Chapter 5
When Simran was ten and Kavitha was eight, they fell instantaneously and simultaneously in love with the same person.
Simran can recall exactly where she was when they first saw him—sprawled on the drawing room floor, watching a movie.
The Chennai heat was stifling but the tile floor was cool beneath her stomach, and above, a ceiling fan spun so furiously that it seemed like it might fly right off its mount.
Kavitha, on one of her summer visits from New Jersey, was lying next to her, chin propped on her stacked fists.
Simran knew the moment Kavi fell too: Her head lifted and her neck straightened and she was rapt.
Shah Rukh Khan was the most magnetic person they’d ever seen, with dimples like canyons and big, expressive brown eyes.
He had imprinted on them through his character in the classic romantic drama Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the way people in other parts of the world might have fallen for Disney princes or Mr. Darcy.
They watched all three hours and nine minutes of DDLJ every day that summer and for many summers after.
Kavitha would, in equal parts envy and reverence, point out Simran’s luck in sharing a name with the female main character.
They referred to each other as “senorita” like SRK does to Kajol, the actress in the movie, and later that became their code word.
When Simran had first moved to Iyer House after her parents’ death, she barely spoke.
For the first few weeks she would lie awake at night in what had been the guest room until then, on the uncomfortable futon since there hadn’t been time to purchase a proper bed yet.
That’s when her sleeplessness had originated, her mind unable to quiet.
One night, Kavitha snuck into her room when everyone else was already in bed.
They’d watched DDLJ together on her laptop, a headphone in each ear, Kavi holding on tight to Simran as she broke down.
Kavitha would do that every night for the next year—the sneaking in, the movie, and the comforting.
Swallowing the memory, Simran says, “Hi, Kavi.”
Kavitha gives her a tight-lipped smile. “Hi. You came.”
Simran balls her hands into fists to resist flinging her arms around her cousin. “Well, you did buy my ticket.”
“I had to; I can’t count on you to show up just by asking,” Kavitha says.
“There you two are!” Veena perima bustles up to them as if she’s finally found them, though she’s known where they both were this whole time.
“Come on, time to go back to the house and get everything ready.” The family will have a small head start before the guests will follow in droves for an outdoor celebration of the engagement in the backyard, which is the size of a small park.
This casual lunch includes ten entrees, several appetizer stations, and enough booze to power a midsize company’s holiday party.
It will be the most low-key event of this wedding.
Simran is excited to have more time with Kavitha, even if it’s in the dreaded back row of the minivan, which is fine for the uniformly short Iyers but not for Simran, whose extra five inches mean that her knees are in her face for the duration of the ride.
But her cousin barely says a word to her—in fact, Kavitha doesn’t even look in her direction, despite them jostling against each other as the car drives over potholes on the highway.
From the legroom-blessed middle row, Geeta twists around. “What color should I wear for the afternoon event?” She holds up her phone and scrolls through so many outfits in different shades that Simran feels like she’s looking at a kaleidoscope.
Simran clears her throat, surprised and a little pleased to be asked. “The—”
“I always choose blues and purples because I look so good in them, but I wonder if I should mix it up,” Geeta says.
“I—”
“But then again, is my engagement party really the time to experiment?” Geeta continues.
Simran remains silent this time and Kavitha speaks up. “I think you should do the baby pink pavadai melakku.”
Geeta turns expectantly to Simran, who sardonically points to herself. “Oh. You want to know what I think?”
Geeta nods twice, face scrunched. “Who else would I be asking, Akka?”
“I thought you were talking to yourself,” she says, glancing at Kavitha.
They had always been so in sync when it came to GNN, aka the Geeta News Network, the nickname they’d given her because she had been such an insufferable tattletale when they were younger.
But all Simran gets is a blank look. Sighing, she turns back to Geeta and says, “I think the red-and-yellow lengha.”
“Hmmm,” Geeta says, tapping a perfectly manicured finger against her chin. “I’ll think I’ll do the baby pink. Great choice, Kavitha. I might wear the red-and-yellow lengha later. Maybe to one of the smaller events.”
Simran wants to say that she doesn’t care if her cousin wears Saran Wrap to her ceremony but instead bites her tongue and looks out the window.
