Though only twenty-four hours had passed since Sadiya and Maadhini had gotten engaged in Hema’s courtyard, the overzealous mother had already convinced a pandit to come to the house for a formal pooja.
“Just a small ceremony, kanne,” she’d told her daughter before inviting everyone in the neighborhood. It was, after all, the engagement of her only child. “We have expectations to keep up. Don’t worry; you won’t have to do a thing.”
While Sadiya might’ve complained more about this huge impromptu party, Hema could tell she was now just relieved that her engagement was being treated like any other. That wasn’t to say there weren’t any awkward questions, though.
“So,” Sahit said, calling Vir and Tanvi the night of the engagement. “Should we give you saris and sweets, or is that your duty? Who is the ‘groom’ in this situation?”
“Sahit!” Hema slapped her husband’s shoulder, causing him to drop the phone. When she picked it back up, she saw that Tanvi was not amused.
“What a blessing today is,” Vir said, steering them back on track. “We are both gaining daughters, and so let’s just say we should both swap gifts.”
“Yes,” Hema said before Sahit could ask any further questions. “That sounds good.”
“And the pandit is okay for tomorrow?” Tanvi asked. They’d expressed their regrets over missing their only child’s engagement, but had agreed the ceremony should be held in India. Hema had told Tanvi about the kinnara.
“Yes,” Hema said. “He’s been informed and is actually very excited. This is his first same-sex engagement.”
We’ll be trailblazers at the temple. She smiled, imagining how jealous her friends might become upon learning that she had this new bond with their pandit.
“Sadiya and Maadhini always were such innovators,” Sahit said. “Do you remember they tried making ladoos in middle school and selling them?”
“How could I forget?” Vir replied. “Maadhini put so much ghee in them her tata almost died of a heart attack.”
“And what about the neighbors? You invited Archana, my sister?” Tanvi asked.
“Yes, of course,” Hema said. “We wouldn’t dream of not inviting Maadhini’s periamma. Everyone is thrilled Sadiya’s engaged and that they get to be a part of it.”
“You haven’t told anyone but Archana that our daughters are gay, huh?”
Hema furrowed her brow as she wondered if anyone would be so bold as to openly disapprove of her daughter in front of them. “What is that?” she asked. “I’m sorry, Tanvi, the signal seems to be bad.”
Hanging up the phone, she texted Tanvi that she’d take plenty of pictures tomorrow and call her after the ceremony.
“It might be bad,” Sahit said, a smile on his face and in his eyes, “but we’ll get through it together.”
Though Archana came to the house before any of the other guests, Hema ensured a classically trained singer was stationed to greet her upon arrival. As decorators hung garlands and sprinkled paint of all colors across the compound, the pandit drew an om symbol in chalk on the stairs of the threshold. Hema saw Archana clasp a hand to her mouth upon seeing her and Maadhini when she arrived.
“How magnificent!”
“Periamma!” Maadhini raced outside to embrace her.
“I have longed for this day,” Archana said, pinching Maadhini’s cheeks.
Maadhini managed to turn her wince into a laugh as Archana asked a question of her.
“And what of Sadiya?”
“She’s getting ready.”
“You should finish getting ready, too,” Hema said, stepping outside.
Without saying another word, Maadhini hugged her periamma once more and darted back into the house.
“Namaste, Archana.”
“Namaste, sister.” Embracing Hema so tightly that their black curls intertwined, Archana kissed Hema’s cheeks before pinching them.
“Come,” Hema said, rubbing her cheeks when she thought the woman wasn’t looking. “Have some mysore pak with me.”
“Sweets this early?”
“There’s nothing like mysore pak,” Hema said. “It’ll get finished quickly once the guests arrive, but there is no one as honored as you today. I’d like to share some with you before the craziness begins.”
As the two women crossed the threshold into the house together, the work continued behind them.
It seemed like over a hundred people milled about in their house, yet Sadiya only had eyes for one person. Maadhini’s bangs reminded her of an ancient emperor’s harem, an open curtain revealing the most wonderful pleasures. She couldn’t look at Maadhini’s lithe body without picturing that night in her room, and she couldn’t picture that night without catching her breath. Holding Maadhini’s hand, Sadiya waited upstairs to make their grand entrance together as Sahit and Hema prepared the crowd.
