2 States The Story Of My Marriage (19 page)

‘I went to IIMC. I was on the waitlist for IIMA but they never called me. I guess I
am not as smart as you,’ Anil said.

I had no clue how to answer that question. Another trainee in the room was

from IIMC and he introduced himself. They hi-fived before Anil turned to me

again.

‘But who cares, I became the country manager and many of your IIMA seniors

didn’t,’ Anil said and winked at me.

Obviously you still care, you obnoxious, insecure prick, I said to myself even as I
smiled. What would life be without mental dialogue.

‘So, you had the idea of selling Internet stocks to housewives?’ Anil asked

after he touched down from his gloat-flight. ‘And Bala, you didn’t stop him.’

‘Sir, I always try to encourage young talent. Plus, IIMA, I thought he’d know,’

Bala said, picking on Anil’s resentment against my bluest of the blue-blooded

institute.

‘IIMA, yeah right,’ Anil said. ‘You have cost the bank more business than you

can ever make back in five years.’

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I wondered if I should cancel my deal with Bala. Even the personalized coffee

didn’t seem worth it.

‘What about monitoring? Bala, you didn’t monitor when the losses started?’

‘I was getting more business, sir,’ Bala said.

We had a lunch-break. I didn’t join the group. One, I had to prepare for IIT

trigonometry for the class tomorrow with brother-in-law. Two, I didn’t need any

more slamming. And three, the food was South Indian special, which I had begun

to hate by now and I was sure Anil would too.

Post-lunch, Anil wrapped up the meeting. ‘I want good customer numbers.

Either bring those customers back or win new ones, I don’t care. And please have

better food next time.’

‘We will, sir, we are working super hard,’ Bala said.

The other trainees nodded. Apart from the IIMC guy, they hadn’t spoken a

word during the meeting.

‘I can tell you this Internet debacle will lead to layoffs across the bank. And if
we see Chennai at the bottom, literally and figuratively, there will be layoffs.’ Anil
said and horror showed on all faces at his last words.

‘And you, HR error,’ Anil said and tapped my shoulder. ‘You need to buck up

big time.’

The BMW came to the branch to take Anil and our anxieties away. Bala came

to my desk after we had come back to our seats. ‘Thanks, buddy. I owe you,’ he

said.

‘Big time, buddy, big time,’ I said.

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24

I figured it must be a special occasion when I heard excessive frying sounds from

Ananya’s kitchen. I had completed two months of tuitions and Manju had become

smarter than the kids in the Complan and Bournvita ads. I could bet one month of

my after-tax, PF and HRA alary that Manju would crack IIT, medical or any

draconian entrance exam known to man. Most of it was his own work, and my

waking up at five had little to do with it.

‘What’s going on,’ I said and sneezed twice. The pungent smell of burnt

chillies flared my nostrils.

‘Special cooking for special guests,’ Manju said, while continuing to solve his
physics numerical.

‘Who?’

‘Harish, from the bay area,’ Manju said.

‘Harish who?’

Another fryer went on the stove. This time smells of mustard, curry leaves and

onions reached us. If this was one of those prize-winning Indian novels, I’d spend

two pages on how wonderful those smells were. However, the only reaction I had

was a coughing fit and teary eyes.

‘You are rhumba sensitive,’ Manju said and looked up at me in disgust. He

stood up and went to the door. ‘Switch on the exhaust fan, amma,’ he screamed

and shut the door.

Ananya’s mother continued to tackle the contents of the fryer. ‘OK, you go for

bath. They will come anytime,’ Ananya’s mother said and went to max volume,

‘Ananya! Are you ready?’

‘Who is Harish?’ I asked again as Manju refused to look up from his problem.

‘The nakshatram matched no, so they are here. Ok, so g is 9.8 metres per

second squared and the root of …’ Manju drifted off to the world he knew best,

leaving me alone to deal with my world, where a boy was coming to meet my

girlfriend to make her his wife.

I yanked Manju’s notebook from him.

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‘Aiyo, what?’ Manju looked at me shocked.

‘What’s the deal with Harish. Tell me now or I’ll tell your mother you watch

porn,’ I said.

Manju looked stunned. ‘I don’t watch porn,’ he said in a scared voice.

‘Don’t lie to me,’ I said. Every boy watches porn.

‘Only once I s …saw a blue film, at my friend’s house, by mistake,’ he

stuttered.

‘How can you watch it by mistake?’

‘It belonged to my friend’s dad. Please don’t tell amma.’

His face, even his spectacles looked terrified. I closed the books. ‘Tell me all
about Harish. How did this happen?’

Manju told me about Harish, the poster boy of the perfect Tamilian groom.

Radha aunty had pitched Harish for the last two years. He fit every criteria applied
by Indian parents to make him a worthwhile match for Ananya. He was Tamilian, a

Brahmin and an Iyer (and those are three separate things, and non-compliance in

any can get you disqualified). He had studied in IIT Chennai and had scored a

GPA of 9.45 (yes, it was advertised to the Swamis)’

He went on to do an MS with full scholarship and now worked in Cisco

Systems, an upcoming Silicon Valley company. He never drank or ate meat or

smoked (or had fun, by extension) and had a good knowledge of Carnatic music

and Bharatnatyam. He had a full half-inch-thick moustache, his own house in the

San Francisco suburbs, a white Honda Accord and stock options that, apart from

the last three months, had doubled every twelve minutes. He even had a

telescope he used to see galaxies on the weekend (I told you he had no fun).

Manju was more excited at the prospect of seeing the telescope and thought it

reason enough for his sister to marry that guy.

