Chitra Divakaruni - One Amazing Thing

After the film, it was customary for members to go out for dinner to the posh Imperial Hotel, where they took turns paying for the group’s dinner. Soon I began to join them. The hotel’s restaurant was sinfully expensive. But I saved money for a month, eating only rice and sambar, which I cooked on a kerosene stove in the secrecy of my room, and at the planned moment I casually plucked the bill out of the waiter’s hands and said, “Folks-my treat today.”

It was at one of these dinners that I met Naina, the only daughter of a high-level government official. I wooed her cleverly, presenting her with love poems-signed with my name-that I copied from anthologies I knew she would never read, and exerting just the right amount of pressure on her hand during our evening walks in the Lodhi Gardens. I hope you will not think too badly of me. My heart beat hard when I did these things, and I thought that was a sign of love. But perhaps it was desperation-I was six months away from graduating and my grandmother had been hospitalized. Finally, on an excursion to the Taj Mahal-timed so that we would be there under the hypnotic glow of a full moon-I confessed my feelings for her, insisting immediately afterward that she forget me. My origins were too humble. She would never be able to persuade her father to accept me.

This veiled challenge had the desired effect. Naina went to her father and insisted that she would marry no one but me. Her father did not like this. But love for his child was the single chink in his armor. He hired private detectives to research my background. They found nothing objectionable in it other than poverty. Impressed by the ambition that had brought me this far in life, he invited me to his office where, after an hour of grilling, he agreed to the marriage. He even offered to find me a suitably high position-he thought I would do well in the government’s Protocol Department-and advised me to take the appropriate examinations so that this could be managed. The one thing he expected of me, he said as we shook hands in farewell, was that I keep his daughter happy. Failure to do this, he said, smiling jovially, could be dangerous to my health. I was not sure if this was a threat or a joke. In either case, I did not worry about it. How hard could it be to keep a woman happy? I thought. I did not know that Naina would undergo a Jekyllean transformation soon after our wedding.

THE FIRST SIGNS WERE SMALL: NAINA ASKING ME TO FETCH HER a drink at a friend’s party, her tone more an order than a request; Naina deciding on deep red as the color theme for the luxurious new flat her father had given us as a wedding gift, even though I preferred something more restrained; Naina flipping through the numerous invitations we received, deciding which ones to accept and which to snub; Naina spending hours shopping for new shoes at a scandalously expensive store and settling on a pair that cost as much as my salary for a week. (When I remarked on this fact, she reminded me that she was paying for it with her own money. This was true. In addition to a trust, she had a hefty allowance out of which she paid all our household expenses so that I was free to use my salary however I desired. She was generous that way.)

I put up with these rumbles. All her life, Naina had been given everything she wanted as soon as she wanted it. I expected that it would take her time to settle into domesticity. Meanwhile, I focused on my job, which was to oversee hospitality for visiting governmental dignitaries. I liked conversing with powerful people from around the world. I liked my office staff, who treated me with a deference I had never before experienced. Every month, I sent most of my paycheck to my parents, who had by now repaired the roof, paid the most urgent medical bills, and made plans for my middle sister’s wedding. It was a happy time.

A happy time, even though Naina refused to go to my backwater hometown to attend my sister’s wedding. She pointed out that she had already booked tickets for us to attend the Cannes Film Festival. I controlled my temper and requested that she consider coming with me instead, because this was important. She asked if I was crazy. We had our first fight-but those were the early days, and we made it up. Afterward she told me (as part apology) that she would be miserable at the wedding and that would make everyone else miserable, too. So she went to Cannes with her best friend, Rita, and I went home to face my family’s questions.

THE EVENT THAT CAUSED AN IRREPARABLE RIFT IN OUR MARRIAGE occurred the next year, when my parents wanted to visit. I tried to discourage them, offering to travel home again, but they were longing to see my fancy new flat-and my fancy new wife. When I told Naina, she shrugged and said that they could come if I really wanted it, but she wasn’t going to have them staying with us. I could put them up at a hotel. Not to worry, she would pay for it.

Those of you familiar with Indian traditions will realize what an insult that was to my parents-and to me. But I couldn’t say anything. Naina’s last sentence made me aware of how beholden I was to her. It was her flat I was living in, her food I was eating. Even the job I held was due to her father’s string-pulling. I was ashamed that once I had considered these indications of good fortune.

The next day, I stayed back in my office after work; when the other employees left, I phoned my parents to inform them of what Naina had decreed. They did not express the hurt they must have felt. They told me not to worry; they would come another year when it was more convenient. But I knew the truth. They were proud people; they would never ask to visit again. My mother added that she had made a box of Maisoorpak, my favorite sweet, and that she would mail it to me. She hoped Naina would like it. After I hung up, I sat with my head in my hands. When I could no longer escape the fact that I had made the biggest mistake of my life by marrying Naina-yes, I confess it-I started to cry.

That was when someone knocked on the door. A hesitant female voice asked if I was okay. It was Latika, our department’s accountant, who had been working late. Passing by my office, she had heard my sobs. Her concern made me break down further. She fetched me water, rummaged through her handbag and found me a handkerchief to wipe my face, and told me things would surely look better in the morning. I told her I didn’t think so. Before I knew it, I began pouring out my marital troubles. She pulled up a chair and listened, not trying to offer any solutions.

I couldn’t help noting how different Latika was from Naina. She was no beauty, but in her simple sari and minimal makeup she exuded a glow. If Naina was a flashing disco light, Latika was the moon in a misty sky. Behind her glasses, her eyes were understanding, and I felt that she knew the meaning of struggle. The handkerchief she gave me was frayed at the edges, and I was impressed that she hadn’t minded sharing it with me even though I would see this. The act made her seem at once brave and vulnerable-and real in a way that most of the people I had been mingling with recently were not.

I must have talked to her for half an hour, moving from my anger toward Naina to the subject of my parents and how much they had sacrificed for me. In return Latika told me that her parents had died in a train accident a couple of years earlier. She still missed them every day. Her only remaining family was her younger brother, whom she was putting through college.

When I apologized for having delayed her and offered her a ride (I drove a BMW that my father-in-law had given me and that-until that day-I had been rather vain about), she refused. The buses were still running, and the bus stop was right across from the ladies’ hostel where she roomed. But I insisted, pointing out that it was raining. We sprinted through the rain across the empty street to the parking garage. We were soaked and laughing by the time we reached the car. An hour back, I wouldn’t have believed that anything could have made me laugh on this day. As I drove Latika to her hostel, I felt that, perhaps to balance out my misfortune, the universe had offered me a friend.