“Everyone!” Sahit yelled, his voice drifting up the stairs from down below. “Everyone!”
“Listen up!” Sadiya heard her mother’s rising voice as the entire house went still.
“Thank you, Hema,” her father said. “We are all honored you could be here at such short notice. And so, without further ado, please meet Sadiya’s lovely partner.”
This is it, Sadiya thought. No turning back now.
Clad in white and gold, she descended the concrete steps from her room as if she was a princess greeting her anxiously waiting subjects. Next to her, adorned in purple and blue, Maadhini sailed down the stairs like a peacock. Sadiya gripped Maadhini’s hand as they stepped into the future together, ignoring the audible gasps from more than a couple guests. Though she wanted to close her eyes and pretend there no was no one there but her and Maadhini, wanted to ignore the disapproval evident in the eyes of some of her neighbors, she forced herself to meet her mother’s gaze. Hema’s obvious love gave her all the strength she needed as she continued down the stairs. She’s proud of me. Everyone who matters is proud of me.
Sahit spoke as the couple completed their entrance. “Sadiya and Maadhini have been friends for decades, as many of you know,” Sahit said. “We are delighted to welcome Maadhini into our family officially.”
Sadiya watched as Hema pushed the guests outside to stand around the pandit. As the singer ended her tunes, Archana and Hema exchanged silver plates filled with coconuts and flowers and betel nuts at the threshold of the house.
“Namaste, sister,” Hema said.
“I am proud to be here, sister,” Archana said.
Sadiya and Maadhini exited the house last, and when they did, the ceremony began. As Sadiya sat cross-legged beside her fiancée around a fire, the pandit chanted in Sanskrit while Archana, Hema, and Sahit occasionally threw flowers from the silver plates into the flames.
“Sadiya,” Hema squeezed her daughter’s thigh. “Repeat after him.”
“You do the same,” Archana said, squeezing her niece’s thigh.
The pandit led the two women through chants that always began and ended with om, and when it was time for the gender-specific prayers, he did not hesitate or make Sadiya feel awkward in any way.
“As the god Krishna dressed in women’s clothes on occasion, so do we all have to sometimes play roles outside of the accepted norm,” he said. “That does not mean we are any less than our peers, and oftentimes means we carry a greater understanding of the world than most others.”
I never knew Krishna used to dress as a girl. Sadiya reminded herself to ask her mom for that story. She’d spent so many years running away from her roots, thinking them conservative and outdated, that she’d forgotten it was her upbringing that had brought her to Maadhini in the first place.
She looked around. Some of the guests who’d bitten their tongues upon seeing her descend the stairs with another woman nodded their heads in receiving the pandit’s counsel. Others, however, scoffed.
“I didn’t know Sahit had raised such a pervert,” one man said.
Cringing, Sadiya gritted her teeth and squeezed Maadhini’s hand to keep from losing it. Here it comes.
“Do you have something to say?” the pandit asked, stopping his pooja.
“Forgive me, swamiji,” the man said. “I spoke out of turn.”
“It has been awhile since I’ve visited your house, Prathap. Has your son-in-law found a job yet?”
Sadiya exhaled in relief as the other guests struggled to contain their laughter. Prathap turned red and became fascinated with his feet all of a sudden. Mom did a good job picking this pandit.
“I far prefer having two smart, productive daughters to having one good-for-nothing bum of a son,” Hema said loudly.
When Sadiya had left India for college, she’d thought the country would remain frozen in the past. Now, though, looking at the pandit, at her parents, at Maadhini, she realized how silly that idea was.
How could I think I was the strong, progressive one in this family? I have so much to learn.
After another chuckle surged through the crowd like a wave, Sahit motioned for the pooja to continue.
After the pooja ended, lunch was served on banana leaves. It hadn’t been as Sadiya had pictured it as a child, but it had been uniquely hers. And what’s mine and Maadhini’s will always be perfect. Her mother was teaching her that. Perhaps Hema had always tried to teach her that—if only she’d listened.