Growing up, it had always felt like Kavitha and Simran were the sisters with Geeta as the odd one out.
Then one summer, Geeta stopped coming to Chennai and instead was shuttled off to academic summer programs that paved the path for her to go to a prestigious private school an hour away, and then MIT and Harvard, all far from Iyer House.
Geeta missed out on the closeness that Kavi and Simran shared—but she also missed out on Veena perima’s tyrannical rule.
“Anyway,” Geeta says as they get out of the car, “it’s not like I have a bad color.
” More annoying than Geeta herself is that she is correct.
She could show up to the ceremony in the drab blue scrubs—the ones she wears in her post-shift Insta stories where she reminds everyone daily that she is doing amazing, groundbreaking work in her extremely prestigious ob-gyn fellowship in New Haven—and still be the most dazzling woman in the room.
Geeta has and always will be the star, no matter whose wedding it is.
All three of them have played a version of these roles to outsiders since they were girls: Geeta is the golden child, Ivy League educated but not so busy she couldn’t join Veena perima at the temple every weekend; Kavitha, the oddball middleman with her goofy jokes, still living at home and working at a middling suburban law firm, matte compared to her sparkling younger sister; and Simran, beautiful but tragic, so damaged that she ran away from her own family.
Within half an hour, all the guests from the engagement ceremony have arrived and the celebration is in full swing out back.
The latest Bollywood, Tamil, and other South Indian movie tunes blast out from overworked speakers.
Children screech as they play tag in and around a group of adults who yell out that they’re going to hurt someone but do nothing to stop them.
A confederacy of uncles sit in a loose half circle of plastic white chairs and talk so enthusiastically about the movie Sholay that it sounds like arguing.
At the edge of all this activity, Simran stands by herself, unable to remember what she used to do with her hands during family events. The midday summer sun beating down on the thick, parrot-green material of her blouse makes her feel a little like she’s being cooked.
Veena perima comes out, bearing a huge platter teeming with food, and commands, “Simi, take this from me.” Simran sets down the heavy dish of rice the color of a ripe lemon, dotted with ghee-fried peanuts and golden specks of urad dal and vibrant green curry leaves next to another giant platter of rice, this one white but with chopped peas and carrots, finished with toasted cashews.
Veena perima peers down, head pivoting from one platter to the other.
“Aiyo, who made this? I made more than enough of my lemon rice. We don’t need two rice dishes!
” The tang of the lemon, subtle and savory, hits Simran’s nose and her mouth waters in an almost Pavlovian way.
No restaurant in Toronto, possibly the world, can match the magic of her aunt’s cooking.
“Oh, Veena, I had some requests for my pulao,” Manjula aunty, Rishi’s mom, says in a clear, fully American accent compared to Veena perima’s hybrid one, even though they’ve both lived in this country for the same amount of time.
She saunters over in her caftan and loose dress pants, a contrast to the sharp folds of Veena perima’s traditional sari.
Earlier, Simran had overheard her aunt tell a family friend, Neeta aunty: “What is she wearing? Is this her son’s engagement or an interview with Oprah? ”
Veena perima’s shoulders go back as the mothers greet each guest who comes up to the table and unknowingly casts a vote by taking either the pulao or the lemon rice. Occasionally, one woman shoots a slit-eyed look in the other’s direction before both break into simpering, terse smiles.
Simran is not here to watch them duel; she’s eager to find Kavitha. Her cousin may be determined to avoid her, but Simran is determined not to let her. Looking around, she finally spots her at the other end of the table, at the vada station.
“Perima,” Simran says, “should I go help Kavi with the food?”
Her aunt nods at Simran. “Haan. Make sure everyone gets some chutney.”
“I have a mission,” Simran mutters to herself as she goes to stand next to her cousin, who is handing out the golden-fried lentil fritters.
“Guess what I got for my birthday?” Simran says casually.
Her cousin shrugs, looking like the apathetic teenager she never was. “What?”
“A poster of DDLJ.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Signed by Shah Rukh Khan.”
Kavitha forgets her indifference and her face lights up. “No way! How’d you get that?”