Chapter 2
chapter 2
“Dev, asho na!”
Dev Mukherjee gritted his teeth from where he sat propped against his bed frame with his laptop and glared at the ceiling above him. His mother had called for him twice already, her voice growing shriller each time. Her growing neediness wafted through the floorboards, thick and pungent like pan-fried cumin.
Lately, every corner of the house seemed to reek of it.
Moving back to his childhood home after his father’s passing had made so much sense eight months ago: his mother had been grateful for his company, his employers had agreed to him working remotely, and he was no longer surrounded by jovial flip-flop-footed tourists of Penticton, jacked up on warm weather and wine while toting their sand-filled clutter around town. Granted, the tourist situation in Kelowna wasn’t much better, but at least people here were realistic, downtrodden by the rising cost of living.
However, since secretly quitting his job as a senior manager of a prestigious firm’s tax division six weeks ago, his convenient, rent-free living situation had lost most of its luster.
“Dev! Come upstairs!” his mother’s voice called again from above.
Frustration climbed Dev’s spine. The first few months after his father’s death had been distracting, for both Dev and his mother, Gia. While he had been busy tying up loose ends, his mother had been a social butterfly: volunteering to babysit her granddaughters, accepting dinner invitations from her friends, embarking on touristy adventures organized by her sister, Aashi.
But once the desire for distractions had passed, Gia’s grief had turned inward, and her home became a protective nest. Now she rarely left, preferring to host friends and family in the comfort of her well-worn slippers. When she wasn’t socializing, she was summoning Dev at multiple intervals of the day to force-feed him curry, ask what he was doing, and request his company for a never-ending marathon of Bollywood movies.
Her loneliness sought him out every day.
“Devdas!” Gia’s voice was reaching the edges of a hysterical pitch that, during his childhood, was often punctuated by a halfhearted whack from a wooden spoon. And even though he was now a grown man, he wouldn’t put it past Gia to whoop his thirty-one-year-old ass. Dev didn’t bother saving the findings of his fruitless job search before pushing his computer aside.
Following the rich aroma of chai, Dev entered the kitchen to find his mother, Aashi, and another older Desi woman sitting at the kitchen table. They all stared at him like predators in various stages of the hunt: Aashi sparkled with anticipation, the stranger examined him shrewdly, and his mother was self-assured, ready for the kill.
Dev’s footsteps slowed to the tentative shuffle of a fawn in an open field.
“Dev, this is Veera Auntie.” Gia gestured for him to take the seat beside Aashi, which positioned him in prime staring-contest position with the newcomer.
“Namashkar, auntie,” Dev murmured, inclining his head respectfully. The standard greeting fell from his lips, always at the ready for the many nonrelated aunties and uncles parading through his mother’s home. “Kamon acho?”
“Oh no, son,” Veera responded in English. She waved off his inquiry of how she was doing with a hearty chuckle and opened the folder in front of her to jot down a few notes. “I do not speak Bengali. But that was very courteous. Well done.” She turned to nod her approval at a beaming Gia. “Well done, indeed.”
“He is a good boy,” Gia said with a proud smile. “Very well-mannered.”
Veera nodded again, her pen flying across the page.
What the shit? Dev threw a panicked look at Aashi, the only adult in the room he could rely on as an ally. She blithely smiled back.
No help there.
His mother clapped her hands together, the gold bangles lining her wrists clinking together with excitement. “Veera is a matchmaker…”
Oh no.
“…for you, son!” Gia threw her hands above her head as if the idea had come from the heavens directly. Veera nodded, confirming her role in this divine intervention.
The fires of hell might as well swallow him whole right now. “Why?” Dev asked, hiding his clenched fists beneath the table.
Gia looked at him, eyebrows drawn tight. “It’s high time you thought about marriage.”
He’d already thought about marriage, had thought about it for a long time: after a lifetime of seeing the Desi community’s version of wedded bliss, Dev had decided long ago that marriage was not for him. He didn’t want a wife, preapproved by his mother—and the community—based on a list of attributes that were more about social obligation and status than love. Nor did he wish to risk the alternative of going against the grain, as many a friend of a friend of a friend had by choosing to marry someone outside their family’s accepted standards, being looked down upon as a result, and forever whispered about behind steaming cups of chai and butter biscuits.
