I would remind you that our home is your home. Don’t forget your family.
Best wishes.
Yours truly, etc.
All in all, it is better to turn and stare at every Indian person walking by, just to make sure it isn’t one of the GIF (Great Indian Family) in case you accidentally ignore them. Or, in my case, so you can make a quick getaway. Of course, since every other person you see in London looks more or less Indian, this can make you see monsters lurking around every corner, and turn you into a neurotic mess.
My GIF forms the backdrop of just about everything. They are the wallpaper and the furniture, the muzak, the Thames, London traffic, pollution and global warming rolled into one. They are always there and generally in the way. And no matter how much you think you can deal with them, the truth is you can’t.
Let’s go back now to the matter at hand, the story of the bride who got arrested on her wedding day. I’ll tell you the story the way it happened. Or at least, I’ll tell it to you almost the way it happened. Which is nearly as good.
The setting for the wedding is Bloomington House, a country estate near Cambridge, its rambling red-brick walls charmingly cocooned in a wood of crab-apple and ash. Today, cloud shadows play hide-and-seek on the lawns, and the trees that are waking up in the half-light of spring shiver naked in the breeze, their reflections playing leapfrog with the koi in the pond. Next to the pond is a Japanese meditation garden, where someone has clearly been thinking about alien invasions because there are crop circles ranging all the way from one side to the other in order of size.
In this romantic scene, a large number of cars have recently pulled up and evacuated my numerous relatives in all their colourful glory, tucking in sari trains, sprucing maroon lipstick, jingling bracelets, chattering non-stop. I watch this from a window in the back room in which I am waiting. How long before all of them head into the barn for the wedding ceremony? I scan the grounds. There are too many of them, this is the problem. They keep stopping, gesturing and exclaiming at the view, the manor, the gardens, the weather, each other’s clothes, jewellery, complexion, hair, manicures, the works. Just looking at them is exhausting. I turn and pace the room, my hands on my waist. Why is this dress so tight? I fidget with the buttons at the back but the snug bodice won’t let me stretch my arms far enough.
This will be over soon. This will be over soon. What is the matter with this place? Why is it so hot in here? I fan myself with my hands but it makes no difference.
I look around me. Unlike the garden that is lit up with lanterns, and the hall for the wedding breakfast that is covered at my request in all sorts of roses – red, pink, Cabbage, yellow, white, Hot Cocoa, the lot – the back room in which I’m waiting is white-washed and uninspiring. There are rolled-up yoga mats at one end, chairs piled one on top of the other, a hatch in the wall with a view into the newly painted kitchen, a headless Spiderman on the counter, no doubt forgotten by a child. On the cork board, there are notices for yoga classes, an advert for the local florist, a dog walker whose ‘best friend has always been a dog’ since she was three, a request for clothes for the Salvation Army, a phone number to call if someone spots a missing person and another for people with gonorrhoea.
I stare at them and my breathing gets short and heavy. I look out of the window again. The flock of relatives is thinning but a few linger outside the barn. Come on, come on, come on, I whisper. I stare at them, willing them to go faster, and give me some space in which to think. And maybe to breathe.
My reflection stares back at me, the little bronze hoops in my ears and the band of dark pink and orange flowers pinned all around my head suddenly looking out of place, like they belong to someone else. My silver dress is fuzzy in the window. What made me choose silver? It is washing out my complexion, making me look pasty. My black hair is bundled up on top of my head but already coiled strands are making a getaway. There is a look in my eyes, a maniacal look. Do I always frown like this? I try to relax my forehead, but almost at once the brows knit back together. I rub hard at my forehead.
There is so little air in this room that I am finding it hard to breathe. I take gasping breaths. Finally, every last one of my relatives disappears into the barn, through the wisteria that hangs over the barn door like the tail of a bejewelled pony getting ready for dressage. It’s now or never. I struggle with the window latch. It is jammed shut, having recently been painted over with thick white paint. I push against the window, try to budge the latch. I take off my shoe and pound it, I claw at it with my fingers, rubbing my knuckles raw, but the window doesn’t budge. Not a smidge. I need a wedge, something that will slide under the window, splinter the new paint that has glued it shut. I look all around me. There’s nothing. Nothing! There is a knock at the door. A relative? My fiancé? A summons? I stare at the door then, heart pounding, I walk slowly to open it. Standing outside is a policeman.
‘You need to step this way, miss,’ he says.
I look frantically behind him towards the inner door of the barn. I am supposed to walk through it any moment now. I look at the police officer. His ginger hair has been hastily brushed and there are two croissant crumbs clinging to his enormous moustache. The man was clearly in the middle of his breakfast when he was sent out on this mission.
I take a deep breath and hold out my hands, keeping a wary eye on the barn door.
‘That’s okay, miss,’ the man says. ‘If you cooperate, there’s no need for handcuffs.’
The man is so relaxed his hands are lolling in his pockets. What is the matter with this man? He is smiling and bored at the same time. I am now starting to feel a little faint. Or maybe like I’m going to explode. I am going to burst out of this dress. The tiny buttons at the back are going to ping-ping-ping off me like bullets. I flap my hands to cool myself. I look desperately at the man.
‘Please, please, I—’
‘Now, miss, steady now—’
‘You don’t understand—’
‘Calm down, you need to calm down—’
This is when I scream. My scream rents the air and the man looks startled.
I’m good at screaming. When I was seven, a drama teacher spent a month with my sister and me, basically teaching us how to scream. There’s not a lot I remember about my education – through most of it I was busy trying to show everyone that I was unteachable, bunking lessons, running away from school, sitting morosely with my hands in my pockets and not saying a word when asked a question, getting into endless debates with teachers about the conformist nature of the school system – but I have learnt how to scream.
The man holds out his hands to me. ‘Now, now, miss, there’s no need to be like that about it.’ He still sees no need for restraints, not really. This is all in a day’s work for him. I feel a little affronted that I rank so low on his list of important criminals to track down.
I tear the gerberas off from my head, and the rest of my hair comes bundling down. I stamp on the flowers a few times and scream again. The inner door to the barn bangs open and a small horde of people come crashing through it. Behind them, I can hear a buzzing, like the busy hum of a beehive that can turn into thunder at any moment.
My parents, my fiancé and his parents all try to push into the back room, all at the same time, with my Auntie PK and Auntie Dharma.
My mother, Renu Kumar, first through the door, makes straight for me and grabs my shoulders. Her forehead is deeply furrowed, her pink lipstick indifferently applied and now a little smudged, her purple silk sari with its green border tucked
