When Hari Met His Saali (3 page)

‘Yes Tia, just like he has accepted you just as you are!’

Jenny had a point, but Tia didn’t like anyone challenging her ideas about life.

‘Yeah, but I changed to make myself better for myself … and for him!’ Tia was getting serious, and upset, now. ‘I mean, half of the things I have changed or improved I have done with Hari in mind! And you know what the sad part is? He will never know about it, let alone appreciate it!’ Agitated, Tia poured herself another glass of wine.

‘All right, calm down Jennifer Aniston!’ Jenny mocked. ‘I am just saying that you can’t make men perfect with your ideas of perfection,’ Jenny smiled as she mockingly backed off.

‘Of course you can!’ Tia wasn’t finished. ‘Wives all over the world do it to their husbands all the time. They are doing it right now, as we speak. And I am saying the change in them is for their own good, they just don’t know it yet!’ Tia was fired up now.

‘How is Hari becoming more romantic towards
you
better for
him
? Can you please elaborate?’ As soon as she said it, Jenny knew she shouldn’t have pushed Tia.

‘If he is more romantic with me — not all the time, I am not saying all the time, but at appropriate times — our life together will be more enriching and fulfilling.’ Tia was talking as if she was a character in a romcom movie.

‘For you!’ Jenny leaned forward.

‘What?’

‘Hari being more romantic towards you will make
your
life more enriching and fulfilling!’ Jenny raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘do you see my point?’

Tia finally leaned back, telling herself that Jenny didn’t understand the argument.

‘All I know is that I wish I could make him more romantic. It will be a waste otherwise.’

‘Then don’t marry him!’ Jenny said matter-of-factly.

‘What? Whoa, how can you say something like that? I love him, Jenny, I want to spend my life with him. I thought you knew that!’ Tia sounded offended.

‘I know that, silly, I am just saying that this is not an architectural drawing you can draft and redraft until it looks perfect. Remember, as goofy as Hari is — and agreed, he is very goofy — you fell in love with him.’

Tia sat back in her chair. Maybe Jenny had been too hard on her.

‘I am just saying, you two have a beautiful thing going on. Just don’t mess with it. You can’t be over-ambitious with men, dear,’ she cooed.

‘But it’s a one-time deal,’ Tia frowned. ‘One shot at hitting the bullseye, can’t I just calibrate him? Not a whole lot, just a little? Make him more romantic?’ Tia pleaded with a mocking puppy face.

‘Seriously? No! You should not want to change someone in the name of love, Tia.’

‘But how cool would it be if I could magically turn him into a die-hard romantic?’ Tia said dreamily.

‘No. Not a good idea!’

‘But Jen, that’s probably the only thing lacking in him!’ Tia pressed her point again.

‘You are one confused, Dorothy. On one hand, you want romance from the guy; on the other hand, you con him into having sex with you on a plane. On a frigging plane! What kind of message are you sending him? Don’t be too neurotic, you have a good life in the making, Tia!’

It was true; the most recent feather in her cap — the Mile High Club encounter — was a kicker. How many people could truly say they belonged to that club? There were no concrete statistics on it — not even from that otherwise realiable source the Internet — but Tia knew she belonged to an exclusive group. Tia always wanted to be part of an exclusive club. But Tia wouldn’t be Tia if others could so easily convince her to change her mind.

‘The Mile High Club was an individual pursuit. Something I had to do for my bucket list. If Hari truly loved me, he would have made it even more special by being a bit more romantic.’

Jenny took a deep breath.

‘Girl, he really loves you. That is all that matters.’

‘I know he loves me, but still … can he not … be a little more …’

Jenny interrupted her.

‘I see you’re not gonna give this up. OK, I understand your genetic need to make him into a perfect male specimen, so the next best advice is to wait till you are married, then you’ll have a lifetime to keep calibrating him. Secure your man first, no tinkering till then. Men are a confused species you don’t confuse them further. Not at this stage of the relationship.’

‘And there I was thinking you were my friend,’ Tia joked raising her glass for a toast.

