When Hari Met His Saali (27 page)

Mary got up defeated.

‘We don’t know how to tell Tia about Xavier’s coma so I have invited her and Simi over for dinner tonight so we can break the news to her then. Please let’s not have any drama when Simi is here, at least not tonight!’

Hari nodded as Mary left his room.

When news of Xavier’s coma was broken to Tiashe was shell-shocked and full of self-pity at first.

‘What will happen to my wedding then?’ was her first question.

‘Maybe we should postpone the wedding,’ Mary suggested.

‘Maybe, we should cancel the wedding!’ Hari said out loud.

Everyone looked at him. Mary was frantically signaling him with her eyes to keep quiet.

‘I mean, we need to reprint the invitation cards now with Simi’s name, plus, I don’t think Simi and I want a big wedding. We’ll probably get married in a
mandir
or in a court,’ Hari continued.

‘Hari!’ Barry piped in sternly. ‘You are not marrying Simi, now be quiet.’

‘I am marrying Simi, or no one else,’ Hari declared.

‘You have taken leave of your senses, boy. You’ll do as you are told,’ Barry thundered.

‘Hari, listen to your dad,’ Mary said, backing him up.

‘I am sorry, Mom, but I’ll only marry Simi,’ Hari said sincerely, again.

Tia was listening to them so far.

‘You can’t marry her, Hari’ Tia said, cutting all of them off from speaking.

‘Because you say so?’ Hari asked after taking a couple of steps towards Tia.

‘No, because your wife says so!’ Tia shot back. She was getting angry now.

‘What wife?’ Hari asked.

‘Me wife, you asshole. I am your wife. We got married two years ago in the registrar’s office. Do you remember?’ Tia announced to everyone’s shock. ‘What’re you talking about?’ Barry asked Tia.

‘Why don’t you ask your son?’ Tia had never spoken to Barry in that tone before.

‘That’s right, ask him! Here, take a look at our marriage certificate. Look at the date and the seal of the State Of California. We have been married
for two years now! Tell them Hari!’ She took out her marriage certificate and handed it to Barry.

Hari staggered back as he remembered …

… that night, two years back, when he had so memorably proposed marriage to Tia outside the bathroom of the Formosa café.

Tia had walked out of the bar and into the parking lot, and boy was she disappointed! Hari was trying to catch up to her.

‘Tia, Tia … wait, yaar!’

Tia stopped. When he reached her, he noticed that she had tears in her eyes. She was hyperventilating — not in an angry way, but rather in a feeling lonely way. She would have to explain to him why she felt so disappointed and that’s what was making her feel lonely. She always had to spell it out for him.

Poor Hari was clueless.

‘What happened, Tia? You didn’t like the ring?’

She looked at the ring. Her other hand covered the ring as if to protect it. How could she not like the ring? After all it was given to her by her man, the man she had fallen for hook, line and sinker. A man whom she adored, made part of her life and had planned her life around. She wanted to tell him she would have been happy with a verbal proposal without any ring. That wouldn’t have been the ideal thing, but in the current context, it would have been much better.

Meanwhile, like most men do when they see a woman cry, Hari was panicking internally. He tried harder. He held her in his arms and was genuinely concerned.

‘Tia, if you think the ring is small we can exchange it, you know I don’t like to see you cry, yaar.’

Tia saw his heart through his eyes. It was true that Hari’s eyes would automatically well up whenever he saw tears in her eyes. It was something that could not be faked, she knew. She calmed down.

‘It’s not the ring, Hari. It’s the way you proposed, in there, near the urinals. The place smelled of liquor and piss. On top of that, I was not dressed for the proposal.’

‘It was a surprise proposal … honey,’ Hari said meekly.

Tia didn’t like surprises she was not part of, and she let him know it.

‘Ha, what a surprise! This was not the day or the way I wanted to get proposed to, Hari. I haven’t showered since this morning, I was working all day, my deo has probably worn off (smells her armpits), yep it has. I couldn’t hear you even. I wanted to, I wanted to remember your exact words when you proposed to me, can you understand that, sweetheart? It was loud in there, people were smelly and rude, I was just not ready and on top of that my period started today. Gosh, Hari, you could have just hinted to me, na? I would have come prepared!’

