“So? What are we doing about Zoya?”
That’s me. Zoya Sahni. The one something should be done about.
This Voice, from across the living room, is my aunt Sheila Bua. Pa’s oldest sister. Yesterday, to her acute horror, I turned an ancient twenty-six. I’m still unmarried, with no sign of a husband on the horizon. Which is like wading ankle deep into the Swamp of Eternal Spinsterhood.
“Tell me, what is our plan of action?” Sheila Bua says, her hands on her hips. Her voice, on the other hand, can qualify as a whole annoying person in its own right.
As if in agreement, a lone auto rickshaw sputters reluctantly two floors below in our tiny by-lane. It’s ten in the morning on a scorching Saturday, and in Bombay, nothing moves before noon on a weekend, not even the lethargic cuckoos in the mango trees. Nothing except Sheila Bua.
“What do you mean, Sheila didi?” My Mum’s soft voice is like piano music after Sheila Bua’s squawk.
“You know perfectly well, Geeta. It’s high time Zoya was married.” Sheila Bua struggles to wrench her feet out of her pearly flip-flops near the main door.” That’s all I can see of her, courtesy of my curly locks flowing over my face. This is far more romantic in theory than reality: gorgeous windswept hair versus coiled strands on your tongue. You might think I’m of the windswept hair variety. Nope. Coiled strands. Always.
It’s the stinking gutter of seasons—sticky and hot, so no point trying to cool my sweaty posterior on the marble floor. Might as well wear pajama bottoms inside a wet sauna. Mum, up on the fancy leather couch behind me, yanks a handful of my hair and pours sticky coconut oil on my scalp. It’s the usual Saturday morning hair massage, prescribed to be washed on Sunday afternoons. A centuries-old tradition no Indian female can escape. It’s a ritual. A lifestyle. Or maybe a rule. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference.
Sheila Bua is quite interested in getting me married. Because (a) she’s the custodian of our extended family—self-appointed, of course, and (b) that’s what she does. Arrange marriages. Matches grooms, brides, and families. Aiming her sights at unsuspecting bachelors and spinsters like a laser beam. For a hobby. They nestle inside her large, hideous lime-green purse—their pictures and bios, that is, as sent by hopeful parents, not the actual brides and grooms.
That I’ve lasted this long without being on her radar is a miracle in itself. Better to marry off the fair-slim-pretty one before beginning on a lost cause like Zoya. My fair-slim-pretty cousin Aisha is a done deal next week, Sheila Bua having arranged the rich, fat proposal herself.
Sheila Bua’s naked feet come closer, slapping on the creamy floor. Her rough fingers coil around my curls. “What have you done to your hair, Zoya? So dry. Like a carpet.”
“That’s just how it’s always been, Bua.”
“Are you letting the oil settle in? For hours?”
“I’ve been doing that since I was born. Hasn’t made a difference, has it?”
“Of course it has. Your hair is like a new carpet.” Sheila Bua says to Mum. “Just pour some more oil, Geeta. That is the only way it works!”
The trick with our traditions is to not argue. Things don’t change just because you want them to. We’ve all rebelled passively for centuries—do your thing, quietly, without anyone knowing you’ve rebelled. Two hours is all I’ll give this truckload of shit. Any mention of my bad hair day—which, by the way, is every day—drives Mum batty. My bad hair day is just one of my many non-virtues in the marriage market. Mum’s frustration spills onto my itchy scalp as she overturns the blue plastic bottle of oil. A sticky trail joins the coiled strands on my face.
To be honest, I love this massage. Warm oil rubbed onto your scalp is bliss. Plus, that’s our time, Mum’s and mine, to catch up, to gossip. About my boss, who is slightly annoying and totally taciturn. About Mum, like when she secretly studied criminal law after being forbidden, or when she swore violently at Pa that one time. I love those stories, especially the rule-breaking ones. The only times Mum rebelled in her life, directly. Not that she’s a doormat or anything. She’s a modern, educated woman and a law college professor. But she’s still my very Indian mother, who, like most of her brethren, is quite desperate to marry her daughter off by a certain age.
“Sheila didi, look how much oil she needs,” Mum smacks my head. “I can’t even get to the middle of this bird’s nest. The one thing she inherits from her father. Rough hair.”
