CHAPTER 1

Subhadra Pillai paused a moment and surveyed the scene ahead of her before she opened the car door and got out of the vehicle. The expensive, black, high heeled, sandals touched ground, first the right one, then the left. The golden jerry of her brilliant cherry red Kancheevaram silk saree framed her wrinkled but fair feet. The arm that extended to close the door was fair and plump and revealed half a dozen gold bangles and four rings on each of the fingers except the thumb. Brilliant stones glittered at the centre of each ring. A Gucci bag in black swung from the other arm which was adorned likewise. A chunky gold chain hung around the plump and lined neck which bulged out of the high-necked, silk, red, printed choli she wore.  

She stood there on the portico of the wedding hall, lifting her sari pleats slightly with one hand. There was a huge red bindi right in the centre of her forehead and her majestic expression drew curious glances to her. Her demeanor relaxed into a smile when the bride’s uncle came rushing out to greet her.  

‘Subhadra Chechi, come, come, I was wondering why you didn’t arrive till now. You are always so prompt and early. Oh where is Anu?”   

“You know he can’t take a day of leave from office. His CEO is visiting from the US and he is anyway in Mumbai today, has a meeting. He will come for the ‘reception’, don’t worry. Where are the women folk?”  

‘They are all waiting inside, the groom will arrive in an hour, Here, Nimmi, take this Ammayi to your mother.”  

The last to a girl, who was hurrying inside with a packet; she looked about twenty, and was dark but very pretty. The girl looked like she was about to refuse but then thought the better of it.  

Subhadra Pillai smiled and inclined her head at the balding, graying, middle-aged gentleman who looked so obviously the bride’s father and then narrowed her eyes in an assessing look at the girl. The girl literally squirmed under her gaze.  

“You are Chandrika’s daughter?”  

“No, I am Remani’s daughter”  

“Oh, has Remani arrived? I didn’t know that. What do you do?”  

‘I am in my final year MBBS at Trivandrum Medical College.”   

She seemed to anticipate the full details of her education in any other question this new Ammayi might ask.  

“Hmmm, a half-doctor, huh? Ah! Wait, but you have a sister who is elder to you and is already a doctor, right?”  

The Ammayi in question seemed to ask this very innocently but the girl looked a bit put out at the ‘half’ term, she hesitated a bit before saying with a slight edge to her voice,  

“Yes, my sister is also a doctor; she is doing her M.S., again at Trivandrum MC. Please Ammayi, may I go a little fast, this packet is needed at the bride’s dressing room, so….”  

The girl looked quite apprehensive about what the woman would reply now but the Ammayi in question changed to affability personified and touched her shoulder ostensibly in a fond gesture.

‘Go, go, go… that is most important, by the way I can see your mother over there, that is Remani, right? And be sure to ask your sister to meet me before you go back…. I would like to see her after so many years… she was just this high when I last saw her.”

The Ammayi used her hands to indicate a height and Nimmi fled before the next question.  

Subhadra Pillai now walked towards the round of chairs placed close to the mandap. The guests were yet to arrive, and it was just the bride’s close kin that sat round in expectation of the arrival of the groom’s party. The groom would be received only at 11 am, as per the astrologer’s instruction, so the women had another hour before they had to fall in line to the various duties incumbent on the relatives according to tradition.  

‘Remani’ who was wrapped in a heavy brocade brilliant pink saree was exhibiting her new necklace to an admiring crowd around her, stiffened at the authority in the voice that boomed at her,   

“Remani, when did you come?  How come you didn’t call me as soon as you arrived?”

Remani turned round in all her wedding finery with condescension on her face at the interruption but on perceiving the speaker, her whole body language changed.  

“Subhadra Chechi! I had just asked these people when you would arrive or if you were in station. So sorry about not calling you, but I came by the midnight flight yesterday. How could I disturb you so early in the morning? Anyway, I was sure I would meet you here.”  

The tone was almost reverential and a few eyebrows were raised and smiles hidden behind fingers and saree pallus. Subhadra Pillai proceeded to pull a chair out of its row, much to the dismay of the event management company person who was monitoring the arrangements, and sat herself down. She gestured to the pink-silk-wrapped Remani to do likewise, and the event manager watching from a distance was swiftly by her side.   

“Mam, why don’t you all sit by the left side of the mandap? I have a feeling you are one of the ‘close’ relatives of the bride? Yes? Then you MUST sit there, where you can see her come out of the green room. This side is for the visitors, but we usually reserve the best view for the bride’s side, you know…See the flowers and décor on this side? It is blue for the boy’s side. There is your rightful place, decked in pink.”  