He’d rather be alone.
“I don’t need a matchmaker,” Dev said. “I can find someone on my own.” Dev didn’t add that finding a wife was the last item on his priority list, penciled in some place after dying.
As if on cue, the three women threw back their heads and cackled, reminding Dev of the three witches his grade-eleven English class had read about in Macbeth . He felt like his sixteen-year-old self, too: powerless and at the mercy of meddling adults. It was a feeling that had never entirely disappeared, part and parcel of being a respectful and dutiful Bengali son.
“Men never think they need a matchmaker!” Veera laughed. “Never!”
“Don’t worry, Dev,” Aashi said. “We will find you a nice girl.”
“No, I don’t—”
“What kinds of things do you want in a match, Dev?” Veera eyed him over the rim of her wire-framed glasses.
“Educated,” Gia answered for him. “And Hindu.”
“Nurturing,” Aashi chimed in.
“Not too tall.” Gia nodded in Dev’s direction. “Definitely not taller than him.”
“But not too short. We want tall grandchildren,” Aashi added.
“And from a good, respectable family,” Gia finished.
Because God forbid his future wife be considered on her own as an individual. Lineage was as important to his mother as thoroughly rinsing the grains of basmati rice she served with almost every meal.
“Do you want a Bengali bride?” Veera asked as her pen frantically scratched across the paper.
Dev tried again. “No, I—”
“I agree with Dev,” Gia interrupted, nodding her approval. “A Bengali girl would be great, but Dev would like any good Indian girl. I’m open-minded to my future daughter-in-law.”
Dev choked back a scoff. As far as his tradition-loving, stubborn mother went, that was as open-minded as she got.
“Radius?” Veera asked.
“What?” Dev craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of Veera’s scribblings.
“Well, of course we want a girl with a nice figure,” Gia said.
“No, no.” Veera shook her head. “I have clients from all over the province.” She paused to wink at Dev. “I’m that good. Do you care where she’s from?”
“Someone local or from one of the surrounding areas,” Gia replied firmly. “I want Dev to settle down nearby.”
Aashi tapped her finger against her chin. “But most important, she should be kindhearted. Dev is the cool type, he needs someone warm.”
Dev shot his aunt a look. “I’m not ‘the cool type.’?” He turned to his mother. “I’m not looking to get married, Mom.”
Gia rolled her eyes at the matchmaker. “You’re not getting any younger, Devdas. Your older brother is married, now it is your turn. Do you want people to think there’s something wrong with you?”
At the Mukherjee family’s catchphrase, Dev dropped stony eyes to the table’s plastic-covered, green gingham tablecloth. He had been silenced with “what people think” his entire life, had been swayed too many times by his parents’ concern for the larger South Asian community’s opinion about everything under the sun. So entrenched were his parents in maintaining appearances, Dev had never figured out how to turn them away from such a stupid and superficial argument.
And yet he was part of the problem, wasn’t he? His father had been a renowned surgeon who had demanded excellence from his family: Gia, for her part, had been an obedient wife, always at the ready to propel her husband’s career forward. At their parents’ insistence, Dev’s older brother had become a mechanical engineer, and his younger brother was currently in law school. Dev was no different: he had curtailed his goal to pursue an MBA for an accounting designation instead because tax accountants were more desirable in the business community. More credible as far as designations in business went.
And boring as hell.
“Thirty-one is a little old,” Veera confirmed. “But he is an accountant, and his father was a surgeon. Those are very attractive qualities. He has nice hair, is trim, pleasing face…” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “He’s a good height compared to most clients. Taller than average, but not so big that the girl should worry about her wedding night.”
If that particular pitch was meant to sell him on the matchmaking scheme, Veera was failing. To his horror, both his mother and his aunt turned to him with new, critical eyes. God only knew what they were thinking.
“I’m not interested in meeting a wife,” he snapped. Ever.
