Читать книгу Take One Arranged Marriage... - Шома Нараянан - Страница 7

The Times of India—matrimonial section:

‘Very successful lawyer, good-looking, 33, height 6 ft 2 inches, South Indian, Bengaluru-based, seeks beautiful high-caste Hindu, well-educated, as bride.’

TARA looked up in disbelief.

‘You guys answered this? Without checking with me first?’ Her temper was rising swiftly and her mother gave her a wary look.

‘Your father thought …’ she began.

‘I didn’t know he could think,’ Tara said, whisking the newspaper cutting from her mother’s hand. One lengthwise tear, fold, tear again. There. One successful lawyer, ready for the dustbin. She carried the pieces across and threw them in. ‘If they write back, tell them I’m not interested,’ she said.

‘It’s not so simple, Tara,’ her mother said. ‘They’re coming over this evening—the parents are at least.’

Tara stared.

‘That was … fast,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that yesterday’s newspaper? Are these people really desperate? Or are you that keen to get rid of me?’

‘No, we’re not,’ her mother protested, looking unhappy.

Tara relented, putting an arm around her and steering her to a chair. ‘Tell me all about it,’ she said. ‘Till yesterday I thought you guys wanted me to become a schoolteacher and give up my “stupid plans” to do a PhD in a strange city.’ Her face darkened as she remembered the recent fight with her father. ‘Now you want me to marry a good-looking lawyer. Six feet, two inches, no less. What’s going on?’

‘He’s Mr Krishnan’s son,’ Tara’s mother explained. ‘Mr Krishnan’s the new general manager at the plant, and he happened to mention he’d put out this ad …’

Tara let a low whistle out through her teeth. Now, that explained a lot. Her dad was a lowly supervisor at the steel manufacturing plant—his daughter marrying the GM’s son would be the ultimate in social enhancement, something like marrying into royalty. This needed some thinking through. Bengaluru … Tara’s brain was racing. It could work. As long as she figured out how to manage it smartly. Marriage at twenty-two was not what she’d planned. But it beat running away from home—something she’d been seriously considering over the past few days.

‘We wouldn’t force you into anything,’ her mother was saying, her worn face looking even more anxious than usual.

‘We’ meant her father, of course. The last thing Tara’s mother had forced her into was a pair of pink dungarees when Tara was three. Tara had hated pink, and the dungarees hadn’t lasted five hours. But her father was a different story. His parental style was very closely aligned to the ‘because-I’m-your-father-and-I-said-so’ school of thought, and he and Tara had clashed since the day Tara learnt to talk. Her mother had been stuck in the middle for the last twenty years, too scared to contradict her husband even if she secretly sympathised with Tara.

‘It’s a very good family,’ her mother continued, looking at her daughter appealingly. ‘I know you wanted to study further, but we might not get an opportunity like this again. It’s not as though you have anyone else in mind. And the son is really good-looking.’

Tara frowned. Her mother’s definition of good-looking was deeply suspect—it was likely that the man looked like a Bollywood movie star from the eighties, complete with shaggy hair and oversized tinted spectacles.

‘He is,’ her mother insisted, holding out a photo. ‘Take a look.’

Tara dutifully took a look, and then a second one. For once her mother wasn’t wrong: the man was gorgeous. Either that or the photographer was really good with an airbrush. She leaned closer, and her mother held on to the photo convulsively, obviously scared it might share the fate of the newspaper cutting.

‘Relax, I won’t do anything to it,’ Tara said impatiently. The man was definitely hot, all rugged features and sexy smile, but she’d reserve judgement till she actually met him. Maybe he’d have a stammer, or a dreadful accent, or be totally unappealing neck downwards—it was a head shot—or have BO.

‘When is His Highness the General Manager coming over?’ Tara asked.

Her mother looked at her in alarm. ‘Don’t talk like that!’ She grabbed Tara’s hand. ‘He’s your father’s boss’s boss—we can’t afford to offend him. Keep your tongue under control while they’re here, Tara, please. If only for my sake. If you don’t want to marry his son you don’t have to. I’ll speak to your father.’

Tara could appreciate the truly heroic effort her mother was making to promise something like that, and her heart melted. She leaned across and hugged her. ‘You won’t have to. I’ll speak to him myself if I need to. Don’t worry—I won’t let you down.’

She never had. When it came to choosing between getting her own way against her father and keeping her mother relatively happy she was a push-over. Her mother won hands-down every time. That was the main reason she hadn’t left home yet—though there had been practical considerations as well. Her father held the purse strings, and she’d thought it would be difficult to manage on her own, at least at the beginning. That bit was now sorted, with a friend having promised to lend her some money, but she was still hesitant.

One of the drawbacks of being brought up in a stereotypical traditional Indian family was that you ended up unconsciously buying into a lot of traditional Indian values. Bringing shame to the family was something your soul kicked against even when your brain was telling you that you were being an idiot.

Running away would definitely bring shame to the family. No one in the small industrial town they lived in would believe that a man was not involved. Her father would find it difficult to keep his head up in society, her mother’s friends would make condescending remarks, and all in all, their life would be a living nightmare. And in spite of all her father’s blustering and bullying, his archaic parenting style, Tara loved him a lot. The love was buried very, very deep down, but it was there—she couldn’t help it—and she knew he loved her back. His heart would be broken if he knew his daughter had run away because she couldn’t bear living in the same house as him any longer. She couldn’t do that to him unless it was absolutely necessary.

‘What’s the guy’s name?’ she asked. ‘The general manager’s son?’

‘Vikram,’ her mother said, happy that Tara was finally taking an interest. ‘It’s an unusual name for a South Indian, but his parents have lived in Mumbai ever since they got married, so they must have decided on a North Indian name.’

Tara nodded, as her mother twittered on. Vikram … Hmm … Gorgeous, sexy and successful Bengaluru-based Vikram Krishnan didn’t know it, but he just might be the answer to all her problems.