The event manager was an efficient lady used to handling these ‘close relatives’ who were a night mare to any family event. But her honeyed voice and tactful dealing had its effect and Mrs. Pillai and the rest of the women allowed themselves to be led to the other side of the mandap, where the seats were arranged in a circle, for cozy chitchats. The conversation resumed there.  

‘Now tell me, where is your eldest? I have been looking round for her but couldn’t see any one who resembles you at all. I saw your younger one.”  

“You mean you met Nimmi? I guess she must have been in a hurry, she and Neeru, my eldest, are decking the bride, you know.”  

“You mean to say that there is no beautician arranged?” Subhadra Pillai lowered her voice, “I can’t believe that Bhaskar is saving money on a beautician as well.”  

“What do you mean? Is he saving on something else? I didn’t know that.” Remani was equally hush-hush in her response.  

“Remani, just look around you! See the décor? You can make out at once that they have made a cheap deal… it is all cloth and plastic, reusable items which cost less. See, for my Devi’s wedding I spent one lakh on just the flowers… we had jasmine, rose and marigold, real ones mixed with greenery and you should have seen the effect… we didn’t need an air freshener at all… it was a glorious natural perfume all round. And the lovely roses, in three colours, smelling great and brought all the way from Ooty!”  

“Oh, my! I must remember that when my Neeru gets married, Chechi do leave the name of your decorator with me? And by the way, there is a beautician there, but Neeru has a natural instinct for decking a bride, so she was asked to be there.”  

“Is that so? Then she will be a doctor with lots of aesthetics… maybe she should take up Plastic Surgery, there is a lot of money in it, and no tensions”  

Remani smiled, nodding in enthusiasm,   

“Yes, you know she is specializing in surgery. I have told her so too, but she is keen on…”  

Remani could not finish the sentence; she was interrupted by a hearty slap on the shoulder by a plump lady in a silk salwar kameez in soft blue. Her make up echoed the shade of her dress and her eye-shadow was not just blue but glittering too. The women around her gaped at her four fold pearl chain with a diamond pendant and diamond ear clips.   

“Remani, Trust you to be where you should be!” said the newcomer, and there were covert giggles around them. Remani tried to hide her confusion by introducing her to Subhadra Pillai.  

“Subhadra Chechi, have you met Sreedevi Menon… she is…”  

“Ah ah, ah! Remani, she will know me better if I introduce myself. You must know of Justice Narayana Menon, formerly of the Supreme Court?”  

“Of course, who doesn’t know him? You are…”  

“His daughter!”  

“Oh, my god, that means you are Prasanth’s mother? My son Anurag Pillai and he are classmates at the IIT… but weren’t you in the US?”  

“I was, we returned for good only last month. Prasanth got married to a colleague there, so now he is settled in the US for good… we thought it best to come back and manage the estates. And we also have a daughter to marry, so we thought it best to husband-hunt here.”  

Sreedevi Menon tinkled loudly and even Subhadra Pillai was impressed. Remani’s existence was totally forgotten as the two ladies went about a detailed information sharing session of their offspring and other activities.   

Remani, who was now ignored, fumed visibly for a few seconds, and then went to sit beside another of her gender who had been watching all this.  

“That Sreedevi Menon is too much, really… has no manners at all… how can she barge in like that when two people are talking and hijack the conversation to suit her?”  

“My dear, she has a daughter to marry off, and Subhadra’s son is the most eligible bachelor in our crowd today. He is handsome, well-qualified, well-employed, and well-off too. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that… you have a marriageable daughter yourself, don’t you?”  

Remani would have retaliated but the chief organizer of the day came in with the news that the groom’s party had arrived, and there was a scramble to reach the decked arch where the ‘boy’ was waiting. The traditional ‘thalams’, an odd number of girls led by the eldest married aunt or Ammayi from the girl’s side came down the drive way to the gate. Each of the thalams or brass plates held a tiny glowing diya, some flowers and rice and a few strands of the “thengin pookkula”’ or the flowers of the coconut tree. The Ammayi who led the group held a traditional lamp in her hands. The bride’s brother was already waiting down there with a flower garland and a bouquet.  

The girls who held the thalams were all pretty and well-decked and Remani pushed forward with a determined gesture to Subhadra Pillai’s side and told her in a whisper,   

“Subhadra Chechi, that girl in the blue sari, with long hair, that is my Neeru”.  

Subhadra Pillai looked at the sallow skinned, yet good looking and graceful girl for a moment and passed on with the crowd moving forward without a comment, leaving Remani totally confused, what did Subhadra Chechi mean by that expression? Then she saw that Sreedevi Menon was introducing a plump and fair girl, almost like herself, to Subhadra Pillai.

 

…to be continued