But the past is the past, she told herself. There’s no use holding on to it when the future holds such promise.
Done with one task, Hema Murthy readied herself to move on to the next one.
“This one time,” she told Sadiya, “you must eat with your hands.”
“Same for you,” Archana told Maadhini, stamping her foot for emphasis. “And you must eat with the pandit.”
“Of course,” both women said at the same time. As they left, Hema directed the other guests inside the house to the dining table.
“Please forgive me,” Prathap said, approaching. “Thank you for inviting me to this beautiful occasion.”
“It’s okay,” Hema said. “We all grow. I, myself, had trouble accepting their decision until I saw what happened with Maadhini and the kinnara.”
“What?” Archana took a step back, bumping into a chair in the veranda and sitting herself down. Others had also heard the words and looked similarly transfixed. Encouraged, Hema recounted to the audience their journey to Devanahalli Fort. Exaggerating the story at the appropriate moments to punctuate the action and suspense, she relished her captive audience.
“When she touched the statue,” Hema said, “it spoke to her.” As she said the words, she threw a short, pudgy arm forward into the air. With her daughter and Maadhini occupied, she no longer felt guilty making herself the center of attention. That’ll wipe the smirk off Prathap’s stupid face.
The aunties and uncles who’d brought their children sent them to search for Maadhini and touch her feet, then, as if doing so would bring luck to their own endeavors one day.
“Truly, you have been blessed,” Prathap said as Hema’s heart threatened to burst with pride. “Who are any of us to question the gods?”
Certainly you are in no position to question them, muttaala. She smiled graciously. “Thank you for being here, Prathap.”
“Does the pandit know?” Archana asked.
“No,” Hema said. “I did not want to make it a big deal.”
“We must go to him now.” Archana took off, dragging Hema with her. As the two walked toward the garden in the backyard, where the pandit was eating with the two women, Hema explained.
“I really didn’t mean to mention it in front of everyone, but someone had to shut Prathap up. I know he wasn’t the only one either harboring those thoughts; he was just the dumbest.”
Laughing, Archana placed her hand on Hema’s arm and squeezed it. “Thank you for sticking up for Maadhini.”
“No thanks are necessary, sister. We are all family now.”
As they approached, Hema saw Sadiya and Maadhini washing their hands in the fountain between bites of food when they thought the pandit wasn’t looking. Their meal of rice and curds and beets had spread all over their banana leaves to create a colorful mosaic.
“Panditji,” Archana said. “Hema must tell you some wonderful news.”
“What is it?” All three stopped eating and turned to look.
As Hema explained about the kinnara, the pandit himself rose and touched Maadhini’s feet. She jumped in surprise.
“Panditji!”
“Beta, you are touched by the gods. Your union is destined to be a blessed one. Thank you all for allowing me to be a part of it.” Bowing before the two betrothed, he refused to meet their eyes again until both had touched his head.
“I thought we agreed not to tell anyone,” Sadiya said, pursing her lips.
Hema smiled. “You heard what Prathap said. Just because today is a holy day doesn’t mean I have to be high and mighty. I’m not a pandit.”
Even the pandit could not help but laugh at a mother’s pettiness.
After the sun set, Sadiya’s family called Vir and Tanvi to let them know how successful the event had been. Sadiya bounced on the heels of her feet as she wondered what to call them. Vir Uncle and Tanvi Aunty seem inappropriate now. She was spared from pondering the question for too long as someone answered the phone.
“Hi, Dad,” Maadhini said, holding the phone as the screen flicked on.
“Kanne,” Vir said, “how is your stomach?”
“What? It’s fine.”
“Sahit said you’ve been having loose motions,” he continued. “Did you eat mosaranna with the pandit today?”
“Dad!” Maadhini’s face turned the color of the beets she’d had for lunch. “Stop it!”
“You’re embarrassing her,” Tanvi said, taking the phone from her husband. “Not good to talk about such things in front of the groom.”
“So Sadiya is the groom?” Sahit asked.
Sadiya cringed. Why can’t either of our dads have any chill?
