll figure it out, I told her. Sex will hurt the first time, but eventually it will feel good, so you should try to relax. I let most of her unasked questions drift, unanswered, back into the atmosphere. The silence we were left with, underneath the Bollywood pop pumping through the café, was pure and godly and Indian.

On her wedding night, Geeta would be almost as unsullied by the knowledge of sex as her mother and her grandmother had been. I thought of the scene that had played out for centuries in India: the groom peeling off the sequined
lehnga choli
, the bride lying still beneath him like a terrified bird. Now, though, after her groom finishes, the new Indian bride pulls on a lacy thong to cover herself. The bride who bleeds through her imported European underwear: that is today’s perfect fantasy of the modern arranged marriage.

“A
fter marriage, the trouble starts,” Radha intoned. She was mincing carrots on the counter with alarming speed.

In the seven months since Pushpa’s wedding, Radha’s proud references to her daughter’s husband, the mobile-in-charge, had disappeared. Taking its place were complaints about “
saas-bahu
tension,” the Hinglish phrase used to describe problems between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. I’d become somewhat immune to Radha’s
filminess
, but this was a phrase I’d heard again and again about new marriages in India.

The difficult in-law relationship is a global phenomenon, of course: It is rarely easy for a stranger to adopt an intimate role in any new family. The relationship is especially fraught in India, where wives almost always move in with their husband’s family, creating more opportunities for miscommunication and disagreement. Urban middle-class couples do choose to live separately, but they remain a statistical fraction of the country’s millions of families. Even if Geeta would have
liked to join their ranks rather than move in with Ramesh’s conservative family, she wouldn’t have said so out loud, not even to me.

Warnings about
saas-bahu
tension are everywhere, which made it hard to believe that any Indian girl could look forward to married life. The theme forms the entire plot of a top-rated prime-time Hindi soap opera, the not-so-subtly-named
Because a Mother-in-Law was Once a Daughter-in-Law
(its Hindi acronym,
KSBKBT
, proves that the Hindi title is almost as long). The show churned out a new episode every weekday for eight years; Radha and her daughters had watched almost every one of them, through the sea of static on their thirdhand TV. After Pushpa moved into her in-laws’ home, though, Radha joked darkly that her daughter no longer needed to watch
KSBKBT
because she was living it. The show teaches its audience that new brides are responsible for the bulk of the housework in their in-laws’ homes, and indeed, Pushpa’s
saas
had been looking forward to her son’s marriage for precisely this reason. A
bahu
would give her the first break from the household chores since her own daughter had married and moved out.

Pushpa’s
saas
was suspicious of the girl’s aspirations to finish high school, which seemed to her nothing more than an impudent attempt to shirk her housewifely duties, and decided she needed to crack down on her. She told Pushpa she could no longer indulge in weekly visits back to her own family home. This made Radha grumble all the more—“My daughter is only seventeen!”—but she’d surrendered control of her when she’d married her off and had to be content with twice-weekly calls from my landline.

Radha pushed open the door to my room after she finished mopping the floors.

“Deedee?”

I could tell what she wanted just from the servility in her voice. I came out to the living room, and she fished around inside her
choli
for the scrap of paper—well worn and slightly damp with sweat. It was always the same slip of paper. On it, Babloo had written Pushpa’s home number in his careful handwriting.

After I dialed, Radha took the receiver awkwardly, as though it were
a living thing. When a busy signal sounded through the plastic earpiece, she held it up to eye level and peered at it, as though the instrument itself might reveal why she couldn’t hear her daughter’s voice on the other end. I took it back and dialed again. This time, her face lit up and she pronounced gleefully: “It’s ringing,
deedee
!”

When someone picked up, Radha composed herself. Speaking into the telephone was a serious endeavor and required a formal manner. The plastic receiver represented the power of the outside world, a world that her lack of education largely excluded her from. Even if Radha was doing nothing more than ordering milk from the local shop, doing so over the phone imbued the transaction with gravitas. Now Radha asked to speak with her daughter in a low and deferential voice, so I took it that Pushpa’s
saas
had picked up. When her voice lifted above its respectful murmur, I could retreat, because Pushpa had come to the phone.

Afterward, Radha came into my office, squatted behind my chair, and waited for me to notice her. I was working with my headphones on, and she didn’t announce her presence, so I have no idea how long she was there. This often happened, and I’d always get a start to turn around to find her crouched just inches from my chair.

“Sorry,
deedee
, I just wanted to tell you about my conversation with Pushpa.”

There were reddish rings under her eyes that made me think she’d been crying. I didn’t want to believe it—surely the restrained and hard-headed Radha would consider it undignified to squat behind me and weep—so I decided to pretend it wasn’t so.

She didn’t get up, though, and by squatting on her heels directly behind my chair, she’d blocked me in. I leaned back so I’d feel less claustrophobic and waited for her to let out what she needed to say. Then her words gushed out.

“Pushpa’s
saas
is very short-tempered,
deedee
. The boy is good, but I don’t think the family is. That woman is always complaining, saying Pushpa didn’t bring enough dowry. It’s not fair! The family themselves asked for cash instead of electronics and furniture. I am going to be in
debt for years,
deedee
, and still she is saying I didn’t give enough.
Ay bhagwan.
”

Apparently, Pushpa’s
saas
carped about the insufficient dowry when she was displeased with her for some other reason—when Pushpa had oversalted the curry, for instance—but couched inside the complaint about the wedding payment, Radha heard something much worse. She heard another mother accusing her daughter of being unable to meet the demands of wifehood. There was really no greater slight in Radha’s world. Her children, better educated and worldlier than she, were her greatest source of satisfaction.

