When Hari Met His Saali (7 page)

‘Last year, I asked Mr. Khanna for an advance of twenty thousand and you
know what? He asked me to go to Goa for that “travel agents conference”, you remember?’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘That’s when it all started between him and me. There was no conference in Goa. Simi, I don’t think you want to be in my position!’

‘Did you return the money to him?’ Simi asked out of curiosity and to figure out how arrangements like that worked.

‘He can’t get both, right?’ Shabnam smiled. ‘Now, he is never going to get the money back and he knows it!’

Shabnam was right; Simi didn’t want to be in her position.

‘Your mom can’t help?’ Shabnam asked as she put on some lipstick.

‘I can’t ask her. She is on a fixed income. Papa’s pension is just enough to run the house.’

Simi regretted it as soon as she said it. She didn’t like discussing her domestic situation so openly. Whatever money her mother was getting from her father’s pension was not enough. Simi had some money in her account, but she was saving it for getting an exhaust cooler installed. The summer was still months away but installing the cooler was her part of the household expenses. And this summer, she had resolved not to let her mother sleep in pressure cooker-type conditions, which was what their house was like in Nagpur’s infamous hot months.

‘Why don’t you ask your sister?
Voh toh chaap rahi hogi vaha
America
mein
?’ Shabnam casually asked Simi.

It irritated Simi no end that virtually everyone in Nagpur thought that Tia — whom they assumed was a millionaire just by the virtue of her being in America — was contributing towards Simi’s household expenses. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. Neither Simi nor her mother had a clue as to how much or how little money Tia was making. Many times she had — in the beginning — suggested an arrangement whereby she would send some money to them monthly, but her mother had refused any help from her.

She had also warned Simi against asking for any help from Tia. In fact her mother had even asked her not to speak to Tia, but in last three years she had relented. Whenever Simi and Tia talked via Skype her mother would linger in the background, just outside the view of Simi’s webcam. She would even steal a glimpse of Tia. But she was so stubborn — just like her daughter — that even after an intervention by Simi along the lines of: ‘Why can’t you forget the past and just get along?’ her mother never tried.

‘She’s the one who left us so arrogantly. She doesn’t need us and so we don’t need her!’

With no other options, Simi was seriously considering asking Tia for the
ten thousand rupees.
Just this once
, she thought to herself. Namit had texted her a few times already today. It was two p.m. and, after much consideration, Simi texted her sister:

Didi
, let’s Skype soon. Urgent. What time? Urgent. Luv, Simi.

And then she waited.

With the slide of the Rupee against the U.S. dollar, ten thousand divided by sixty — which was the current exchange rate — would be roughly one hundred and sixty-seven dollars. That should be peanuts for Tia. Simi prayed that her sister wouldn’t have to go to any trouble to loan her the money. She was sure Tia would ask her why she wanted it and Simi decided that instead of lying, she was going to just tell her the truth. This was her chance — although Simi was not vindictive — to make Tia
feel
for her.

Early morning — Los Angeles

Tia brought a pair of scissors and the newspaper onto her balcony and sat down. She took the coupons page of the newspaper and methodically cut out each one that was on her grocery list. She estimated that this was saving her two hundred dollars a month. Tia knew that almost everyone used coupons for their groceries, but she was slightly embarrassed about doing it herself. If she saw someone she knew in the checkout line, she would rather pay the full price. This was after holding up the queue for so long as a cashier scanned her thirty-odd coupons when there was a girl from her office in the line. She had not smiled back when Tia acknowledged her. Another time — when she had gone grocery shopping with Hari’s mother — she resisted the urge to use coupons; she didn’t want her soon-to-be mother-in-law to think less of her, as if she was a scrounger.

Tia poured herself a cup of coffee from the cappuccino machine she had purchased last year. It was on sale. Tia had gradually done up her apartment to look and feel modern. It was her plan to live there after she got married and although she hadn’t shared this plan with Hari, somehow she knew she had to convince him that there was no way she was going to live with his parents. They need not; they were in America.

Tia did not, by any stretch of the imagination, live like a scrounger. In fact, her weakness was shopping for clothes and shoes. She had racked up quite a bit of debt on her credit card. Her high balance in dues owed was one of the things she was afraid of sharing with Hari. She didn’t want him to think of her as either high-maintenance or a spendthrift. She did feel guilty about her debt. However, Tia had no idea that Hari was also reckless with his credit
card expenditure. For years, his father had been paying his bills. Hari had simply chosen not to feel guilty about it.

But that morning Tia felt an almost superstitious need to feel gratitude, so she cut an inspiring gratitude chart out from the spiritual section of the newspaper:

She saved it to stick in her journal. Of course she didn’t read it all there and then but scanned it onto her phone and set a reminder to look at it again later. She had a much more pressing matter to handle this morning.

After an hour’s drive

Tia reached the Malibu West Beach Club — her top choice for the engagement ceremony venue. As she parked her car, she noticed Hari dozing off in the passenger seat. She had, of course, dragged him along — it was vital that he was part of
her
decision-making and the venue was one of the most important choices after their outfits, the menu, the guest list and the …

Oh God! How am I going to do all this on my own?

She hit him lightly on his thigh. He woke up.

‘Have you been sleeping all this time, Hari?’

‘No, no! What’s up?’ Hari straightened himself up, wiping the saliva from his mouth.

‘You didn’t hear a single thing I said in the past hour, did you?’

‘No, no … I heard that you wanted a pink-themed … thematically pink …’ Hari searched for correct words.

‘That’s the first thing I said when you got into the car an hour ago. And the color is champagne pink.’ She helped Hari clean himself up, straightening his hair.