Gia clicked her tongue. “You’re always so grumpy about everything. No woman wants a bad-tempered old man for a husband. Try to be charming, for goodness’ sake.”
“Listen, Dev.” Aashi placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “Don’t think of this as coercion into marriage.” Dev swallowed a skeptical snort. “Try to see this as an opportunity to meet new people. You don’t have to say yes to the first girl you meet. We’re just asking you to try something new.”
Had he been alone with his aunt, Dev might have revealed his desire to never marry, to avoid following in his parents’ footsteps at all costs. And his aunt, who was twelve years younger than his mother and the only parental figure he felt close to, would listen. And maybe respect his opinion, even though she likely wouldn’t agree.
But one look at his mother, whose eyes burned with the flames of the matrimonial fire on his wedding day, confirmed that his confession would bear no weight in this conversation.
“It is every mother’s dream to see her sons settled into happy unions,” Gia said, clutching a fist to her chest, as Dev was sure she’d seen in many Bollywood dramas. “I will help my son any way I know how.”
“And I think it will be very easy to keep an open mind about these girls,” Veera assured him, waving a fat pink folder in his direction before pushing it toward Gia.
Gia’s eyes widened in delight as she began sorting through what appeared to be a collection of résumés. Her hands flew as she began muttering first impressions, more to herself than the other three people in the room who watched in silence. “Too plain. Crooked nose. Oh, very cute! Wonderful lineage. Too skinny…” Gia was ruthless as she sorted pictures into three piles like a seasoned farmer might sort melons.
Dev gaped, but Veera nodded as if Gia’s methodology—“too tall for Dev. Too busty. Divorced at twenty-eight, my goodness!”—made perfect sense. Aashi, the supposed voice of reason, didn’t comment as she listened with interest. Dev’s heart sank as the sound of profiles shuffling into place foretold his fate.
“Mom, this is ridiculous,” Dev said.
“What’s ridiculous is this makeup,” Gia said, holding a photo up for her sister to see. “There’s something about a girl with this much powder that I do not trust.”
“Mom—”
“Dev, relax,” Gia said with a careless wave of her hand. “You can trust me.”
“These Canadian-born children often forget that parents know best,” Veera said, adjusting her sari as she stood up. Despite her petite frame, she had a commanding presence, which Dev guessed was instrumental for forcing people down the marriage aisle.
“Send me a text of which girls you’d like Dev to meet,” she instructed, shouldering a large purse before gathering her folders.
“It’s so much better when these profiles offer a full-body shot,” Gia commented, squinting at a profile in her hand.
“I encourage all my clients do so, but for some reason, many of them decline,” Veera answered with a shrug as Aashi escorted her out of the room.
Dev eyed his too-cheerful mother as she continued sifting through the profiles Veera had left her. His entire life, he had witnessed his parents adhering to baffling cultural beliefs he would never fully understand. In his opinion, their traditions were as tired and dusty as the suitcases they had used to emigrate from India to Canada thirty-seven years ago; it was unwanted baggage, yet another thing on a long list of what had made him different from the kids at school.
While his classmates had hustled off to hockey practice and sleepovers after school, Dev had been expected home to study, eat a family dinner, and then complete extra-credit work, which, given his private-school education, was always an option. The world his parents surrounded him with—tutors, friendships with other Desi children with like-minded parents, the newest laptop model—was all to get ahead, to rise above something Dev never quite understood. The white kids at school never seemed concerned about such things, even those from more conservative families. But everything in Dev’s life siphoned back to his parents’ upbringing, to a country they’d left behind but could never forget.
This matchmaking scheme, though, was on a whole new level of weird and old-fashioned. And with or without his mother’s knowledge, Dev was determined to put a stop to it.
Abruptly, he stood and moved to his mother’s side, pulling the folder away from her and snapping it shut. “I’m not interested in being set up for marriage.”
Gia’s sigh overflowed with impatience. “We talked about this, Dev.”
Dev scoffed. Not even at gunpoint would he call what had transpired in front of Veera Auntie a conversation. But rational conversation, where everyone had their say and weighed each other’s arguments, wasn’t a Mukherjee family strength.