‘I am, until the day you try to change me
biatch
! Then I am, like,
Sayonara
or however you guys say it,
Namaste
, bye-bye!’ Jenny started laughing.

They were both buzzed and were getting louder by the minute.

‘Your mom and sister are coming right?’ Jenny suddenly asked as she emptied her glass.

‘Yeah, I mean, I am going to invite them. But I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it.’ Tia’s expression changed. She put on her shades suddenly as if to hide her tears.

‘Sweetie, I am glad that you are here in America. We’ve been best friends forever — BFFs right? But, don’t forget where you came from, where your roots are. Too many people come to America trying to run away from wherever they come from, and then years later, they regret it.’ Jenny held Tia’s hand.

How in the hell did the conversation turn into this?
, Tia thought, but she knew Jenny probably understood what she was talking about. Jenny was an immigration lawyer. She had seen hundreds of cases where immigrants went to the extreme of disowning their native country, their countrymen and even their families, to assimilate in the U.S. She had shared some horrific stories about broken families with Tia over the years.

‘Ugh, yes, yes, they are coming to my engagement, honey. Happy? Anyways, next time I see you, I want to see that pregnancy stick turned pink, and you having missed you periods, OK?’ Tia must have said it out loud as other patrons started snickering.

‘My dear Tia, not all the sticks have the same color schemes,’ Jenny said jokingly as they pooled in money for the bill.

‘How would I know? You’re the one going at it like bunnies.’ Tia joked as they walked outside.

‘I want that baby, Jennifer Shabowski!’ Tia announced.

‘It’s Schabowski … Scha … Scha,’ Jenny teased her knowing very well that Tia hated it when people corrected her pronunciation.

‘Yeah, whatever your last name is, it needs a baby now!’ They hugged and parted ways.

After walking away Tia analyzed her lunch with Jenny for a minute and concluded that it went well. But after walking for a few moments she realized thetears were rolling down her cheeks. But she didn’t understand why she was crying.

Jenny shouldn’t have mentioned my mom and my sister.

That whole thing about inviting them to her engagement ceremony — where did that come from? Tia realized it was not Jenny’s fault for mentioning it. In fact, she knew Jenny was right.

Who wouldn’t invite their only surviving family members to one of the biggest occasions of their lives?

Tia had blocked out her mother and her sister for as long as she could. The realization made it worse. In the last six years — since she had left India— she had come a long way. Mostly in a good way but in one particular way— when it came to her mother and sister — she had failed spectacularly. The fact that Tia Galhotra was not on speaking terms with her own mom
was most hurtful to none other than Tia herself. It was downright shameful. These mistakes didn’t happen to Tia, she had made sure of that. But this one had happened. She just hadn’t done anything about it — she didn’t know how. Tia had cried her eyes out about it, alone, often, sometimes several times a night, but she hadn’t taken any initiative to remedy the situation. And she hated herself for that.

Tia didn’t like her past. At 25 she had dreamt of, planned and achieved what Jenny often referred to as her
“
fairy tale life”. So far so good. Whenever anyone asked, and people always asked, Tia would explain her past as follows:

Born in Nagpur, a small town in India; middle-class family; father the least successful in his circle of friends; mother a worrier and a housewife, in that order; she and her sister, Simi, both ambitious; at school she was regarded as a prodigy; she couldn’t wait to leave her small town; at 19 she secured a scholarship to UCLA in California; four months before her departure her father died in an accident; her mother wanted her to cancel her plans to study in America and stay to look after Simi; she thought she would never get out of Nagpur; they fought; after promising her mother she would return after finishing her studies, she left for America.

But Tia had finished her studies over a year ago. She had not gone back. At all. It was probably the only promise she had not kept in her life. She had not returned to India even once and her relationship with her mother had deteriorated so badly it was almost non-existent. Tia hated herself for it, but consoled herself with the plan that once she had settled down with Hari she would migrate her mother and Simi to America. She comforted herself by believing that was going to happen soon.