When they entered the gorgeous beachfront venue Mr. Belvedere, the property manager greeted them. Tia started to enquire about her booking.

‘I am afraid you’ll have to speak to the event planner Minto…

Hari suddenly laughed out loud.

Both Tia and Mr. Belvedere — who looked as if his lifetime quota of smiles was running out — glared at Hari.

‘Minto? Sorry, is that his …?’

‘Yes, that’s his real name. And may I also inform you Sir — and Madam — that he is one of the best event planners in the whole of California.’

‘Yes, yes. We want Mr. Minto then,’ Tia said eagerly.

‘As I said, he handles all the bookings and has the authority to make reservations. But he is in France until next week.’

‘Can we at least see the property?’ Tia asked.

‘I am afraid it won’t be possible. It’s against the club policy. You’ll just have to wait until Mr. Minto is back.’

Mr. Belvedere, without relaxing the stiffness of his stance, motioned towards an associate who immediately came running over to them.

‘He’ll show you to your car.’

Tia was already in love with the property and was disappointed that she couldn’t see it.

‘That’s it, Hari. We are going to have our engagement here,’ she announced.

‘Great, but don’t you want to wait until
Mr. Minto
shows you the whole place?’ Hari asked with as much enthusiasm as a fossil rock, and mocking Belvedere’s accent when he said ‘Mr. Minto’.

Tia came closer to Hari and whispered in his ear. ‘Sources tell me that Jennifer and Brad got married here. Secretly, of course.’

Hari looked at her like she was someone else. Which was not entirely wrong. Tia turned into a different personalities when it came to planning her engagement and wedding ceremonies — all of them hyper.

‘First of all, why are you whispering? Secondly, you know Brad left Jennifer right?’ Hari stated.

‘That’s a misrepresentation. It was Jen who left him.’

They argued in the parking lot about whether the venue was suitable, until Tia put her foot down.

‘Listen, Hari Malhotra, this is where you and me are going to get engaged, and that’s decided. Whether or not you want to show up on the day is up to you!’

‘You look damn sexy when you are possessed. I was just messing with you. I don’t care for any particular venue’

‘Why don’t you care about these things, Hari?’ Tia was breathing fire and was close to tears.

He was not sure if the possibility of such a beautiful venue was making her hyperventilate or what.

‘Tia, Tia … I am agreeing with you. Don’t tell me you are going to cry.’

‘Look Hari, I took the day off from work. We still have to go and decide on our outfits. There’s still an issue with the guest list … and … and …’

‘Shh, don’t worry. Give me the keys. I’ll drive. We’ll get everything done, OK?’

Hari hugged Tia and she slowly calmed down. He hugged her more than usual because he didn’t want her to start crying, that could be a two-hour process to bring her back to normal.

Their next stop was to Macy’s to look for her evening gown and a tuxedo for him for the engagement ceremony. For Hari, it was a nightmare. Tia, on the other hand, was giddy and excited. She was twirling around in dozens of dresses asking Hari for his opinion. They all looked same to him. So he used generic phrases that neither encouraged nor discouraged her.

‘Spectacular, but you think it’s worth
you
?’

‘I think for the price range, this one is the best buy. But do you really want to select the dress based on price?’

By the nineteenth dress he was having fun and had already decided what to say before Tia came out of the changing room each time.

‘This is the one. The … the work on it is so detailed, but then again, do you want a simple, elegant one?’

‘I couldn’t have designed this any better, the only thing is your figure is better than the cut on the dress.’

‘You want to wear a cream-colored dress? Your call is all I am going to say.’

Tia had decided that white was too boring and she was going to pick one in cream. After all those tries, finally, and astonishingly, Tia simply decided not to get one today and that she was going to come back with Jenny and pick one.

She shouldn’t have ignored the time-tested wisdom: A bride should rarely (never!) take her fiancé to choose her wedding dress or the engagement gown.

Of course she didn’t tell Hari that, but instead she said that they should look for his tuxedo now. Hari was really tired, so he simply said that if it was decided that he should wear a cream-colored tuxedo, he’d pick one himself.

‘Remember Hari; the important thing here is the color of the tux — cream. It’s got to be cream to go with my cream-colored gown.’

The day seemed to never end for Hari. Next Tia took him to the flower designer. He didn’t even know such a thing existed and he had to question the validity and necessity of such a person. He shouldn’t have mentioned it because Tia and the flower designer, Cassandra, proceded to lecture him on the importance of color schemes and the botanical matching of different flowers.

Next there was the designer for the invitations card. This time Hari kept quiet. He had a team of designers in his office and the invitations could have been designed in fifteen minutes flat, but he knew better and didn’t suggest
that
idea. You see Hari had employed a strategy. If anything at all were to go wrong during the engagement ceremony Tia was going to make it his
fault. That was a given. So Hari was not taking a stand. Sure he was feigning interest, but if someone had analyzed his handling of the day, they would see that he did not make a single decision. He wanted that on record, just in case.

Tia, on the other hand, had an ecstatic day. There were times during the day when she wondered if all this planning, booking and decision-making was more exciting than getting engaged. I mean it was all shopping, wasn’t it, with a sort of
splurge
license, there was no upper-limit, because it was her engagement. By the time she got back home after dropping Hari, it was late evening and she was tired. Satisfied but tired.

This was almost better than sex. Satisfied but tired.

Just as she was putting her feet on the table a reminder went off on her phone and the gratitude chart from that morning appeared on the screen. Now she could read it. She had, after all, every reason to be thankful. But when she glanced over it she suddenly felt guilty, remembering her mother and her sister, Simi.