The wedding marquee resonated with laughter and the light-hearted chatter of friends and relatives. There were bright colors, glittering lights, music — all the paraphernalia of an upper-middle class Indian wedding. Decked out in a green and red tissue saree and solid family jewels, with my hair cascading down my back in perfect waves, I had already received numerous compliments. I was, after all, the newest bride in the family. But I registered this mechanically, moving and smiling, like an automaton.
I had been operating on ‘auto mode’ for the last sixteen months — ever since my father-in-law had expired, within six months of my marriage, after battling secondary blood cancer. The atmosphere at home, was, understandably, one of perpetual gloom. My husband, an only son with two older, married sisters, had become seriously hypertensive and I had developed a major hormonal imbalance, not least because of the traditional Indian society’s concept of ‘unlucky marriage’ and ‘jinxed bride’. While no one actually said it to my face, the innuendo was thick enough in the air to stifle both my husband and me.
Today, twelve years later, I realize in the light of life’s experiences, that people rarely behave rationally, gracefully or sensibly when devasted by grief. At that time, however, my husband, the most loving and considerate of spouses, seemed to have become a closed, repressed stranger who had turned completely away from me, leaving me to flounder in a maze of hostility and unexpressed recriminations. I was forcing myself to get through the days of my life one day at a time, clinging blindly to the tenet that marriage was for keeps.
This was the first time since my own marriage that we were attending a family function. I was trying to locate my husband who seemed to have gone into hiding, when I discovered that two older cousins and their wives had cornered my husband, and were now calling me to join them. The jokes and puns flowed along with the soft drinks and the hors d’ oeuvres. We were irresistibly drawn into their repartee. I blossomed like a parched plant in the shower of their affectionate treatment, and before long, my husband too was smiling — after almost two years.
Suddenly, the mother of the groom came along, looking for her younger son who was in charge of the arrangements. This usually reserved young boy had let down his hair for once and his revelry with his college friends in the early evening had attracted plenty of ribald comments from all his cousins.
‘Where is my Chhotu?’ Aunt asked our group anxiously, ‘Have you seen him?’
The oldest cousin replied soothingly, ‘Must be around somewhere…’
‘Probably unconscious under a bush somewhere,’ stuck in the other mischievously.
‘What?’
‘Yeah; he was drinking rather heavily when we saw him last.’
‘No! He never drinks!’
We were all struggling not to laugh, because the youngster in question was a hundred yards away, not drinking now and taking care of everything. His distracted mother, however, had not spotted him yet.
‘Oh! What mothers don’t know about their kids…,’ sighed the older cousin’s wife, casting up her eyes piously.
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Aunt angrily. ‘Chhotu is not like that…’ She rounded on my husband, the most serious one in the group. ‘You tell me! Was he really drinking?”
‘Yes Aunty,’ said my husband with a straight face, ‘I saw with my own eyes — four bottles of beer — neat!’
‘Neat?’ She shrieked, past reason now, and tottered off, calling out to him. We all collapsed with laughter, as she spotted the poor boy and started ranting at him, while he tried to make sense of the whole thing.
‘Neat beer!’ Spluttered a cousin’s wife, helpless with mirth… ‘Oh Lord!’
I looked at my convulsed husband with new eyes. Was this the hedgehog I’d been living with all this time? For the first time I saw light at the end of the tunnel, the joy and the laughter was there, buried underneath the debris of the upheaval in the family. Time and patience would be needed to bring them to the surface, but for the first time, I perceived something to hold on to.