“Just give it a try,” Aashi added, coming back into the room. “After all, your mother and I both had arranged marriages, and look how our lives turned out.”
Dev knew she was talking about the wealth and comfort they had found after years of struggling as immigrants in a new country whose snow-covered mountains were as foreign to them as seeing a sex shop nestled between a Subway and a used bookstore. For people like Gia and Aashi, marriage had been the life raft for them to embark on such a journey, to wade into uncharted waters and start a new life.
But as far as Dev could remember, the marriage between his parents was fraught with a peculiar tension, something he could never find in after-school programming or the family unit in his elementary social studies textbook. He had never seen his parents kiss or show any kind of affection. They just lived together, a family bound by efficiency and obligation and the shared understanding that tradition was the be-all and end-all.
It was a life Dev would never willingly choose for himself. But how could he explain this to his mother, especially when she turned large, expectant eyes to him and said, “Yes, Dev. Please try. Who knows how much more time I have? I want to see you settled.”
Dev sighed. If he was going to usurp her ridiculous plans, he would have to resort to the tried-and-tested method he imagined most first-generation offspring relied on to circumvent their parents’ expectations: secrecy and scheming.
“If I agree to give this a try, will you butt out?” Dev laid his hands flat on the tabletop and tried to look complacent.
“Oh, of course, of course,” his mother answered. “It is, after all, your choice in wife.”
“Okay, good—”
“But keep in mind,” Gia added with a narrowed glance. “She must be good enough to be my daughter-in-law.”
“ Didi. ” Aashi cut in as her eyes darted to where Dev’s hands were curling into fists. “How did interviews with the brand consultants go?”
Gia shrugged. “It was all right. Some stood out more than others.”
“Did you meet the girl I called? Naomi Kelly?”
Dev watched his mother’s face shrivel with disapproval. He’d seen that face many times before: when he received anything less than an A in school or when an auntie opted for a daringly low-cut blouse to pair with her sari at a traditional event, Gia’s face pinched tight like a raisin.
“I don’t know what you were thinking with that one,” she scoffed. “I’m not sure she has what it takes for my bazaar. And has no one ever taught her not to argue with her elders?”
Aashi’s eyes widened. “She seemed so sweet on the phone. Did you find anyone you’d like to hire?”
“Not yet. I asked two of them to present their ideas on Friday so I can decide who would be the best person for the job. Which reminds me,” Gia said, turning to Dev, “I have to babysit the girls tomorrow, so I need you to mind the store.”
Dev’s eyebrows lifted at the news. He hadn’t realized his mother had reopened the bazaar. When his father had suffered a stroke, Gia had closed it down to provide round-the-clock care for his rapidly decreasing health. And she hadn’t seemed too interested in picking things back up after his passing.
“Mind the store?” Although he hadn’t stepped foot in the bazaar for several years, he doubted it was a hot spot of activity. “Mind the store for…customers?”
Gia huffed. “You could do some dusting and tidying.”
“Is it too much trouble for you to take a day off work, Dev?” Aashi asked sympathetically.
Using work as an excuse would be an easy way out of a task that Dev would rather shave his face with a chipped, rusted straight razor than do. But he couldn’t bring himself to outright lie to them. He had hidden many smaller things from them in the past, but leaving his lucrative, respectable career as a tax accountant at a large, corporate firm was not a minor, forgettable event, like quietly dating a non–South Asian while knowing she would never meet his family.
His parents had played a large role in navigating his career path; the desire to change lanes would not be welcomed with open arms. Especially when he was still unemployed. And mooching off his mother.
Besides, Dev was the one his mother counted on. The one who everyone counted on. It was the consequence of having a less-than-stellar social life, he supposed.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’ll mind the store.”
When Gia beamed, Dev cringed. It was a smile he was all too familiar with, one he’d seen every time her children bent to her will. She’s grieving , Dev reminded himself. She needs your help.
“That’s my son,” his mother said, flipping the pink matchmaking folder back open. “Now, let’s get back to business.”