Chapter Twenty-Eight
The first lehenga I try on is gorgeous. It’s emerald green silk with intricate gold threadwork that makes me feel like I’m draped in some sort of celestial garden. I never dreamed of a wedding dress, but if I had, this would be it.
“This is perfect,” I say. “Let’s go with this one.”
Both Romona and Aie look shocked. Preeta Vaid, who’s supposed to be one of India’s leading wedding stylists, beams. The Two Moms scoured the internet and sat in on endless hours of Zoom calls before selecting Preeta as the designer for all our wedding needs.
“Preeta has five more picked out for you to try,” Romona says. “In color palettes that complement your skin tone.”
I open my mouth to say I’ve made my choice, but Aie widens her eyes at me and nips it in the bud.
“Mira’s always been so easy. Always trying not to be a bother. This is your time, Mira. Don’t think about us.” What she means is: Think about us. We want to play dress-up for a week. You cannot take that away from us.
I try on all six of the lehengas. They’re all lovely. After spending hours on draping and discussing each one, over masala chai, filter coffee, and cocktail samosas, I select the first one I tried on. Although, to be fair, I would be more than happy to wear any one of them. When we get home after a day of immersive shopping, the moms can barely get through dinner (room service) before passing out.
The next day, we rinse and repeat the process for the reception lehenga. This time I try not to react to the first one I see—a shimmery burgundy organza sprinkled with Swarovski crystals—but it is the one I like most, and it’s the one I pick in the end. By the time I escape to the bathroom after we’re done, so many messages have collected on my phone it almost feels heavy in my hand.
Yesterday, while I let the moms play dress-up with me as their doll, Krish went in search of Vasu’s husband’s home and found that the building has been torn down for redevelopment. Last night, as the moms slept, Krish and I texted and came up with a plan. He’s going to ask around the neighborhood to see what he can find, and I’m going to meet him there as soon as I can get away.
I speed-read through Krish’s texts. We’re in Juhu, and Namdeo Sawant’s address is in Shivaji Park. It’s a distance of barely six miles, but my phone tells me it’s going to take about an hour with the traffic.
Krish: I’ve been asking where the people who lived here have gone but no one on the construction site understands me
Me: Aren’t you Indian?
Krish: Haha. When are you getting here so you can speak Indian to them?
Me: Aren’t you a fancy journalist from a fancy journalism school? There’s no language called Indian.
Krish: Really? Why don’t they teach that in fancy journalism school? Damn.
Me: Maybe it’s not that fancy after all?
Krish: Definitely Barely Fancy. When do you get here?
Aww, you miss me! I type. Then delete it.
Me: Just convinced the moms that I want to see some of Mumbai. Thank God they’re too tired and jet lagged to join me. They’re going back to the hotel. Be there in an hour.
Krish: Should I come get you?
Me: Only if you have a motorcycle. This traffic is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
Krish: I created a monster.
I’m smiling when I shut down his texts, get a cab, and call Druv, who’s just woken up for an early surgery.
“I miss you,” he says. “Why does it take seven days to choose clothes?”
“Because they’ve been obsessing over wedding clothes for months, and they want me to try on everything that’s ever caught their fancy. For hours and hours. I may never come back.” Who knew trying on clothes was this exhausting? “Sorry that sounded terribly ungrateful.”
“They get to watch you try on clothes for hours while I sit here imagining it? Feels particularly cruel.”
He’s not even here, and I feel my cheeks burn.
“Can you at least send me pictures?”
“I’ve been warned against that by the moms. Apparently, even if I describe the dresses to you, we’ll be struck by bad luck.”
“Isn’t that a Western superstition?”
“You know our mothers embrace all global superstitions with equal zeal.”
He laughs. “Please, please, when you choose my clothes, don’t let my ma go overboard.”
“I’m thinking a fluorescent yellow.”
“Have mercy,” he says, laughing.
“If you wanted a vote, you should have come along.”
“So you do miss me.”
“I do,” I say softly.
“Thank you,” he says, “for saying that. I needed to hear it. Have you had a chance to reach out to Vasu’s family?”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say. “Krish is here.”
“The journalist guy? How come?”
“I told him I’m going to keep working on finding her.”
“You asked him to come.”
“I gave him that choice. It is his story.”
“How are you handling the Two Moms?”
“My aie met him. She wasn’t happy. I really don’t want them to know I’m doing this.” The moms barely know what happened with the ring. They know I had “a little adventure in New York,” but they’re too preoccupied with the wedding to care.
“Let me know if you need help with them.” He wants to help, and it’s the sweetest thing.
“I will. Thanks. Today fortunately they’re knocked out from the shopping marathon.” I fill him in on the torn-down-building situation. “Thanks for being so understanding about this, Druv.”
“I can tell it’s important to you, Mira. I want you to have your answers. I’m invested, too, now. I want to know what happened to Vasu too. I love you,” he says.
“Same,” I say. My aie is right. I am lucky to have Druv.
The black-and-yellow cab drops me off next to a huge open park surrounded on three sides by concrete buildings. Across the street is the ocean, obscured by another row of buildings. If I focus, over the honking and traffic noise, I can hear the waves. I turn to the statue of the Maratha emperor Shivaji astride his horse. Beneath the statue, Krish is waiting for me.
He’s wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. I’m wearing a white kurti over jeans. We look like we’re in some sort of plainclothes detective uniform.
“That was the building.” He starts without preamble, pointing to a construction site across the open park. His eyes are hidden behind the aviators he was wearing the first time we met.
We make our way across the park. Children perform gymnastics on bars, and runners sprint across marked tracks. A group of older people laugh loudly, then stop, then laugh again as they practice laughter yoga.