Radha also knew that she’d taught her daughter that her sole source of power as a new wife was the moral authority granted by good behavior. She’d warned Pushpa that the best way to win her husband’s affections was by being amenable and obedient. Otherwise, he might team up with his mother against his bride, as they’d seen happen on so many episodes of
KSBKBT
. If a girl didn’t meet her in-laws’ expectations, Radha had told her, she could end up in the burn ward of a Delhi public hospital.

In the photos of Geeta’s engagement ceremony, she is poised, unsmiling, on a cushion, her fiancé beside her. A high pile of saris, jewelry, and other gifts stands beside each of them, as though the shot would be used to determine which family had spent more money on the other. Showing me the pictures, Geeta made a point to emphasize that the groom’s family is not obliged to bestow wedding gifts on the bride.

“Everyone tells me that I’m lucky to have found this boy. Most brides get nothing from their in-laws—nothing but grief.”

Geeta felt lucky in general these days. Since she’d quit her job, she’d been in a blissful prewedding blur. Even Nanima, who was brokenhearted that she was losing her, couldn’t begrudge Geeta’s happiness. Geeta’s skin glowed from good sleep and regular pampering sessions at Madame X. Whenever I saw her, she was either chattering away on her sturdy, made-for-India Nokia about wedding plans, or impatiently
waiting for her phone to finish recharging on the wall. Now that she’d dispensed with her job, she spent her days like a true Delhi lunching lady: visiting boutiques, giving away her clothes and furniture, and helping with the wedding invitations—thick envelopes stuffed with five different invite cards, each printed in red and gold on handmade paper.

She stopped by after the salon one day with an offer to share in her wedding joy: She wanted me to be the maid of honor at the wedding. Like other modernized Indian brides, Geeta wanted to adopt the Western concept, even though Hindu weddings include none of the rituals I associated with bridesmaids—no wedding shower, bachelorette party, or ceremonial walk down the aisle. I said yes without knowing what to expect, and soon learned that Geeta expected me to be her celebrity assistant, responsible for her outfits, makeup, and food. I was also to protect her from “negative experiences” during the wedding period and be at her side through as much as possible of her final months of singlehood.

She seemed to think it perfectly reasonable to ask me to come to Patiala a full three months before the wedding. I tried not to snort at the suggestion—my editors wouldn’t grant me three months off for my own wedding—the most I could give her was two weeks. Geeta wrinkled her nose in disappointment. Her relatives would be arriving in Patiala weeks before the events began; no one loves to celebrate more than the Punjabis, Geeta reminded me, and there’s no better excuse for a family reunion than a wedding, so she didn’t understand my reluctance.

By my own standards, two weeks seemed a lot of time to dedicate to a friend’s wedding, and Parvati agreed. She cackled that after being assistant to the bride, surrounded by Geeta’s family in “Punjabi Wedding World,” I’d probably be ready to flee India altogether.

“Sometimes you
feringhees
act as though India is a religion that you have to convert to,” she said. “You don’t have to prove yourself, you know; you could just go to the wedding for a few days.”

Sometimes Parvati was too smart and blunt for my liking. She was right, of course; I did walk around India trying to demonstrate my open-mindedness, as though this would compensate for my great-aunt’s
four decades of missionary zeal and a century of British colonialism.

Parvati also pointed out a more practical problem: I did not have two weeks’ worth of wedding wear in my wardrobe. I owned none of the mandatory silk saris or sequined
salwar kameez
outfits. Even once I borrowed elegant saris from Parvati and glitzy Punjabi outfits from Geeta, I still lacked jeweled heels and extravagant gold necklaces, and was sure to be the most underdressed person there.

Nothing matters more than the outward appearance of wealth at an Indian wedding. In Radha’s community, the effect was achieved by soliciting cash from everyone in the neighborhood; in Geeta’s community, the relatives showed up with unsolicited envelopes of rupees to slide into Nitin Shourie’s palm. He’d pass the envelopes to his wife and fold his hands in gratitude.

He always accepted the offerings. Geeta’s wedding was by far the biggest financial undertaking of his life. It didn’t matter that his daughter was marrying a stranger; Nitin was determined to create the lavish Punjabi festival he’d envisioned for thirty-one years. There would be legions of uniformed boys doling out quivering curries from massive black urns; freshly baked naan straight out of the blazing tandoori oven; rich desserts that would be the talk of Patiala. Nitin wanted a troupe of Punjabi folk singers in multicolored turbans sitting cross-legged on the cool February grass, their love songs bringing tears to the eyes of the gold-bedecked relatives. When the aunties decreed that Geeta’s was the best wedding in family history, Nitin imagined himself smiling humbly. He knew he couldn’t possibly achieve all this on a retired bureaucrat’s pension. He’d take whatever cash he could get.

Rajiv’s jeans-clad leg was pulsing to the Bollywood beats of Red FM as I climbed in beside him on the passenger seat. He was one of Geeta’s college friends, and she’d arranged for him to drive me on the five-hour trip north to Patiala.

“Are you ready for pure Punjabi wedding fun, Mirindaah? Are you ready for the times of your lives?!”

For a moment, I wished I’d taken the train.

Until he’d heard the news that Geeta had found a boy, Rajiv thought he’d already attended the last of his friends’ weddings. Everyone else he knew had been arranged into matches several years ago; he and his friends had pretty much given up on Geeta. As pleased as Rajiv was about the unexpected opportunity for a reunion, though, he was perplexed by her choice of a match. He found it almost humorous that Geeta would wait this long and then marry a South Indian; surely she’d had plenty of time to find herself a Punjabi boy, and surely that was her preference. I wondered how much Rajiv knew about Mohan. They’d all been friends in college, so I assumed he’d heard about Geeta rejecting Mohan’s marriage proposal. I decided that Mohan must not have tried to convince Rajiv that he and Geeta had been “involved,” because that would have cleared up the mystery for him.