‘He said you can actually see the colours on the rings of Saturn,’ Manju said,

excited.

‘You spoke to him?’

‘He called. Couple of times,’ Manju said.

‘Ananya spoke to him?’

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‘No. he used to call when she wasn’t at home. Anyway, until the nakshatram

matches, the boy and the girl are not allowed to talk.’

‘Nakshatram what?’ I asked. The list of Tamilian hoops one needs to jump

before getting married seemed infinite.

‘Horoscope. It is a must. If they don’t match, boy and girl’s side don’t talk. But
they have matched for akka and him.’

I thought about my own family. The only nakshatram we think about is the

division of petrol pumps when we have to see the girl.

‘You are a science whiz kid who wants to see Saturn rings. And you accept

that people whose horoscopes don’t match shouldn’t talk?’ I said.

‘That’s how it is in our culture,’ Manju said, his hands itching to get to his

workbook. I gave him back his notes.

‘And he is coming now?’ I said.

‘Yes, for breakfast. And please, don’t snatch my notebook again.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said and stood up. I wanted to have a showdown with Ananya

about this. Surely, she’d have known a bit more about his visit. But for now, I

wanted to get out.

‘Bye, Manju,’ I said as I turned to leave.

‘Krish bhaiya, can I ask you one thing?’ he said.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Can something bad happen if you watch blue films?’

I stared at him.

‘I won’t, I promise, I just wanted to know,’ he said.

‘If you just watch them?’

‘Just watching …and,’ he said and hesitated, ‘and if you do something else

afterwards.’

‘Why don’t you ask your appa?’

‘Aiyo, what are you saying?’

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‘You could become blind,’ I said with a serious face.

‘Really? He said, ‘how is that possible?’

‘Be careful,’ I winked at him and left.

‘’Welcome, welcome,’ greetings had started at the entrance even before I could

leave the house.

A crowd had gathered at the main door – Ananya’s dad and mom, Shobha

athai, three other Kanjeevaram-clad aunties and two random uncles in safari suits

became the welcome party. They received Harish like an astronaut who had

returned from the first Indian lunar mission. The only time grown-ups get excited

about young people is when young people are getting married and the old people

control the proceedings. I had come to Ananya’s house several times, and I had

received a welcome no better than the guy who came to collect the cable bill. But

Harish had it all. Aunties looked at him like he was a cuddly two-year-old, only he

was fifty times the size and had a moustache that could scare any cuddly two-

year-old. He wore sunglasses, quite unnecessary at seven in the morning, apart

from showing off his sense of misplaced style. He had come with his parents, a

snug Tamilian family who walked into the room with their overachiever in shades.

Fortunately, he removed them when he sat on the sofa.

Ananya’s father noticed me with a confused expression.

‘Uncle, I was leaving,’ I said. ‘Sorry. I came for Manju’s tuitions.’

‘Had breakfast?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Then sit,’ he said. The firmness in his voice made me obey instantly. I wanted
to wriggle out of it, but a part of me wanted to see the drama unfold. Uncle’s

attention shifted to the new guests. Maybe he had made me stay intentionally. I

perched in a corner chair like a domestic servant who is sometimes allowed to

watch TV.

The taxi driver came in to ask for his bill and Harish’s dad stepped outside to
settle it. They couldn’t agree on the price and their argument began to heat up.

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Harish’s dad bargained for the last five rupees even as Harish’s mother casually

mentioned another of their son’s achievement. ‘MIT calling him, requesting him to

do Ph.D. at their college.’

All the ladies in the room had a mini orgasm. Marble flooring is to a Punjabi

what a foreign degree is to a Tamilian.

‘But his Cisco boss said, nothing doing. You cannot leave me.’ Harish’s

mother said. Harish kept a constant smile during the conversation.

Manju came into the room and called me.

‘What?’ I asked, dreading another physics problem.

I went into his room. Ananya sat on his bed, wearing a stunning peacock blue

sari – the same colour she wore the day I had proposed to her.

‘Go, your groom is waiting,’ I said.

‘Manju, leave the room,’ she said.

Manju had already sat down to study again. ‘Aiyo, where should I go?’

‘Go and meet the guests. Or help Amma in the kitchen,’ Ananya said in a no-

nonsense way.

Manju went to the living room with the physics guide.

I turned away from Ananya.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Who the fuck invented the word sorry? How can there be just one word to

answer for anything one does. Tomorrow you could marry Mr Sunglasses

outside, and then say sorry. What am I supposed to say?’

‘Don’t overreact. I am doing it to fob off Shobha aunty. I still have the final say.

I’ll say no.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because this is not important. You saw the petrol pump girl, didn’t you?’

‘But I told you later. And it wasn’t a formal thing. My mother went to visit

Pammi aunty.’

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‘And neither is this formal. My parents said Harish is only coming for a casual
visit.’

Oh, so people match horoscopes casually?’

‘It is the first step. And Shobha aunty did it. Krish, listen …’

‘Ananya!’ a Tamil-accented scream filled the room.

‘I love you,’ she said, ‘and I have to go now.’ She brushed past me to the door.

‘Why are you wearing this stunning sari?’ I placed my hand on the bolt to stop

her.

‘Because my mother chose it for me. Now, can I go or do you want appa to

come here?’

‘Let’s elope,’ I said.

‘Let’s not give up,’ she stood up on her toes to kiss me. The taste of

strawberry lip-gloss lingered on m lips.

I came outside after five minutes. The hubbub over Harish had settled down a