The Rearranged Life (8 page)

“Looks like everything the Nanduris have to do with is beautiful,” he says smoothly.
He’s flirting with me
! James’ face flashes through my mind for only a second before it’s replaced again with Nishanth’s.

We must beam at each other like we’re in our own world. When I glance away, my eyes settle on Indrani, Anisha, and Sophia, whose friendship is already cemented over pop stars and their latest antics. My parents, three tables away, immerse themselves in conversation with Nishanth’s parents, and when Amma and I make eye contact, her gaze shifts between Nishanth and I with a decided glint.

“Do you think you would want a love marriage or do you think you’d go the Nakul route and get a semi-arranged one?”

“You mean we have a choice?” I ask, playfully.

“I guess that means you’ve been fed the arranged marriage stuff your whole life, too.” Nishanth chuckles. “But let’s say it was completely up to you.”

“I’m not sure yet, to be honest. They are both wonderful in their own ways. How about you?”

“Me neither.” He shrugs. “I was hoping you had a better answer.”

“I wish! I think it’s kind of complicated for kids like us.”

“I completely agree.” He throws his hands up in surrender. “We have to be as Indian as the people in India and as American as the Americans. We can’t win.”

His dimples create valleys in his cheeks, and I would tell jokes all day to keep them there.

Being asked the same question twice in a few hours makes me consider my answer more seriously. Anisha’s sleepy pronouncement replays in my mind.
You always did follow the rules.
Anisha and Nishanth may have asked me what I want out of curiosity, but having a choice was never part of the bargain.

In the western world, arranged marriages are seen as ghastly or inhumane. In India, it’s the norm. In ancient days, women and men were married as business transactions. Betrothals during infanthood occurred to further interfamilial ties. Nowadays, the process has changed to something called semi-arranged. Basically, it’s the idea that the parents set you up on a blind date. For progressive families like mine, that means if your date tanks (like the time Mohini’s suitor stared at her cleavage all night), you can say it’s silly to continue onward, and the next match is brought up. There are so many factors to be considered in these pairings, it’s almost easier to allow parents to choose a potential mate and then test out whether the chemistry works. It is how Mohini and Nakul met. They dated for a full year after being set up.

“Isn’t that weird? Having your parents choose someone for you?” I’d asked Mohini over a holiday reunion.

“No.” She had smiled. “It’s easy. You don’t have to worry about someone being wrong for the family because that part is taken care of. Then it’s just you two, figuring out your compatibility.”

“But compatibility and love are two different things, aren’t they?”

“One can always grow into the other. You’ll see when your time comes, Nithya.” She spoke with the wisdom of a guru.

I told myself it was because Mohini spent her younger years in India, but after seeing the wedding today, the two families interacting like they’ve been related the whole time, I wonder if she’s onto something.

My parents still laugh about their first encounter. My dad and twelve of his closest relatives came from my dad’s city of Hyderabad to my mom’s birthplace in Vijayawada. They all crowded into her living room and interrogated her about her interests and how well she could cook.

“Amma!” I had exclaimed when she first told me the story. “That is the most unromantic thing ever. How could you have said yes to a match like that?”

“Oh, it was typical back then! I impressed them enough, and they all approved unanimously. I knew what I was doing!” she replied with a wave of her hand and a confident jut of her chin.

My dad tells another story. After the Guantanamo Bay interrogation Amma endured, Nanna asked her to go on a walk, thinking they could take the pressure off and talk on their own. My mom had shyly acquiesced. Halfway through their walk, just as they were beginning to break the ice, my dad happened to glance behind him. About fifty feet away, skulking behind them, was Amma’s younger brother.

“That’s terrible!” I had cried.

“It was the way things were,” Nanna had shrugged. “A woman’s virtue was paramount, and they needed to be sure I wasn’t taking advantage of her… though I did think I was a nice boy, and they overreacted.” He had been amused by my outraged expression.

Years have passed, but some things don’t change. My family and I haven’t had many conversations about marriage because I’m only twenty-one. We don’t need to. My parents had a semi-arranged marriage and so did all the other married people in their generation. My grandparents imply it when they discuss the search for marriage matches. The message is clear when my mom complains that I need to learn how to cook Indian meals so I can blend in with my husband’s family. As my cousins start to marry, the tradition continues. The conversations will inevitably start once I graduate. I don’t look forward to it. Perhaps it is because I have been raised in the United States. I still tear up when I watch western couples reciting their vows, or when I hear about a friend whose significant other has gone down on one knee. Love marriages are beautiful in their own way. Regardless of how I want to find a husband, however, I do know my family will always come first. I guess my future is sealed.

