This has got to be a joke!
‘He is royal!’ Amma joins in, stressing on the ‘r’.
A royal? A prince? The last time I checked, we were living in an active democracy! And Appa, Appa is a senior politician!
‘He’s very nice,’ Amma adds, shifting closer to Appa, as if to endorse the recommendation.
That’s the thing about arranged matches. ‘The boy’ is always bright, dazzling, copybook perfection, but the girl, ‘oh the girl’, there’s always something sour about her. Yin and yang. Light and dark. There’s only place for one piece of sublimity in a partnership. The patriarchy has long owned those rights.
Vedveer Rathore Singh.Wait a second, I’ve heard this name, read this name…
Why is Appa breathlessly jumping into another arranged match when his earlier play for his firstborn is coming apart rapidly?
The blood is draining from my face. I hear a jangle of words come at me, flaring before my eyes like teleprinter prompts.
Prince. Jaipur… Engineer from Harvard…
‘Oyi?’ I hear Raju. He wants to know why Appa has not only come up with this alliance but is also nudging me in that direction.
I brace myself. Raju is my friend, but before we became pals, Appa took him off the streets and gave him a life. Raju is nothing if not loyal.
‘Saarmade a good selection,’ Raju says. He is nodding. ‘Prince who is an engineer, two-in-one.’ A supermarket steal deal.
‘Get up,’ Raju says. He is on his feet, ready to go again.
I lean forward and touch my toes. I stay in that position for a bit. I don’t want to get up.
‘We could’ve gone to your café if you wanted to talk,’ Raju says. ‘I would’ve got a free apple-carrot muffin at least.’
I laugh. I love that even at a moment like this, Raju doesn’t forget ‘free’. His ‘Nutrition Facts Label’.
This matrimonial business, especially arranged alliances, is messy even at the best of times. For most, that’s excuse enough to back out. But in my case, it’s a battle I can’t win unless I come up with a reason good enough to justify the no.
How can I say no to the one person who has never said no to me, the parent who has always believed in me?
Appa accepted my skeletal entrepreneurial idea when I decided to move continents without completing my graduation. COFFEE Before Books & Bras would not have seen the light of day, not this early at least, had Appa not backed me. He didn’t champion my idea thinking his time would come, that there’d be payback one day. He liked the details I laid before him, but more than that, he believed in me.
I owe it to him to give this a fair chance.
Only that marriage is the last thing on my mind. It has beena while since my heart skipped a beat at the sight of someone. A man, a romantic attachment, appears so far out in the distant future, I can’t even put a time on it.
‘Does your sister know about this?’ Raju asks.
‘She does...’ I shake my head. ‘She thinks I should at least meet the guy.’
‘This isoyiyou wanted to work out this morning?’ Raju asks. ‘So that you could kick me, thinking you are kicking the prince?’
‘Khadus Komal this morning would’ve been too much, dude,’ I say.
Komal is my yoga instructor. She’s a no-nonsense thirty-seven-year-old who uses her enigmatic smile sparingly. She might’ve been the perfect antidote for my growing frustration in that she’d guard against the mood swelling, but I don’t need one more person telling me to at least meet the man before working up a storm.
‘You didn’t call Lavanya?’ Raju asks of my best friend, the other member of the LBDs, the Lakshmi Bar Devotees group.
I nod.
According to Alia, I have ‘two-and-a-half friends’. Lavanya Patil and Raju Mathew; Komal Rao is the half, in that she has the affection but not the inclination.
I left Lavanya a voice note last night but haven’t heard from her. She can go without checking her phone forever, especially when she’s working. I reach for my phone and dial her. She picks up on the first ring.
