Amulya Malladi - The Mango Season

“The best pau bhaji is still in Bombay,” Adarsh said when the busboy was gone. He then took a swig from the bottled water. “So, why did you want to see me?”

I rested my chin on the palm of my left hand, moving my head slowly as my hand pivoted around my elbow and smiled at Adarsh.

“You didn’t want to see me,” he deduced, and sighed. “Your mother and your grandfather-”

“Plotted behind my back,” I finished. “Yup. I’m horribly sorry and to make up for it, chaat is on me and we can stop by this place I went to the other day and even have ganna juice.”

Adarsh’s eyes glinted with good humor. “You don’t want to marry me. Is that it?”

“Well… ” I started and paused when a big smile broke on his face. “I don’t.”

“Okay,” he said, and took another swig of water.

“You don’t seem too broken up about it,” I said, slightly miffed that he was taking my rejection so well.

“I’ve seen five girls and I liked you the best, but I’m not in love with you,” Adarsh said.

That was the good thing, I thought, about men like Adarsh. They treated arranged marriage exactly the way it should be treated, without too many emotions messing with their decision-making process.

“Any of the other four girls to your liking?” I had to ask.

“Yes,” Adarsh said with a smile. “Her name is Priya, too, but she’s shorter than you are and definitely has less… of that spark.”

“Is that a polite way of saying I have a short temper?”

“Well… I just saw a spark of it here and there,” Adarsh said with a grin. “So, your family forced you into that pelli-chupulu?”

“Yes and no,” I confessed. “I could’ve-no, should’ve-fought against it but I wanted some peace and I didn’t have the courage to tell them about my boyfriend.”

Adarsh put the bottle down and made an annoyed sound. “You have a boyfriend? And why the hell didn’t you tell me when I told you about my ex-girlfriend?”

He had every right to be mad so I continued humbly. “I was scared,” I admitted the truth. “I was scared of hurting my family and I ended up hurting you.”

“Humiliating me,” Adarsh amended. “Goddamn it, what’s wrong with you women? I mean, I agree that arranged marriage is archaic but, Priya, you work in the United States. You are a grown woman. Why the hell are you playing these stupid games?”

“Not games, Adarsh,” I said, keeping my voice calm even though I wanted to rage at him. How would he understand how much I was afraid of losing my family? How could he understand that?

“Then what?”

“He is American,” I revealed. “And I told them yesterday but they don’t want to come to terms with it. They dragged you here hoping I would give in. Be charmed by your ultra-good looks and the rest of the package.”

We fell silent when the busboy brought Adarsh’s pau bhaji and my chai. He ignored his food while I blew at the hot tea to cool it.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized.

“I’m so fucking tired of women like you,” Adarsh muttered.

“Women like me? Excuse me, but you don’t even know me,” I said, putting my cup down with force that caused some of the tea spill on the saucer.

“Why are you so scared? My ex-girlfriend wouldn’t tell her parents about me. She was scared because they expected her to marry a Chinese guy… And that’s why we broke up, because I got sick of her not accepting me,” Adarsh said.

“And you told your parents about her?”

“Yes,” Adarsh said. “I told them when things got serious and we moved in together, but Linda just wouldn’t do it.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated sincerely. “I told my family yesterday night. I’m going to tell them again today… I don’t know what else to do. I’m scared that I’ll lose them if I tell them and I’m scared I’ll lose Nick if I don’t.”

“Oh, you’ll lose him if you don’t,” Adarsh assured me and dug into his bhaji. “Want a bite?”

I shook my head. “So am I forgiven?”

“Hey, who am I to judge. I’m the one finding a wife like I would a job,” Adarsh said, and then chewed on his food with relish.

“You think the other Priya will work out for you?”

Adarsh nodded, his expression amused as well as confident. “She’s twenty years old, lives with her parents. Just finished her degree, so yeah, I think she’ll work out. She likes to run and hike, I kinda like the same things, so… we’ll go camping a lot.”

“I’m glad and again, I’m really sorry for having put you through this,” I said.

Adarsh shrugged nonchalantly. “As long as you pay for the chaat and provide me with the promised ganna juice… I have no complaints.”

I tried to call Nick once more and still got the answering machine and voice mail. It was hard not to panic. I checked my email in the hope that he had sent something but I couldn’t access the account as the ISP of the Internet café I was going to was down.

Not wanting to go back to Thatha’s where I would have to deal with some unsavory questions, I decided to go to my parents’ house instead. Nate was there and if he wasn’t, I knew the neighbor always had a key to the house. I could sneak in and get some quiet time. And I could check email from Nate’s computer.

Talking to Adarsh had raised some difficult issues; mostly I was feeling the garden variety, old-fashioned guilt. I started to wonder how Nick had felt about me keeping him a secret for the past three years we had been dating. I knew he thought it was silly not to tell my family about him, but now I started to realize that maybe he saw it as an insult as well, just like Adarsh had with his Chinese girlfriend.

But it was still a man’s world and we women had to balance the fine line between familial responsibilities and our own needs.

I waved for an auto rickshaw to take me to my parents’ house from the Internet café. I didn’t barter with the rickshawwallah, just agreed to the forty-five rupees he asked for.

Maybe Nick was busy. My mind made up excuses for his not being available on any data line. What if he had had an accident? No, no, I told myself firmly, Frances would know if that happened and Frances had said everything was fine, that she’d just talked to Nick the night before.

What if he was with another woman? As soon as I thought it, I knew it was preposterous. Nick could never be with another woman. Whenever I joked that he should leave me and go away he would say, “Where would I go? No one will have me but you.”

We both really had nowhere to be but with each other. Relationships bound people together to the point that home was a feeling and not a brick structure. I knew where home was and it definitely was not here in Hyderabad. These people were not family. How easily they had decided to give me up. Anger ripped through me. I don’t conform to their rules, I don’t exist, not important to anyone anymore. My own father walks out and doesn’t bother to tell me whether he is dead or alive as if my marrying Nick is the end of the world.

I paid the auto rickshaw driver and opened the rickety metal gate that led to the grilled veranda of my parents’ house.

“Priya?” Mrs. Murthy who lived across the street called out from her veranda.

I nodded and then waved to her. She stood up from the cane chair she was sitting on, fanning herself rapidly with a coconut straw fan. “Is your mother back, too?”

“No,” I said. “She’s still at Thatha and Ammamma’s house.”

“They took the light off again,” she complained, vigorously fanning herself. “Why don’t you come here and sit with me for a while until the light comes back, hanh? It is cooler here than your place… I always told Radha, west-facing house, big mistake.”