She stopped to breathe and was sniffling, unable to finish off her thought. She wanted

him to understand the importance, no; she wanted him to feel the importance this moment had for her.

Hari had genuinely felt bad. He hugged her.

‘I am sorry, Tia. I wanted to surprise you. If you want, I can propose to you again, this time at a place and time of your choosing. I promise no surprises. You can come bathed. We’ll shower together even.’

She had smiled at the suggestion. Seeing her coming around he continued.

‘See, Tia, I know that your student visa has expired and you’ll have to go back soon and I also know that you really don’t want to go back to India right now. I don’t want to go to India either; neither do I want to stay away from you. And I know you don’t want to stay away from me. So, my proposal to you, with that ring, is that we get married tomorrow. Since I am a citizen of the United States of America we can start your immigration process. Whatcha say?’ Tia was stunned. She did not know how to react.

‘I know you are too proud to ask for help but I want to do this. I know you are a self-made woman and do not want to be seen as someone contributing to your success, but I want to do this for myself and not for you. Soon you’ll have your Green Card and you can focus on your career!’ Hari Malhotra was down on one knee.

Oh what a proposal that had been, on the one hand it had been a disaster and on the other, it had ended up so beautifully.

Tia Galhotra and Hari Malhotra had secretly got married two years back at the downtown Los Angeles registrar’s office. Their immigration lawyer, Jenny Schabowski, was the only witness.

In the U.S., when someone enters the country on a student Visa (F1), their stay in the country is limited to the period of their education only. After that they can apply for a work permit which changes the visa status to H1, and the permission to stay and work in the country is limited to the length of employment. As this severely limits both career and personal life choices, people want a Green Card, which is as good as being a citizen, except for having the right to vote. Getting married to a U.S. citizen is one of the fastest ways to secure a visa, albeit that since 9/11 the vetting process is very stringent. Today, Green Cards can take anywhere from eight months to two years to process. But in the meantime a person is allowed to live and work with a temporary card.

Since both Tia and Hari were in love and the marriage was real, they didn’t have to worry about the scrutiny of the INS — the Immigration and Naturalization Services.

It was decided that this marriage was only to ensure Tia’s immigration status and the news was never shared beyond Tia, Hari and Jenny. Neither his family nor hers had any clue. Tia had told herself that as they were going to
marry each other anyway and that this would help her stay in the country, it was not necessarily a bad thing.

Their lives went on as normal after the wedding. They didn’t act as if they were already married, and they both considered their real marriage would be the one that happened publicly — because Indians didn’t believe marriages should happen in a courtroom. Indian marriages happen in big
pandals
with buffets, and with
band baja baratis
, in front of thousands of guests, and loudly so that the entire world comes to know about it.

This was Tia and Hari’s private secret.

Like a flashback in a movie the memory of them getting married played out vividly in Hari’s head. They were indeed married, at least legally speaking.

‘What is she talking about, Hari?’ Mary asked Hari, jolting him out of his flahback.

‘It doesn’t matter, Mom, that marriage was not real. It was only done to help her stay and work in this country. It’s not real. Nobody knows about it,’ Hari said defensively while looking at Simi.

Simi, as usual, was lost.

Is any of this is really happening or did it happen to Bobby Donnel and Lindsey Dole on my favorite TV show and I am just recollecting it. This is soap opera type shit!

Simi even pinched herself, fully expecting to wake up in Nagpur only to realize that everything, including her trip to America and subsequent fuck-ups, were all part of her nightmare. But the tension in the room told her otherwise.

Tia was like a wounded tigress.

‘Nobody knows? Because you decided to keep it a secret, remember? I was OK to announce it, but you wanted it a secret.’ Tia was in full combat mood now.

‘The document says they are already married, Mary,’ Barry said after scrutinizing the marriage certificate.

‘
Le
, if the two are already married, why did you want to have an engagement, after marriage?’
Badi Mama
had a valid point, but her timing was not good.

‘
Badi Mama
, it’s just a marriage on paper. We didn’t do anything like a married couple,’ Hari said, taking the marriage certificate from Mary and tossing it aside.