But creating another path of responsilibilty was almost too much for Tia. She was already running more than one track in her life; her career ambitions, her indignant insistence on achieving/experiencing certain things before she was thirty, her future with Hari and her main gripe about him not being a complete man because he lacked all and any thoughtfulness. Everything else — like her ideal life with a posh house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and a small backyard, along with her desire to create the American dream with Hari — was within her reach. All she had to do was not confuse Hari. This was no time to put him in a corner. After all, Tia Galhotra and Hariprasad Malhotra were getting married in three months’ time — or in eighty-eight days to be precise.

Although Hari had never even brought it up, Tia was excited about taking his last name. She was feeling blessed that all she would have to change was one letter of the alphabet, and so Tia Galhotra would become Tia Malhotra.

Women die for things like these.

But before that, her engagement ceremony was in one month’s time — or thirty-four days to be precise. The invitations had been printed, the date, the venue, the
muhurat
had been selected; this was no time to feel sad. Tia’s mood changed as she headed home. She was looking forward to tonight. It was Wednesday Bollywood night!

Meanwhile

Hariprasad Malhotra was running late as usual and still had to make one stop before meeting up with Tia at her place in Santa Monica. He was excited about their Wednesday Bollywood night as he knew it was important to her. He endured the often-horrific Bollywood/Hollywood romcoms because they were followed by “anything goes” lovemaking. Tia explicitly barred Hari from referring to their lovemaking as S-E-X. She rarely said the word and often spelt it out as if an impressionable child was in the room.

Hari was as far removed from Bollywood films as a condom is removed from an Indian female’s life — which is to say Indian women do not like talking, hearing, looking at, or touching a condom. It was a man’s job. Tia was no different. She hated them as objects although she loved their functionality and the fact that she was not the one who had to be responsible for them … or wear them … or purchase them. Ever. That convenient little fact, she loved.

Hari digressed a lot. He remembered having a condom talk with Tia, which had led to him accusing her of leading her life as if it were a Bollywood movie. He had wondered out loud why a woman who had spent so much time and effort getting as far away from India as Tia had would enjoy watching “dumb Bollywood” movies? Tia had pondered on the question before claiming that Bollywood films were the only things that connected her to India. That, and the fact that being able to spy on other people’s stories as a mere spectator, was a bonus. There was an innocence to the stories in those films, she said, but that sounded like a bunch of bull feces to Hari.

It was an ongoing thing between them, and tonight he had to sit through yet another one of those films before their lovemaking could start. That was the hook. He was excited about
that.
Hari had a talent for turning anything into S-E-X talk. For example, if Tia had cooked something nice for him, he was likely to compliment her by saying something like:

‘This is so good, I guarantee you that this dish is used for or during S-E-X in some culture somewhere.’

Ewee.
The scary thing for Tia was that Hari would believe it, too.

So tonight,
that
was what had brought Hari to the biggest adult toy store in Los Angeles: Larry Flynt’s HUSTLER — a supermarket for adult indulgence; a Disneyland for the more adventurous in the bedroom; a NASA-like place with cutting edge technology — all dedicated to the … well, you get the idea.

As Hari had seen the film
The People vs. Larry Flynt
, and as a budding entrepreneur himself, he was inspired by the audacity of this man and what he had achieved in his lifetime. Larry Flynt had had a very humble start with a single porn magazine, which he eventually built into a billion-dollar company. At the time, no one would’ve imagined porn could be a billion-dollar industry. In those days, that kind of thing only happened in America.

Hari was not in the porn business. He was the owner of a much more respectable start-up designing games and applications for mobiles and tablets. The company was not profitable yet, but Hari was hoping that soon he would become one of the industry’s big players. He fancied himself as a serial entrepreneur. In reality, that was only because he had failed in many of his earlier business ventures at least earnestly earning him the “serial” tag. The entrepreneur part was still debatable. But he was naturally curious. He was an avid reader, not of books but general trivia that he found mostly on the Net. Hari believed he could get the next big game or app idea by accumulating trivia. He had read somewhere that the most popular mobile games originated from useless trivia and he was convinced he too would find his rock star game by trawling through useless information.