Voices on the New Diasporas - an MIT student journal


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The Unsuspecting Bride by Kaya Shah, Class of 2006

Most brides think the world of their fiances. When they say their vows, they respect and love the man in front of them. After the wedding, they find themselves in a state of married bliss and happiness. The brides are content and satisfied; each bride married her charming prince. Such happiness was not my luck. Instead, my own wedding tale is filled with absurdity, oddity, and above all else, a bizarre groom.

It wasn't that I couldn't find a guy; I had just never found the right guy. I dated, but somehow my relationships never blossomed into anything serious enough for marriage. And so I found myself in my thirty-first year, single and alone. I'd been pretty independent until then, and my career had basically consumed my life. As a lawyer, I spent all of my time at the office, trying to establish myself in the firm. However, after three years of working for the same junior partner, I felt like my life was at a standstill. One by one, all of my friends got married. As cliché as it does sound, I felt my biological clock ticking. I was ready to get married. After the success of my sister's own arranged marriage, the idea was looking pretty good. I started to read books on arranged marriage, its traditions, and its manifestation in the modern world. A friend of my parents in Chicago knew Ajay's family, and that's how it all began.

At first, Ajay seemed perfectly normal. He was a successful optometrist in Austin, and he seemed to have a delightful sense of humor. He flew in to New Jersey to meet me for the first time, and it was his easygoing nature that first struck me. Though a bit portly, he seemed kind and relaxed. I couldn't help but feel joy at my good luck.

My parents and I planned the marriage and reception. By Indian standards, it would be a moderately sized wedding. My family, especially my mother, was happy to finally plan the youngest daughter's wedding, and congratulations poured in from relatives. Things were definitely looking up for me

The wedding day soon approached, and my relatives began to drive into town. All of my aunts, uncles, and parents' friends wanted to know everything about Ajay.

"Manna," my kaki said, "What is he like? How old? What do his parents do?"
"Oh, he's very relaxed, just like my dad. He loves to crack jokes, and he's always watching bad movies for fun. He's thinking of buying his own practice in New York. And do you believe, his mother is a senior systems analyst, and his father is a doctor."
Impressed, she arched her eyebrows and said, "Sounds very important! I don't even know what a systems analyst does!"

My relatives definitely had very high expectations of Ajay. I suppose I did as well. Our visits had been brief, but our phone conversations tended to be lengthy. I thought I knew him fairly well, but I was completely clueless. I didn't realize that I had only seen his good side.

And so the wedding day approached. My mother enlisted the help of a sort of all-purpose Indian beautician who specialized in wedding events. She started by applying henna on my bridesmaids' hands, and then she moved on to my hands and feet. The patterns were intricate and beautiful, and she laid the green paste onto my palm in curls, flowers, vines, and peacocks. I was amazed at Meeraben's dexterity. She sat cross-legged, hour after hour, working on my hands and the hands of the girls. While applying the paste to our skin, the tired woman told us how she had once wanted to study art in her home state of Gujarat. "I came first in the state in a mehndi competition. I had nice scholarship to study arts, but my grandmothers said I must get married."

The final irony of her story was that her husband had passed away about five years earlier, and she was left with two teenagers to support. Meeraben worked this job on the weekends and at a laundromat during the weekdays. She had not wanted to get married, and it was now her fate to decorate brides. She mused, "How different my life would be if I had gone to the arts college." As she added Ajay's name into the designs on my right hand, I could not help hoping that my marriage would be more fortunate.

Meeraben's abstract mood quickly disappeared as soon as she had finished the henna designs. She abruptly ordered me to place plastic bags over my hands and feet, "to make the skin sweat. It will bring out the color." I dutifully kept the bags on for the rest of the evening, even when Ajay finally made his entrance. Somehow, I have the feeling that my relatives and friends were expecting someone more dashing. Perhaps they hoped that he would make his entrance like a Hindi film star, with an accompanying musical theme. Instead, he sulked his way into the room where I was eating ?or rather, being fed? dinner with my friends. His eyes seemed more bulgy and watery than I remembered, and they held a scared look. He almost looked like a Bollywood villain, and his costume would have been complete with a large, curly mustache.

