up at our door for the chocolates and foil-wrapped hard-boiled sweets that were generously distributed at wedding times. They would gather around and gleefully sing the childish tunes that they always brought out for these occasions: ‘Sanjay and Priya sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a golden carriage!’ before scampering off, their pockets bulging with sweets. Their mischievous exhortations aside, Sanjay and I observed cultural norms and restrained ourselves from overt shows of affection. Even so, everyone told us we looked as happy as two toddlers playing in a park on a summer’s afternoon.
My delight notwithstanding, the presence of Sanjay’s mother always weighed me down. I appeared to have been the last one to find out about her bitter nature. ‘Oh, she’s marrying Nita’s son, is she?’ people would ask my parents, trying to hide the astonishment in their eyes. ‘The boy is very handsome, yes, yes. And the family is quite well off, we believe. But that mother …’ I overheard one of my many interfering, melodramatic aunts warning my father that eventually Nita’s miserable temperament would manifest in her children.
‘The milk that flowed through her breasts must surely have been sour, smelling like lime,’ said the aunt. ‘How do we know that Sanjay did not receive this bad milk, which must have fizzled in his stomach like bad curd? How do we know he will not grow up to be like his mother? Our Priya will have to work extra hard to keep him sweet.’
To me, my mother-in-law was often mean and critical, condemning me a few days before our wedding because my outfit was ‘too revealing’ and my collarbone was showing.
‘My parents are very conservative,’ Sanjay had said to me. ‘They want you to dress only in Indian clothes. You understand, no?’
Two days prior to wedding, when we were out being showered with good wishes by friends, dining and dancing and drinking (Sanjay had beer, I stuck to Shirley Temples), Sanjay announced that he had to get home early because he had promised his mother. And that whole week long, she would call and demand extra additions to the dowry, the supplying of which had taxed my parents enough.
I should have taken that as my cue to end things.
But I couldn’t.
My family had already been through enough with so many unmarried daughters, and I was not about to bring more shame on their heads.
Plus, the neighbourhood children were right. I felt as if I loved Sanjay. And following love must come marriage.
And as my Aunt Vimla would insist: ‘All Indian families are the same. Mothers want the best for their sons. Be obedient and homely, and everything will be fine. Things always get better after marriage.’
At the wedding, I was surprised that they didn’t make me change my name. Hindu brides don’t simply take on their husband’s surname, but a new first and middle appellation as well. I was to go from Priyanka Chandru Mehta to something else entirely. My original middle name was my father’s name, now to be replaced by my husband’s name, for as Kaki had explained to me, this was a significant indicator that Hindu girls are ‘to go from their father’s house to their husband’s house, and nowhere in between’. And the point of changing my first name was simply to show that my identity – or what little of it I had – would be shed alongside my virginity. With a slim gold band on my finger, and the black-beaded mangal sutra necklace that all Hindu brides are given, I was to become a brand-new person. As Sanjay and I sat in front of the fire, its grey smoke twirling overhead, I waited for the priest to whisper my new name into my ear. But he did not. As it turned out, Priya was the perfect fit, as far as names go, for Sanjay. I would be Priya Sanjay Sohni. One out of three wasn’t bad.
Right after the wedding, the dholi was waiting for me outside the temple where the nuptials had taken place. I used to dream about being carried off in this palanquin, excitedly anticipating my life ahead with a new husband; only, I had always thought that I would have watched all my sisters make the journey before me. Instead, now, they each hugged me in turn, their cheeks wet with tears against my own. Aunt Vimla, who was a distant cousin to my mother but seemed to have turned herself into the family know-it-all, elbowed her way towards me and whispered in my ear: ‘Something will happen to you when you are alone together. Don’t cry, even if there is pain. We have all done it. And remember, you have married not just Sanjay but his entire family. You must do everything to please them. Only then will you have blessings on your head.’
My mother, however, had pushed Vimla aside, and clasped her strong arms around my neck. ‘My darling daughter, you are my first child to be married, but, please God, may you not be the last. May you stay happy. And if ever you are not, remember you always have a home with us.’ But then my mother paused, cupped the back of my head with her hand, stared straight into my eyes, and said: ‘But, Priya, darling, do try and be happy.’
Inside the dholi, I hugged my knees towards me, and fingered the coarse, wiry golden threads of my sari. I pulled aside the strings of jasmine that quivered in the warm evening breeze, and waited quietly as everyone paid their respects to a young, departing bride. Vimla and her entourage were meant to cry at the sight of me leaving, but instead they were rejoicing. They were waving and cheering, as if suddenly relieved of some monumental burden. I could swear that I even heard one of them yell out: ‘See ya!’
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