Chapter Fourteen Rupi
Fourteen
Rupi
If I believed that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service was my greatest challenge, I was entirely wrong. That is going to be a walk in the park compared to the rasgulla’s family.
It’s disturbing how very much like the rasgulla the rest of them are. Each one of them is soft and cuddly and gives off the most annoying unbridled joy. No wonder their faces are so rounded—it’s all that smiling. The cheek muscles must get quite the workout.
Even now when their golden son is springing a tattooed stranger on them, they’re fighting the good fight to keep on smiling. Which doesn’t mean every smile isn’t uncomfortable as heck. Unless I’m projecting, because, wow, I’ve never felt this uncomfortable in my entire life.
The idea of all of them under one roof being super cheery all the time is exhausting.
The brothers live in the house they grew up in with their parents, the way families traditionally used to in India.
It’s still a common practice there but much rarer than it used to be in generations past. You know where it isn’t uncommon?
In Indian soap operas. Those are still obsessed with joint families (so much scope for delicious drama).
This one is lined up at the wide front door under a brick portico held up by two massive columns. Around us, rows of neatly manicured topiaries look on at the spectacle.
A woman I recognize from the hospital holds a silver platter with an oil lamp.
Prem groans. “Mamma, can we not do this right now?”
“Did I say that to you when you went off and got engaged without telling anyone?” his mother says.
She has a point.
She beckons us to the threshold and rotates the aarti platter around our faces, touches the haldi and kumkum powders to our foreheads, sprinkles rice grains over us.
Her eyes are filled with focus. She’s actually putting devotion into blessing the arrival of her prospective daughter-in-law into the home.
I’m not a person who believes in rituals, or in anything really, but the expression on her face is so serene and filled with faith that even I can’t come up with something snarky to think.
I search the faces lined up behind Prem’s mother, looking for Simi. Simi left a little before us to go to Prem’s sister’s house. She was supposed to come over to this house with his sister and her family and meet us, but I don’t see her.
Saj isn’t here either. After handing out a long list of dos and don’ts, he left us to our own devices, which I hate to admit is a bit nerve racking.
Prem and I drove here in silence. Thank god the guy has it bad for my sister.
For a moment there, I was sure I was going to have to find a way to disappear again.
I’m not sure yet how long his bravado or his smitten-ness will last, but I’m not overwhelmed with confidence.
I just need to get the marriage certificate signed so he can’t change his mind.
His mother puts a piece of mithai in his mouth and then in mine too. “May having you join our family bring you and us good fortune and abundance,” she says. There’s an odd, determined kindness in her tone. Like she’s not happy with how we’ve done this, but she refuses to be a bitch about it.
Saj’s rumbly authoritative voice lingers in my ear. If the family believes your relationship is real, then we have a fighting chance that everyone else will.
I manufacture a demure smile, inspired by every soap heroine ever, and thank her.
When we step over the threshold and enter the house, everyone claps.
His mother gives Prem a look that makes him lean over and touch her feet.
I really don’t want to. It’s a common Indian practice, but I’ve never touched anyone’s feet in my life.
Our mother was many things, but the thing she was most proud of being was an iconoclast. She loved to announce how she didn’t believe in nonsense like society’s rules and rituals.
We only ever saw people touching their elders’ feet for blessings on TV, which was our real parent and guide for the entirety of our childhood.
I lean over and touch Prem’s mother’s feet the way I’ve seen it done on TV. She puts the aarti platter down on a console table and pulls me up (much like they do on TV). “You don’t have to touch your mother-in-law’s feet, beta. You just have to be honest with her.”
Okay, then, the family talks about themselves in third person.
I have the uncontrollable urge to laugh and run.
It’s official. I just walked into a true-to-life Hindi soap opera in the middle of small-town southern Kentucky, duly populated with sari-clad, bejeweled women, a grand mansion, family business, and a fake marriage.
I give her an innocent, wide-eyed smile.
The grand entrance foyer we’re standing in rises two floors above us and has a chandelier that’s fully on brand with the soap theme.
It’s just the sort of thing that can be used to kill someone off by tampering with it so it crashes on the hapless victim.
Which genius came up with the idea of suspending sharp glass overhead anyway?
I step aside and out of its path—better safe than sorry—and encounter a whole line of overdressed people.