The DJ announces that we’re ready to begin and introduces the parents and finally the happy couple themselves. The crowd is raucous. Mohini and Nakul sway to their first dance, a slow Indian love song I’ve never heard before, likely from my mother’s age. Indian weddings tend to be productions–carefully choreographed events where the hosts put on a show and the guests serve as a willing audience. Mohini’s and Nakul’s gazes haven’t shifted from each other’s faces since they started dancing. Perhaps the idea of falling in love, dating, and making your own decisions is overplayed. Maybe love grows. Maybe it isn’t something that exists from first look or first kiss. Maybe, just maybe, the end justifies the means.

Dance performances follow the couple’s first dance: siblings, cousins, and friends have choreographed performances to entertain the crowd. When the music takes up again after dinner, Indrani, Anisha, Sophia, Nishanth, and I are the first on the floor. We all dance, scream the lyrics in each other’s faces, and cheer on the dancers around us. We laugh as drunken guests slip on the wooden floor and act gangster when the rap songs come on, as if we have any idea what it’s like to grow up in the ghetto. Our bodies pour sweat, but we don’t stop. We take shameless selfies of ourselves with my camera. Under the lights, our skin is dewy, our smiles are brilliant, and our photos look full of fun and hope.

My parents, at a nearby table, surround themselves with family members and Nishanth’s parents. They are the center of attention, completely comfortable. My dad cracks a joke, and everyone around him bursts out in loud hysterics. Tears stream down my mother’s cheeks from her belly-busting giggles. We’ll pull out these pictures a month from now, and us five kids will look like we’ve known each other our entire lives, and our parents, who have, will look complete. James, school, and all the miles of detours my mind has taken lately have vanished.

In this moment, I don’t care how any of this plays out in my future. I just want this. A big Indian wedding with colors, people I love, and tradition. It’s all I need.

he return to school is like night and day. After the weekend of festivities, loud music, and dancing until the wee hours on Saturday, the Indian girl in me is not ready for the party to end. I listen to Indian music through my headphones on the way to class, and Sophia walks in on me watching a Bollywood movie while I do my traditional Monday night bedroom cleanup. Being around Indians reinvigorates me, and suddenly, I bleed orange, white, and green. The sudden transformation from Indian reception partier to minority student is a reminder of the dichotomous life I live.

Nishanth and I have kept up a steady stream of texts following the wedding. On Sunday of the wedding weekend, after our families said goodbye in the early morning hours, the messages started flowing back and forth almost immediately. It’s been five days now, and they haven’t stopped. I don’t feel the spark of a relationship… yet. My mom, I suspect, is planning our wedding. I would bet my tuition money that she spent the Friday morning pooja at the temple thanking the gods for granting her a happenstance meeting with old friends who have an eligible son.

“You text so often!” she said on the phone this morning after she returned from the temple.

“We’re friends, Amma.”

“You seem interested… you always tell me you are texting him,” she pressed further. It’s her specialty. She should have been an investigative journalist.

“Because you always ask, Amma.” I humor her.

She seems to conveniently put her own spin on things. Whether or not I answer her question doesn’t seem to matter because her wishful thinking is clear.

The casual remarks began in the car on the way home to Philly Sunday morning after the wedding. It started with, “Madhu and I spoke about…” By dinner on Sunday, before Sophia and I were to catch our bus, she initiated a trip down memory lane when Nanna was around.

“Do you remember when Madhu, Aditya, and the two of us took Nishanth to Catalina when you were in graduate school?”

“Of course. Your belly was the size of a beach ball at the time. He was a cute little boy, wanting to ride golf carts around the island all day,” Nanna remarked, passing me some rice.

“Nishanth used to be fascinated by Nithya when she was born,” Amma told Anisha and Sophia.

“I don’t know why. She’s kind of a goober now,” Anisha ribbed on me.

“I didn’t realize we knew each other when we were little.”

“How did you not know? You were born in L.A., weren’t you?” Amma spoke like it was obvious I would remember Nishanth and I as diaper buddies.

“Obviously, Amma.” I had rolled my eyes. “I just didn’t realize we played together.”

“Well, you did. You were very close.”

“You looked close at the reception,” Sophia pointed out, and my mom’s eyes lit up, happy Sophia had caught onto something that I clearly should have acknowledged.

“As close as you can be when you can’t talk and one of you is too little to crawl.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You had a connection,” Amma insisted.

Nanna looked at me and gave me a wink when she wasn’t looking, his silent form of solidarity.

“You guys go way back,” Anisha acknowledged. “That’s kind of cool.”

“We have a lot of history. A lot in common. It’s great to have family friends who you understand, isn’t it?” Amma asked pointedly.

I simply nodded.

The conversations like that on Sunday nights aren’t coincidental. She’s gauging my progress and doesn’t expect me to hide anything. After all, I’ve never lied to her before. The truth is, when Nishanth and I text and there is an undercurrent of flirtatiousness, I wonder what it would be like if we started dating–like when he messaged while I was on the bus back to Penn State.

-
So my mom won’t stop going on about you.