Pa’s bald. Not the time to remind Mum of that. She pulls the giant mass of curls yet again, jerking my neck up so hard I swear I’ve developed spondylitis. I yank my neck up, and my abundant aunt blazes into focus. Squeezed into an expensive kurti tunic and tights, fluorescent pink and bright orange, she’s a migraine in waiting. Which, had the oil massage been relaxing, would have rendered it completely useless.
The doorbell rings in a sing-songy tune, first of many buzzers in a day, its suddenness making Sheila Bua jump. Sujata bai, one of our three maids, saunters in. Her pink sari hangs limp on her thin body and she brings with her a musky odor.
“Tell me, Geeta,” Sheila Bua reverts her attention from the maid to the topic of the day, “have you started looking for boys yet?”
“No, we haven’t started. How can we start without you? But this stupid girl wants to wait for another year before getting married. Can you imagine?” She clicks her tongue and smacks my shoulder. “That we startlooking for boys when she is twenty-seven! What are we to do?”
What happens to modern, fairly sane mothers when it is time to get their daughters married? “Yes, I want to wait for another year,” I mutter.
“Wait?” Sheila Bua staggers as if she’s discovered a dead body right in the living room. She turns to Mum. “Are you out of your mind to let her wait? These girls of today! She wants to give me my first gray hair, turn me into an old woman?” Sheila Bua’s silky black hair, almost blue in its darkness (regular double doses of L’Oreal hair dye) is pulled back into a low ponytail. Angry little crinkles gather on her forehead at the collective foolishness of the young.
“You talk to her father, Sheila didi. I’ve tried to tell him exactly how long it takes to find a good boy, but fathers have no notion of what it’s like to get a daughter married.” The horror of having a spinster daughter transforms my mother’s sweet voice into a hoarse grumble, especially now that other girls my age are being rapidly packaged off as brides as if on an assembly line.
Pa is the only one who agrees with me. Indirectly, because (a) he does not actively breathe down my neck or (b) he changes the topic anytime Mum tries to broach marriage, then winks at me, which pisses her off greatly. Pa, the over-dedicated head surgeon, absconded this morning to his hospital at the crack of dawn. I think he knew Sheila Bua would show up—he has a sixth sense about her that could rival any psychic. How long my father or I last in the face of this strengthened alliance between Mum and my aunt is another matter, for arranging marriages and subduing dissent are Sheila Bua’s special domain.
“What is this new-fangled waiting? Most girls will be nicely married, probably mothers by the time Zoya decides she is ready. All good boys will be snapped up!” Sheila Bua snaps her stubby, diamond-studded fingers, but they make no sound. “What will she find then? The leftovers?” It is a grand stroke of luck that Sheila Bua has no daughters, only a twenty-eight-year-old son Yuvi, recently married, which gives her free time to meddle. Help, I mean. Help people.
“I really don’t want leftovers—”
“You will end up all alone! Pitied. All because you waited. What kind of a family would we be if we didn’t do our duty and help you?” Sheila Bua is in her element. “Waiting! I never heard of such a thing! You can afford to wait when you are twenty, not twenty-six. Like that neighbor of yours, that Kamya Sharma? She’s still waiting. At thirty-three!” Her arms move in the air like the conductor of an orchestra, and the peach window curtains gently swish behind her like a hushed audience.
I am close to my expiration date in the arranged marriage supermarket. And haven’t even started the search for a husband due to, horror of horrors, an education and a career.
To start the search at twenty-six means you’re halfway to oblivion. A girl like me is moved lower and lower on the marriage shelf, replaced by younger, fresher models. And when the dreaded three-zero hits, you’re taken off the shelf and stuffed onto the back aisle, the “clearance, expired goods” area. Proposals will wane and there I’ll be, still unmarried at forty. Neither wife nor mother; neither divorced nor widowed nor abandoned. I’ll be like those extra pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit anywhere, and no one knows what to do with them so they are banished to a dusty corner till they crumble into dust.
I don’t want to marry just because that’s what needs to be done, like a tick mark on a checklist. But ever since Aisha’s engagement six months ago, I kind of secretly wish I was more like her and other normal girls, doing the right thing at the right time. The family would look upon me with approval, too, and not as a weak link either to be borne or disposed of to the nearest bidder as quickly as possible. And I don’t want to stand out more than I already do; oh, you’ll know why soon enough.