A hugging mob descends upon us.
Pawan, Prem’s brother (even more soft bellied, creamy skinned, and teddy bearish than Prem): “We have so much to talk about, bro, but congratulations!”
Chandni, Pawan’s wife (huge boobs, big hair, wide mouth, and an embroidered lehnga most Bollywood heroines would find too heavy even for their own wedding): “You owe me a new sari for the engagement and an extra one for keeping it secret, but congratulations!”
Dolly, Prem’s mother’s friend (crying actual tears and also in the kind of sari that might suggest there is an actual wedding in progress): “I’ve changed his diapers, did you know? But congratulations!”
Dwai, Dolly’s husband (shockingly in a simple white kurta) remains silent as he hugs Prem, then me, so I have no idea if he has changed Prem’s diapers or not.
Next come two women who help take care of Prem’s father, who for some reason are also crying.
“Let’s go say hello to Papa first,” Prem’s mother says, leading us past the receiving line through the most ornately decorated room I’ve ever been in.
There’s a sweeping staircase with carved wood balusters.
Carved inlaid panels cover the wall, surrounding a huge fireplace with a mantel that’s, you guessed it, heavily carved.
Parts that aren’t covered in carved wood are covered in carpets. The Kashmiri kind. Intricate patterns of bright reds, blues, and greens freely mix together in motifs that range from peacocks to parrots and urns and towers. It’s like a tattoo sleeve come to life in decor form.
She leads us to a bedroom that is exactly what I expected after all that harem-esque splendor. A heavily upholstered bed with a red velvet skirt, a tufted red velvet headboard, and red velvet curtains hanging from a valanced canopy. Gold cord edges everything.
Instead of the sheik of the harem, a frail man sits propped up on the bed against red silk pillows and bolsters. He looks almost like someone put an age filter on Prem and Pawan. He moves his head ever so slowly and looks at me.
“Pankaj, look who’s here. Our Prem’s future bride,” Prem’s mother says.
Pankaj’s facial muscles barely move, but his eyes smile.
He makes a sound, and Prem goes to him and wraps his arms around his father.
He holds on for such a long time I could swear the boy is crying.
His father lifts his arm, and his mother presses her husband’s hand against Prem’s back and holds it there.
Despite myself, my throat constricts. Come on! Look at this room! This is a comedy, not a tearjerker. But I do press my hands together in a namaste.
Pankaj’s eyes smile brighter. One is slightly more focused than the other.
It takes him an effort, but he lifts his arm just the slightest bit from the bed, and his thumb pops up from a loose fist as his eyes dance at his son.
It takes me a moment to realize that he’s giving us a thumbs-up. Then he pats the bed.
“Baba wants you to sit by him,” Prem says, moving out of my way.
I sit.
It takes him another moment, but he lifts his right hand and touches it to his left arm, which seems to be entirely immobile.
He makes a sound that I don’t understand.
Prem’s mother looks at my arm. “He wants to see your tattoos.” She’s been avoiding looking at them this entire time.
I’m wearing one of Simi’s salwar kameezes. My arms are longer than my sister’s, and the sleeves stop part of the way down my forearm, exposing the part of me that makes so many people balk. I hold out my arm and pull up the sleeve past my elbow.
He studies it with the softest eyes and makes a sound that’s something like fife.
His wife slides me a look. “He thinks they’re nice,” she says, only slightly grudgingly.
His eyes twinkle, and he makes a twisting motion with his hand. He’s either asking me where I got them from or when or why.
“I started getting them when I was eighteen,” I say, unable to tell the truth.
He twists his hand again.
“Most of them were done in Mumbai.”
He gives me another thumbs-up sign, then very slowly he moves his hand to his chest.
I’m not sure if it’s the tattoos or the mention of Mumbai that makes him touch his heart, but I say, “Thank you.”
Just then the doorbell chirps and echoes through the house.
“The girls are here!” Prem’s mother says, and veritable stars burst in his father’s eyes.
Even Prem smiles a genuine smile for the first time.
Prem, his mother, his brother, his brother’s wife, and the entire jingbang lot (who I hadn’t realized had followed us into the room) file out to welcome what I’m assuming are the babies Simi babysits. I stay sitting on the bed, and Pankaj gives me another lopsided smile.