Kavita Daswani - For Matrimonial Purposes

I had observed, these past few months, how my mother’s innate joie de vivre seemed slowly to diminish under the weight of her anxiety about me. She had nothing to feel sad about, surely: my father’s business was thriving, allowing her to visit India Emporium to shop for Banarasi silk and French chiffon saris whenever it pleased her. Or to spend three afternoons a week playing rummy and eating pakoda s with her friends. Or to go along to all those religious gatherings, baby-naming ceremonies, kitty parties, where she could show off a new, shiny piece of jewellery made by my father, or talk about how well her sons were doing in school.

But invariably, she would return home from each one of these social gatherings with her elegant head slightly drooping from her graceful, South-Sea-pearl-draped neck, telling me or whoever was around that she had just heard that Shanta’s son was engaged, or Mira’s niece or Renu’s grandson. My mother watched as all the women she grew up with, and all the distant relatives she had acquired after her marriage, were jubilant in their news of another engagement, another marriage, even another grandchild on its way. Sitting there, with her plate of pakoda s and her share of playing cards, contriving a smile and uttering congratulations, she always wondered why – when it came to her daughter’s matrimonials – she had been dealt a bad hand.

‘More tea?’ I asked of Udhay, standing up to make for the kitchen, falsely believing that if I made a good impression, it might affect the outcome of things.

‘ Nahin, bas , enough,’ the astrologer replied. Looking up, he said, ‘I think I have understood vot is happening here.’

I caught my mother’s short, whisper-quiet intake of breath, priming herself for the best news, or the worst. There were two words she would die if she heard: anura yoga – that the possibility of marriage does not exist.

‘Your daughter has rahu in her seventh house,’ he said, pausing. ‘The timing is not good for her now for marriage. She must vait.’

‘How long?’ my mother asked, biting her bottom lip, her face slowly turning white, as if she were being sentenced to Alcatraz.

‘Some years still,’ said Udhay sorrowfully. He hated being the bearer of bad news. It often meant that the envelope containing his cash payment when he left this session would be lighter than if he had delivered happier tidings.

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