Our doorbell shrieks yet again. Argh! Bombay should be renamed the City of Shrieking Doorbells because of the continuous stream of humanity in and out through our doors. Our second maid for the day, Mala the cook, glides in, permanently snooty about her high position in the hierarchy of domestic labor. She rotates her whole body toward Mum, like a large drum. “What to make today, Geeta bhabi?”
“Make potato sandwiches for breakfast and chicken curry for lunch, please. Sheila didi, you’re staying for lunch, na?”
“Of course. We have a lot of work to do. And you leave Zoya’s father to me. He will never disagree with what I say.” The leather sofa emits a squeaky little hiss as she sits.
“Before we start,” she aims a pointed stare at me, “tell me if you like some boy already? Come on, don’t be shy. Either we arrange a marriage for you or, if you like a boy, I dig up some dirt about him and his family, and then we arrange it for you. Tell me the truth.”
Technically, there was Raunak three months ago. Nothing serious, just drinks and other … benefits. Hooded eyes and a sneery intellectual voice. Also, he’s addicted to pot. My family is modern by Indian standards, but not fling modern. Or pot modern. “No, I don’t have anyone.”
“Of course she doesn’t.” Mum continues to thwack my head as if she’s decided to fight my bad hair day till the bitter end. “How would she find anyone, shut up in that office all day, staring at a computer? She doesn’t even come with me to weddings of our relations.”
Technically, Indian weddings are a union of two individuals and their families. But in reality, weddings are prime bride/groom hunting arenas for unmarried offspring. You walk into a wedding and a gaggle of assorted aunties descend out of nowhere to pinch your cheeks as if you were five. Followed by a sly full-body inspection to check your weight (gain, not loss) to feel infinitely better about their still-slim daughters/nieces/best-friends’-daughters. Thanks, but no thanks. “Weddings are boring, Mum.”
“Sushh, child!” Sheila Bua holds up a palm to silence me, gold bangles gleaming on her wrist. “I will find someone for you. See what a nice boy I found for Aisha?” Varun Sethi, the nice boy, is the scion of a large toilet-making fortune. It is rumored, Sheila Bua tells her clients in a conspiratorial whisper, that he plops on a golden commode every morning, which sprays jets of French perfume on his, umm, nether regions. Aisha is marrying Toilet Boy in less than a week and her henna ceremony is in two days. This is an extra reason for my hair massage: to tame the devil of frizz who lives in my hair so I don’t show up at the ceremony with a lion’s mane in its full glory.
Toilet Boy meets all the criteria for an arranged match: same religion, same language (out of the twenty-two official ones), and same caste: Hindu-Punjabi-Khatri. This whole arranged marriage thing, it’s like being in space. Multiple universes hover in darkness, distant and aloof; a separate religion reigns supreme in each. Within each universe is an abundance of galaxies, all of them speaking different languages. And within each galaxy, a gazillion planets of socioeconomic castes orbit around their own importance.
Plus, Toilet Boy is educated, wealthy, has good future prospects, and is from a fairly sane family. And is reasonably sane himself. All mandatory, because who wants to marry a psychotic loser?
So you see, Sheila Bua’s job demands Einstein’s intelligence. The Theory of Arranged Marriagivity: Keep to your own planet. The rest of space can go eff themselves.
A pungent smell sneaks into the living room from the kitchen and hovers near the open French windows. Smoky hot oil, tangy hing, and crackly mustard seeds. Food makes everything better. And never judges.
Sheila Bua sniffs the air and sighs in pleasure. She pats her purse as if caressing a beloved pet. “Before we start the search for a husband, let’s look at the kind of photos other girls have sent. They are like portfolios of supermodels.” She winces at my oily face and wild hair. She sets her jaw in a determined look, her bunny teeth gleaming from behind a coat of pink lipstick. “At least look at Zoya’s competition. What is the use of being a matchmaker if we can’t preempt all rivals to use it to our family’s advantage, I ask?”
Mum stops all pretense of an oil massage, rests her palms on my shoulders, and stares at the 8 × 10 glossy picture of a twenty-two-year-old girl, Pooja. Sheila Bua dangles the photo in front of my face. “See?” she says. “Twenty-two. She started almost a year ago. I’ve shown her family six boys already!”