After dinner, we all went downstairs to my family's living room. My aunts, uncles, and family friends were eager to meet Ajay's family, and I myself wanted to introduce Ajay to my friends and cousins. I definitely wanted to know what they thought of him. I left him with my circle of girlfriends, and when I came back he was telling a chain of short jokes. At least, I think they were jokes. I couldn't tell by the bewildered, baffled expressions on the girls' faces. I exclaimed, "Ah, I see you've discovered Ajay's sense of humor!" I was answered by a couple of forced chuckles. "Honey, which one did you tell them?" I asked.

Ajay replied enthusiastically, "Oh, that one was great, it was What says business on the front and bhangra on the back? A Desi mullet!'" I guess the only polite way to respond would have been to laugh, but as I'd heard that one at least twice before, it wasn't really that funny. Additionally, its humor was diminished by the fact that Ajay was obsessed with mullets and tirelessly spurted jokes about the famously Southern haircut. As I watched Ajay circulate and talk to my relatives, it suddenly dawned on me that he only interacted with people by telling amazingly horrible jokes. He retold the same bad mullet, flatulence, or eighties jokes over and over again to the same people. Occasionally, he peppered his speech with an "original," which was certainly a million times worse than the worst of his repeated jokes. For example, the first joke he ever told me was, "What's green and has wheels? Grass! I was just kidding about the wheels!" More often than not, the joke didn't even make sense, like "Two explorers were sitting in a boiling pot, being cooked by pygmy marmosets. One said to the other, would you mind beating me as a small child, but that's another story altogether." These mindless jokes tended to catch people off guard. I caught him telling the following not-so-wise wisecrack to a straight-laced lawyer friend: "What did Karl say as he was fighting off the Amish darklords? Your epidermis is showing!" Humor most certainly reached a new low with the birth of Ajay Desai.

Now, on to the garba held the night before the wedding. Meeraben helped me put on my richly brocaded chania chodi and makeup. I was hopeful that the evening would turn out better than the previous night, when Ajay stunned my family and friends with his wisecrack diarrhea. We entered the rented community hall fashionably late, and the entire crowd formed a path for us, holding their embellished dandia ras sticks up high on either side. We rushed through the human tunnel formed of overpowering perfumes, colored silks, and gold jewelry. As Ajay and I took our places in front of each other for the first dandia ras exchange of the night, I noticed that he looked incredibly nervous and scared. The music started, and my fears turned out to be correct. Ajay was a terribly clubfooted dancer. Gone was the relaxed demeanor I'd seen before; a stoic, stiff expression took over the features of his face. He didn't smile even once while he was on the floor. All in all, Ajay turned out to be the worst dancer I've ever seen in my life. Even my white and black friends picked up the traditional dances better than he did. After the dancing, we stood aside and spoke to the numerous guests. While I was talking to old friends from my childhood, Ajay started to play with my little two-month-old nephew, Ravi. The man was completely oblivious to the adults I was talking to. I remember that Ajay proposed a couple of weeks after he met Ravi?I'm beginning to wonder if Ajay proposed because of me or because of the kid! We finally sat down to dinner, and he proceeded to tell the entire table a new assortment of odd jokes. Not surprisingly, only the children at the table tended to think Ajay was funny.

By the time the wedding day arrived, my mother and I were a bit nervous. So many things could go wrong, and my groom's change of personality seemed only to get worse. The ceremonies began in the morning at eight. Exhausted from the night before, I found it difficult to concentrate on the priest's instructions. My parents and I sat cross-legged on a wooden platform on our patio. The guests seated in front of the platform watched the ceremonies and spoke among themselves. I spotted my friends in the back and felt better. The morning was warm and the sun smiled down reassuringly.

After the morning ceremony, lunch was served, everyone changed, and we proceeded to the actual marriage ceremony, which would be held in the ballroom of a nearby hotel. My mother and I had made arrangements with the hotel's planners and staff. Ajay's family and friends were to lead a festive procession with music, dandia ras dancing, and a fancy horse-drawn carriage to hold Ajay, his younger brother, and his parents.