“Not this nonsense again,” Tanvi said. “Let us talk about things that are actually relevant.”
Anxious for a change of subject, Sadiya interjected. “We’ve decided to return to New York.”
“Was that ever not the plan?” Vir asked.
“Um…”
Saving Sadiya from having to answer, Maadhini chimed in. “Don’t worry, Dad. You’re gonna get to throw the big blowout party you always wanted.”
“So the wedding will be in Jersey?” Tanvi asked.
“Yes,” Vir replied, not waiting for anyone else to respond. “Fantastic!”
“And how did the pooja go?” Tanvi asked, cutting off any discussion of where the wedding should be held. “Was anyone rude?”
“A handful of people.”
Sadiya smiled at seeing Maadhini practically scream into the phone. In New York, she’d always been outspoken and aggressive. Sadiya knew now that it was irresponsible to deny one’s true self. Just as Sahit and Hema would be Maadhini’s parents now, so too would Vir and Tanvi be hers. It was important, then, that they knew who their daughter-in-law was and who she wasn’t from the start. It wasn’t rude, she told herself. To be yourself was the bravest thing you could do, and this world didn’t allow for happiness without bravery. They’d taught each other that, that happiness needed to be fought for.
Though the sun had set hours ago, Sadiya felt the warmth of its rays on her cheeks as Maadhini finished. “They shut up once they learned about the kinnara. Even the pandit touched our feet.”
“Kanne!” Tanvi shouted. “Your feet are filthy.”
“She’ll fit right into the Murthy household,” Sahit said. “That bold nature has always served us well.”
“So you’ll pick us up at Newark,” Sadiya said, changing the subject again.
“Yes,” Vir said.
After exchanging a few more stories, Hema hung up the phone. “We’ll have to get our visas renewed,” she told Sahit.
“Yes, yes,” Sahit said. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll call Rohit at the club.”
“You’ll have to unbutton your shirt before you ask this Rohit Uncle for any favors,” Maadhini said. “As you told me, your friends are pretty perverted.”
As Sadiya and Hema broke out in laughter, Sahit’s face turned tomato red.
Though Sahit grumbled about buying last-minute tickets to America, he did finally concede that Sadiya and Maadhini should return home as soon as possible. Maadhini’s parents were eager to throw a celebration of their own upon the girls’ arrival. They’d offered to pay for the tickets, but Hema had refused before Sahit could say anything on the matter.
“Sahit,” she said, slapping his shoulder. “They’re going to be paying for the wedding, yaar!”
“Bloody crooks,” he muttered under his breath as he purchased tickets for the next morning. “I could pilot a boat to America for cheaper.”
“Why don’t you just throw us all in the Ganges?” Hema asked. “That would be cheaper still.”
Morning came too quickly for Maadhini. Her heart ached for Sahit and Hema to join them on their flight back, but they told her they’d need time to secure visas and do their own wedding preparations here, first.
At least they accept us, she thought. One little miracle at a time.
As everyone piled into Sahit’s car for the long drive to the airport, Hema handed Sadiya all the envelopes of checks from the party.
“Be sure to count it all out loud,” Sahit said, reversing out of the compound. “I want to know if these people think a gay wedding means they should give more money than usual or less.”
As the drive ended and tearful goodbyes were exchanged, Hema handed Maadhini a check of her own.
“Aunty,” Maadhini said, “please, no. Uncle already gave me some money. And you’ve done so much for me during this trip.”
“Please,” Hema said. “You are my daughter now.”
Maadhini closed her eyes as silent tears dripped down her face and her new mother squeezed her like a mango. She laughed through her tears upon hearing Hema whisper in her ear.
Then it was Sadiya’s turn to hug her parents. Dragging Maadhini to the security line, Sadiya told her to forget about the money.
“Babe,” she said, “it’s a good thing. Just accept it.”
Just accept it. She had to remember that advice. It’s a wonderful thing to be happy, and it’s okay to revel in it and feel no regret or shame for once.
Turning back to see their parents, for Maadhini smiled at the thought that they were now hers, too, they waved goodbye to the past and prepared to embrace their future together.