Fair, slim, homely postgraduate in Finance. 5'5", proficient in cooking Indian, Thai, Chinese, and Continental food. Excellent homemaker, earning in seven figures, but not very ambitious. Very flexible when it comes to career, can leave job for family. Father has a business of copper metal; mother is a housewife. PunjabiMatrimony.com profile: pooja21. More details on contact.
Mum turns the picture over, and a fashion model stares out of it, all pouts and sucked-in cheeks. Her fair skin gleams due to Photoshop or the layers of expert concealer and foundation, I can’t tell. My heart sinks, despite the feigned disinterest. How can I compete with that?
“Has Zoya been using that face cream I gave you?” Sheila Bua asks Mum.
“Yes. You know, I don’t like this whole ‘make your skin fairer’ idea, but at this point, we have to try anything.” Mum and Sheila Bua look grim, as though discussing the last weapons in their arsenal. “Anyway, it’s good for her occasional pimples.” Mum gives Sheila Bua a weird look. It’s nothing unusual, lots of strange looks pass between them, which mean nothing to a third person. They lived in the same neighborhood and were close friends, way before Mum married into the family. So it’s an old friendship, and pretty solid, much to my detriment. I bet they know all kinds of stuff about each other. Not that there would be much “stuff” to know; they don’t look like they ever did anything remotely interesting in their youth. I mean, Mum, maybe, because I know those quasi-rebellious stories about her, but Sheila Bua? Apart from some dumb painting hobby, I’d say not a chance in hell. I bet she started marrying people the moment she was born.
But this cream. It masquerades as a moisturizer to turn you four shades lighter. I am a dark-skinned Punjabi girl about to enter the gladiatorial arena of arranged marriages. Or “wheatish complexion,” as the women of the family explain, without using the dreaded D-word, slightly apologetic, as if they really tried for fair skin but what to do if the girl-baby had a mind of her own?
Now, I didn’t exactly use the cream. Just dabbed it on once a week instead of once a day and squeezed a substantial amount in the sink. Remember the passive rebellion?
The photo-girl’s highlighted face stares out of the picture, nonthreatening, but still somehow confident in her ability to land a groom in a jiffy. Her nose, her eyes, her lips, her cheeks are all angled in soft light. She looks like she’s made of spun wool and sugar. Her tight salwar kameez is pasted to her slim body. Loose-fitted pants that taper at the ankles and a long pink tunic as tight as decorum allows. She sucks in every limb except her chest, which sticks out like two giant blobs.
“We need to get Zoya some new clothes. Something bright and colorful and unique. This is just—” Sheila Bua is speechless as she tugs on my loose penguin pajamas and faded gray T-shirt. Who the hell gets dressed at ten thirty on a weekend for oiling their hair?
To complete the professional and personal nightmare for Sheila Bua, I am what is politely called “filled out in body.” Which, in arranged marriage lingo, means fat. And brands you as almost unmarriageable unless you can make certain “compromises” in your choice of groom.
The word has lived with me as long as I can remember, like an unloved but tolerated relative. Some days, when I see other fat girls, I mentally compare our bodies, and if I perceive that I am less fat, I feel a wretched little blip of joy. Pathetic, yes, I know. After which I am so thoroughly ashamed that I gobble up a plateful of greasy hakka noodles followed by a large piece of coffee cake from Birdy’s. I wish someone would start a Fataholics Anonymous someday.
Back to the marriage race, which is practically lost even before the start. There’s no difference between twenty-nine and thirty, and everyone knows thirty is just a front for thirty-one, so unless I am married off in the next three years, I’ll have officially kicked the bucket. For Sheila Bua, that is.
Another doorbell rings. At our neighbor’s apartment this time. Several rickshaws stutter, followed by snarling vehicles and hammers knocking. And so it begins. “Achcha Geeta, is Zoya five feet two or five feet two and a half?”
“How does that matter? Half here and there?” Mum asks.
“Don’t forget the half inch. It’s very important. We’ll take any water in the dryness of this desert!” Sheila Bua mutters, somber as a marine ready for war.
Really, what chance do I have?
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