We get to the construction site, where mounds of rubble surround the half-built building where steel rods poke out of concrete slabs. Women dressed in threadbare cotton saris draped like pants between their legs carry cement and stone back and forth on their heads. Cement mixers churn, and a crane tries to place a steel beam amid shouts from construction workers. A cloud of dust hangs in the air, and the sun blazes down on us.
When Krish and I approach, the women carrying rubble on their heads barely spare us a glance and keep working. A man in a hard hat and a gray polyester safari suit approaches us.
“What do you want?” he asks Krish in Marathi, ignoring me.
“We’re looking for someone who used to live in this building,” I respond in Marathi. My parents are most comfortable speaking their mother tongue, so growing up, Rumi and I exclusively spoke it at home. I still speak with my parents primarily in Marathi. They also had no patience with us accenting our Marathi, so we speak it with no accent.
Something about being able to speak the language makes being here easier. It makes the foreign-seeming parts a degree less foreign.
“Are you their relative?” the man asks.
“Yes.” I slide a glance at Krish. “He’s come from America. His uncle used to live here.”
Krish nods without having any idea what I’m saying.
“What’s his uncle’s name?”
“Namdeo Sawant.”
“Oh yes. This building belonged to him. Now it belongs to his son, Vishal Sawant.” He turns to a man who’s giving instructions to the women lugging the rubble. “Oy, is Vishal sir still in the office, or did he leave?”
“I didn’t see him leave. I’m not his keeper, though,” the other guy yells back.
“Where’s the office?” I ask, and he points us in the direction of a trailer down the street, where a few other construction projects are in progress.
I translate what was said for Krish as we make our way past old art deco buildings that stand between the construction sites like remnants from a past era. We knock on the door of the makeshift office.
Fortunately Vishal Sawant hasn’t left yet, and he speaks English.
“Where in America are you from?” he asks when we introduce ourselves. “I went to Ohio State for grad school. Architectural design.”
When Krish tells him he went to Columbia, he thumps him on the back. “My wife is from NYU. Wait till I tell her I met someone from her rival school. How did you guys know my dad?” He calls to one of his employees and asks them to bring us coffee.
I search the guy’s face. He looks nothing like Krish, but that might have to with the fact that he’s fifty pounds heavier and his hairline is receding. I study his features but still can’t find anything in common with Krish’s angular face and brown eyes.
“Actually,” Krish says, “we’re trying to find someone named—”
“You’re Namdeo Sawant’s son?” I interrupt. Something tells me it’s not a good idea to mention Vasu yet.
“Yeah,” the man says as a young boy hands us paper cups of coffee.
“Can we speak to him?” I say.
The man’s eyes sadden. “Baba died ten years ago. That’s why I came back to Mumbai to take care of the family business after him. The responsibilities of being an only son are heavy indeed,” he says directly to Krish.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. “How about your mother? Can we speak to her? My mother thinks she might be her childhood friend.”
“Really? Is your mother from Varanasi? My aie never mentioned a friend who lives in America.”
“Really? My mom can’t stop talking about Vasudha.”
Vishal’s coffee cup freezes an inch from his lips. It takes him a moment to unfreeze. “Vasudha?” He stands up. “I’ve never heard of anyone by that name.”
“Are you sure?” Krish and I say together.
“Vasudha Patil, then Sawant?” I add.
Vishal’s face goes a strange shade of red. Every piece of friendliness vanishes from his demeanor. He looks at his watch. “What did you say your names were again?”
We remind him of our names.
“And you’re here looking for this person?”
“Yes. Can you tell us what you know about her? Please,” I say.
“I told you I’ve never heard of her.”
That’s obviously not true. “We know she was married to Namdeo Sawant who lived at this address,” I say, “If that’s your dad ...”
“You have the wrong information,” he snaps. “My mother’s name is Amita, and she was married to my father thirty-seven years ago. I’m thirty-six.”
“Is it possible that your father was married to Vasudha before that?” Krish says.
“Don’t you think I’d know it if my father had another wife?”
“We have proof that your father was married to Vasudha,” I say.
“Proof?” He stands. He’s a big man, and the look in his eyes turns ice cold. “Around here we don’t walk into people’s places of work, enjoy their hospitality”—he looks at the empty coffee cups—“and threaten them.” It’s like he’s a whole different person. He presses a button on his desk.
“I’m sorry. That’s not what we were doing,” Krish says. “As she said, Vasudha was her mother’s friend, and her mother wants to reconnect. That’s all.”
Vishal laughs. “I love how you Americans think everyone other than you is stupid. If indeed she was your mother’s friend, then I’m going to assume your mother had no idea what kind of woman she was.” He lets out a disgusted scoff.
“So you do know her?” I say.
He gives me the most menacing look, but I don’t care. “My father was tricked into marrying her. He left her when he found out what she was. Around here we still value decency.”
The door opens, and three men who look like gangsters right out of a Bollywood film walk in and stand behind us, really close behind us. A sour combination of sweat, tobacco, and alcohol fills my nostrils.
“Our family has been eminent in this part of Mumbai for seven generations. My father’s name means something around here. We’re respectable and God fearing. That doesn’t mean we’re weak. My boys here have served us for decades. They don’t like anyone messing with the family name.”
One of his “boys” puts a hand on Krish’s shoulder. Another one moves so close behind me that I feel his belt buckle against the back of my neck.
I jump out of my chair, and Krish does the same and moves closer.
Vishal raises his hand, and the men back up a step. Then he points to the door. “Make sure we don’t hear of you using that filthy woman’s name around here again.”