My mother, family, and friends were to greet Ajay at the gates of the hotel courtyard. I was ready, waiting in my dressing room, when I found out that my mother had not yet arrived, nor had the priest, who had the proper "greeting" ceremonial materials. Finally, one of the hotel planners got word by hand-held radio that my mother was "within the compound." Unfortunately, the priest was still nowhere to be found. I didn't know this at the time, but my mother was having a panic attack. Perhaps she thought that the future of my marriage was jeopardized by the tardiness of the priest. My mother ordered hotel workers about in search of a thali, or large metal dish, red dye (maroon lipstick was substituted), rice, and a coconut. I could hear all of the instructions and frantic movements of the workers through the hand-held radio of the planner assigned to my dressing room. Honestly, the whole fiasco was scary and stressful for me to hear; I could do nothing to aid my own wedding. I felt trapped in the finery of my silk sari in the changing room. By the time the hotel employees had breathlessly returned with all items save the elusive coconut, word came that the priest had finally arrived.

I remained waiting on the third floor as the wedding party trickled up to the tenth floor through the elevators. I kept waiting and waiting, though I never got the signal to move upstairs with my maid of honor. Apparently, in all of the commotion upstairs, everyone forgot about me.

As I waited, the inauspicious events of the afternoon weighed my thoughts down. I wondered if my engagement and impending marriage had been too rushed. After all, I'd only been physically in the same town with Ajay for a total of fifteen days. I hardly knew what he was like in everyday life. Additionally, what I'd seen of him in the last couple of days worried me. Why was it that he only got along with children? If his immature behavior failed to amuse me now, would I be able to tolerate it for years? I also began to think of our differences. Ajay worked only thirty hours a week while I often worked over sixty a week. I believe in hard work and sacrifice, but it seemed like Ajay believed only in sitcoms, bad jokes, and hairstyles from the eighties. I love intelligent humor, conversation, and above all debate, whereas Ajay's idea of good conversation is a monosyllabic banter with my two-year-old nephew. Ajay also loves red meat, and I had recently become a strict vegetarian. I wasn't sure that we could live together happily, and I wondered if we would have children, and if so, how we would raise them. My best friend and maid of honor, Jessica, saw my worried and tense expression. I'll never forget the compassionate way she asked, "Manna, are you reconsidering the marriage?"
"Yes!" I tearfully exclaimed. "I don't think it's going to work out at all" I then told her all of my worries and concerns.
She thought for a few minutes and then said to me, "He's a little odd, I know. But I think he's a good man. And after all, that's what matters the most."

I decided to go ahead with the wedding. When I finally made my way to the room, the first thing that I saw was my flower girls holding the flower petals in plastic bags! Apparently, some old lady had told them to keep the unattractive bags lest they "drop everything in the first few steps." I made my way up the aisle, accompanied by my maid of honor. Fortunately, I was able to beam a huge smile, since I had taken the advice of my friends to put Vaseline on my teeth.

The majority of the ceremony went by quite unremarkably, except for Ajay's lame jokes and otherwise scared stiff expression. Two hours of garlands, gifts of jewelry and silk, coconuts, rice, fire, and tying knots passed by like a whirlwind, and all of a sudden, it was time for the final vows. For some reason, both Ajay and I found the traditional vows humorous. We all knew that I would be the one taking responsibility for Ajay?not the other way around. He gave his first genuine smile of the evening, and I suddenly found myself married to Ajay Desai. We stepped off the mandap, or marriage platform, and Ajay told another one of his jokes. He pointed to his traditional turban, which happened to have a long flap at the back and asked, "What does this look like?" I couldn't help but grin when I replied, "A mullet."

As we sat at the reception dinner that night, our uncles, aunts, parents, and siblings gave toasts to us. While my father told a story of how we had both been born on stormy nights and began to speak of divine love, I was busy thinking. This was the man I had married. A mullet-obsessed Desi guy stuck in the eighties. Though I once found his humor tiring, he was beginning to seem like a goofy, clueless teddy bear. He had his charms, I decided, and life with him wouldn't be too bad.