Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

She wondered how long it would take to set. Savita took out a handkerchief and wiped her tears for her.

Veena quickly began a song about her delicate hands and how she couldn’t draw water at the public well. She was her father-in-law’s favourite; he had felt sorry for her and had had a well made for her in the garden of the house. She was the favourite of her husband’s elder brother; he had given her a gold vessel for the water. She was the favourite of her husband’s younger brother; he had given her a silken rope for the bucket. She was the beloved of her husband, and he had hired two water-carriers for her. But her husband’s sister and mother were jealous of her, and had secretly gone and covered up the well.

In another song the jealous mother-in-law slept next to the newly married bride so that her husband couldn’t visit her at night. Mrs Rupa Mehra enjoyed these songs as much as she always did, probably because it was impossible for her to imagine herself in any such role.

Malati — together with her mother, who had suddenly appeared in Brahmpur — sang, ‘You grind the spices, fat one, and we will eat!’

Kakoli clapped loudly while her henna was still green and moist — and smudged it completely. Her musical contribution was a variant of ‘Roly Poly Mr Kohli’, which, in the absence of her mother, she sang to the tune of a Tagore song:

‘Roly poly Mr Kohli

Walking slowly up the stairs.

Holy souly Mrs Kohli

Comes and takes him unawares.

Mr Kohli, base and lowly,

Stares at choli, dreams of lust,

As the holy Mrs Kohli

With her pallu hides her bust.’

Before dusk the next day the guests began to gather on the lawn to the sound of the shehnai.

The men of the family stood by the gate and received them. Arun and Varun were dressed in fine, starched, white kurta-pyjamas embroidered with chikan work. Pran was dressed in the white sharkskin sherwani he had worn at his own wedding — though it had been winter then.

Mrs Rupa Mehra’s brother had come from Madras as usual, but had arrived too late for the bangle ceremony, which he had been expected to help perform. He knew almost none of the people he was greeting, and only a few of them looked familiar to him, perhaps from the time of Savita’s wedding. He greeted everyone decorously as they passed into the garden. Dr Kishen Chand Seth, on the other hand, overheated in the straitjacket of an extremely tight black achkan, got impatient after a while with this endless meeting and greeting, shouted at his son, whom he had not seen for more than a year, loosened a few buttons, and wandered off to supervise something. He had refused to stand in for his late son-in-law in the ceremonies on the grounds that sitting still and listening to priests would destroy both his circulation and his serenity.

Mrs Rupa Mehra was wearing a beige chiffon sari with a beautiful gold border — a gift from her daughter-in-law that had made her entirely forget the incident of the lacquer box. She knew that He wouldn’t have wanted her to dress too much like a widow on their younger daughter’s wedding day.

The groom’s party was fifteen minutes late already. Mrs Rupa Mehra was starving: she was not meant to eat until she had given her daughter away, and she was glad that the astrologers had set the actual time of the wedding for eight o’clock, and not, say, eleven.

‘Where are they?’ she demanded of Maan, who happened to be standing nearby and was gazing in the direction of the gate.

‘I’m sorry, Ma,’ said Maan. ‘Who do you mean?’ He had been looking out for Firoz.

‘The baraat, of course.’

‘Oh, yes, the baraat — well, they should be coming at any minute. Shouldn’t they be here already?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, as impatient and anxious as the Boy standing on the Burning Deck. ‘Yes, of course they should.’

The baraat was at last sighted, and everyone crowded towards the gate. A large, maroon, flower-adorned Chevrolet drove up. It narrowly avoided scratching Dr Kishen Chand Seth’s grey Buick, which was parked somewhat obstructively near the entrance. Haresh stepped out. He was accompanied by his parents and his brothers and was followed by, among others, a motley crowd of his college friends. Arun and Varun escorted him to the verandah. Lata emerged from inside the house, dressed in a red-and-gold sari, and with her eyes lowered, as befitted a bride. They exchanged garlands. Sunil Patwardhan broke into loud cheers, and the photographer clicked away.

They walked across the lawn to the wedding platform, decorated with roses and tuberoses, and sat down facing the young priest from the local Arya Samaj temple. He lit the fire and began the ceremony. Haresh’s foster-parents sat near Haresh, Mrs Rupa Mehra sat near Lata, and Arun and Varun sat behind her.

‘Sit up straight,’ said Arun to Varun.

‘I am sitting straight!’ retorted Varun Mehra, IAS, angrily. He noticed that Lata’s garland had slipped off her left shoulder. He helped rearrange it and glared at his brother.

The guests, unusually for a wedding, were quiet and attentive as the priest went through the rites. Mrs Rupa Mehra was sobbing through her Sanskrit, and Savita was sobbing too, and soon Lata was crying as well. When her mother took her hand, filled it with rose petals and pronounced the words, ‘O bridegroom, accept this well-adorned bride called Lata,’ Haresh, prompted by the priest, took her hand firmly in his own and repeated the words: ‘I thank you, and accept her willingly.’

‘Cheer up,’ he added in English. ‘I hope you won’t have to go through this again.’ And Lata, whether at that thought or at his tone of voice, did indeed cheer up.

Everything went well. Her brothers poured puffed rice on to her hands and into the fire each time she and Haresh circled it. The knot between their scarves was tied, and bright red sindoor was applied to the parting of Lata’s hair with the gold ring that Haresh was to give her. This ring ceremony puzzled the priest (it didn’t fit in with his idea of Arya Samaji rituals), but because Mrs Rupa Mehra insisted on it, he went along with it.

One or two children squabbled tearfully over the possession of some rose petals; and an insistent old woman tried without success to get the priest to mention Babé Lalu, the clan deity of the Khannas, in the course of his liturgy; other than that, everything went harmoniously.

But when the people who were gathered together recited the Gayatri Mantra three times before the witnessing fire, Pran, glancing at Maan, noticed that his head was bowed and his lips trembling as he mumbled the words. Like his elder brother, he could not forget the last time that the ancient words had been recited in his presence, and before a different fire.

It was a warm evening, and there was less silk and more fine cotton than at Savita’s wedding. But the jewellery glittered just as gloriously. Meenakshi’s little pear-earrings, Veena’s navratan and Malati’s emeralds glinted across the garden, whispering to each other the stories of their owners.

The younger Chatterjis were out in full force, but there were very few politicians, and no children from Rudhia running wildly around. A couple of executives from the small Praha factory in Brahmpur were present, however, as were some of the middlemen from the Brahmpur Shoe Mart.

Jagat Ram too had come, but not his wife. He stood by himself for a while until Kedarnath noticed him and beckoned him to join them.

When he was introduced to old Mrs Tandon, she was unable to stifle her discomfiture. She looked at him as if he smelt, and gave him a weak namaste.

Jagat Ram said to Kedarnath: ‘I have to go now. Would you give this to Haresh Sahib and his bride?’ He handed him what looked like a small shoebox covered in brown paper.