‘Oh no? What about every Wednesday night, our Bollywood nights, when we consummated our marriage? And every other non-scheduled time we consummated our marriage? What about that time in the plane?’

Mary and Barry couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

‘Hai? Plane? What plane? You did it in … Oh, Lord, take me away now!’
Mary started crying.

‘Hai?
Plane
vich? Sab
passengers
ke saamne?’ Nana
was not going to be left behind; she vocalized her astonishment.

‘Tia, please calm down.’ Mary tried to stop this freight train before it caused any more damage.

‘Yeah, tell me to calm down why don’t you? Why don’t you tell your son how to NOT marry a sister and consummate it with her and then want to go off with her sister? Why would you though? Oh, right, he is YOUR son, that’s why, right?’ Tia had really come off the hinges now.

‘Tia, watch your tone!’ Barry finally boomed in.

‘No one is raising their voice here other than you.’

‘Yeah, gang up on me, that’s right, all of you, gang up on me …’ Tia started waving her hands and backing off.

‘Tia,
bete
, no one is …’ Mary tried to calm her again.

‘And you …’ Tia turned to Simi who was just standing there without interfering.

‘You are just standing there like a spectator, pretending that you have nothing to do with this. Fuck you. Now, you stay here, at your
sasural.
You are not welcome in my home. These people will take care of you!’

‘But Tia … I didn’t do anything … I … I …’ Simi couldn’t believe how it had turned into her fault; she had been standing behind Tia all the way, literally.

‘And stop calling me Tia! I am your elder sister, your
Didi
… you … you … show some respect.’ And with that Tia stormed out of the house.

Barry gave Hari a serious scolding about the marriage.

‘But Dad I only did it to help her stay in the country,’ Hari said, defending himself.

‘Amazing. These kinds of things you hear about on the news or read about in the papers but never imagine it can happen to you or your family.’ Barry was deeply hurt.

‘It’s nothing, Dad. Tomorrow I’ll call my lawyer and get the marriage annulled in a minute.’ Hari was close to getting slapped across the face from Barry, but Barry knew better.

‘You’ll do no such thing. You’ve screwed up enough. Now, nothing is going to happen in this house without me saying so, understood?’ Barry warned Hari.

‘If you are implying that I cannot marry Simi without your approval, then no can’t do. Everything else, I don’t care,’ Hari announced defiantly. He had never spoken to his father like that before.

‘Are you outta your mind, boy? You think this is a stupid phone game or app. Listen to yourself, going on like a wind-up toy … Simi, Simi, Simi. Get out of my sight now!’ Barry lambasted Hari. This time, Hari was a little shaken.

Badi Mama
had by then got up and walked over to Hari.

‘You go to your room now. I will speak to your daddy. Go, go!’

‘Hari, go to your room, OK?’ Mary was afraid of Barry’s anger and wanted no more arguments.

Hari took the marriage certificate and left for his room but not before gallantly announcing something to Simi.

‘Simi, you don’t worry. No one is going to come in between you and me, not even the Universe!’

This is unreal! It’s like a scene from an overwrought, melodramatic Bollywood film. Who am I in this
—
the main heroine or the supporting actress?

By now Simi was so numb to everything that was going on that she had adopted a defense mechanism of going into her own head.

After the dust had settled, a little, Barry came up to Simi and apologized.

‘I am truly sorry to put you in the middle of this. I can only imagine how you must feel.’

Simi nodded and then made an unexpected request.

‘Can I speak to Hari alone?’

Barry looked at Mary; Mary shrugged her shoulders as if to say
what’s the harm
?

Upstairs

Simi knocked on Hari’s door. When he opened it he was so happy to see her. Like an adolescent boy, he asked her in and quickly straightened his room. He offered her his desk chair and stood next to her.

‘Ah, will you have something? Anything cold? Coffee?’ he asked as if she was visiting his own place.

It was true in one way: Hari and Simi were meeting alone for the first time since all the cards had been laid down. A heart-to-heart was overdue.

‘Hari, I’ve just come from downstairs,’ Simi said smiling. ‘Sit,
na.
I want to talk to you.’