Drizzling Diamonds
“Sheetal… Sheetal?”
Under the bed covers, Sheetal sluggishly ran her fingers down her satin nightgown. Today was her wedding day. She let her hand fall back to her side.
“When you grow up, you will marry a prince, a Rajkumar,” Mama once proclaimed. “And that will make you happy. Very, very happy.”
Other childhood images flooded her mind. How she loved to stretch out her arms and spin on her toes under the rotating ceiling fan as her white dress flared and strands of her silky, waist-length hair flew around her face like a dark cloud.
Mama would clap in time to the music playing on their imported Sony stereo cassette player as rungs of colorful glass and gold bangles jingled to long, melodious notes of the harmonium and sitar. The sari pallu around Mama’s head always slipped, revealing a river of vermilion sindoor running down her hair’s middle parting. Mama was quick to pull the pallu back over her head out of respect, inevitably hiding the mark of a married woman, should Asha, her mother-in-law, suddenly walk in. Then Mama threw back her head and laughed, her diamond nose-pin sparkling in the sunlight against her milky-white complexion. No one was more beautiful than Mama. Not even Sheetal, who didn’t inherit Mama’s fine-cut features, hair that curled naturally, or the milky-white complexion that was every Indian woman’s dream.
“Louder! Louder!” Sheetal called.
Mama fiddled with the knob on the stereo until music engulfed the room, creating a bubble-like universe no one could burst. The fan, walls and carpeted floor blurred in Sheetal’s vision and the white of her dress was all she could see. She collapsed in Mama’s arms and the two giggled, their laughter reverberating beneath the fan.
“You’re going to make everyone in your mahal dizzy with all that spinning.” Mama pulled Sheetal close to her chest and the thump of her heartbeat filled Sheetal’s ears.
“I don’t have a palace.”
“You will, my darling. When you’re all grown up.”
“Will I be like you?” No one was more loving or more caring than Mama.
“You will be better than me.”
Sheetal jumped up, stretched her arms out and spun in circles all over again. “You! I want to be just like you.”
Now, thirteen years later, at the age of twenty-two, Sheetal didn’t want to be like Mama. She didn’t want the boredom of Mama’s married life, which had been arranged thirty years ago by some middleman who knew both families and concluded that Mama would be a perfect fit for Rana Prasad. She wanted the dizzy euphoric rapture of being in love. Of meeting the man of her dreams, like so many women did in romance novels and Bollywood films. She wanted a man to woo her, to pursue her in gentle ways and say ‘I love you’ until she said it back. Arvind had fulfilled all those wishes. Arvind was everything she could ask for in a man. But Mama would have none of that.
“Sheetal? Come now. Wake up,” Mama’s voice blended with the outside coo of the koyal birds and the chirp of sparrows.
Usually, Sheetal wouldn’t have minded waking. Today, however, she wanted to curl into a ball beneath the sheets and pretend the day didn’t exist. She rolled onto her side and raised the sheet over her exposed ear.
The mattress dipped near her pillow, causing her body to tilt. Loose wisps of hair were brushed away from her face and she opened her eyes.
“It’s your wedding day!” Mama sang in Hindi. “The whole house is buzzing. Can you believe this special day is finally here?”
Sheetal’s head throbbed. She pulled down the covers. “I had a bad dream, Mama. This marriage isn’t right.”
“It is,” Mama was firm. “And don’t give me the nose. You’re just having butterflies. There’s so much happening. You’re nervous. Worried. It’s perfectly fine to feel—”
“I’m serious, Mama.”
Mama wrapped Sheetal’s fingers in the palms of her pashmina-like hands as a summer breeze from the open balcony door carried the scent of jasmines, roses and chrysanthemums into the room. “I know how you feel. Like there’s too much going on at once. But trust me. Everything will go perfectly as planned.”
“I hate him.”
“You will learn to love him over time.”
“Love isn’t”—Sheetal faltered for the right word—“automatic. You can’t just water it like grass and expect it to grow. You and Papa had to marry whomever your parents chose for you, but I don’t. Times have changed. A woman can—”
Mama pulled Sheetal to her chest. “You must calm down, my darling. This kind of temper at your in-laws’ just won’t do. Even though that dimple on your cheek makes you look so beautiful. Perfect. Well…almost perfect.” She teasingly pinched Sheetal’s nose.
Sheetal gritted her teeth.
“You will be a wonderful wife. And soon, an equally good mother. But how will I carry on without you?” Mama rocked Sheetal in her arms, counting each year gone by with a string of kisses on her head. The fragrance of lily joss sticks meant Mama had probably come up from her morning prayers.
Nineteen…twenty…twenty-one—
Sheetal waited for one last kiss to mark her twenty-second year, but none came. Or maybe she just didn’t feel it. She flexed the fingers of her right hand. The engagement ring obstructed her movement.
“Look at how special you are.”
There it was again, the how-special-you-are line.
“Every inch… Brahma has truly created you.”
Her head pounded. She was sick and tired of being special, of being told she was Brahma’s one perfect creation. She pulled away and looked past the pink and yellow sari pallu covering Mama’s head to the wall clock behind. She had fourteen hours to end this wedding nonsense. “I’m not doing this.”
“You are not like other girls. Remember, we’re doing what’s best for you.”
Women of Mama’s generation believed that a daughter’s real home was the husband’s home, and until she married, she was a liability for her parents. Did Mama see her that way? No. It’s just that this alliance offered her parents an opportunity to maintain their hard-earned prestige and secure it for life by marrying her into the elite class.
Technically, the dowry was hers to keep even though it was directed to the in-laws. Her only way out was to go through with this marriage, convert the dowry into cash and then contact Arvind. They could use the money to buy a flat in a decent locale, furnish it with basic necessities, find jobs, and life wouldn’t be as miserable as Kavita and Gaurav’s. Still, the thought of marrying someone else clawed at her heart and tears stung her eyes. How could she go through with this? “You don’t know what’s best for me.” Sheetal’s chest tightened. “Just because you raised me doesn’t give you or Papa the right to—”
A sharp sting blasted across her right cheek, and Mama retracted her hand. “Look what you made me do, all because of that Arvind. He’s not worth any of this. Forget him.”
Sheetal closed her eyes to hold back tears, her face burning.
“If anything goes wrong today,” Mama warned, “it’s your fault.” Then she turned to leave.
Sheetal clenched her fists. “I hate Rakesh. I will always hate that Rakesh.”
Mama headed for the door.
Didn’t Mama hear?
Mama paused, one hand on the doorknob. “I’ll send Preeti up shortly.” Mama kept her back to Sheetal. “She’ll help you get dressed and escort you downstairs. We are waiting.”
***
For the next ten minutes, Sheetal paced her room. She could run away. And go where? What would the scandal do to Mama and Papa? What about the caterers, decorators, engineers, and technicians who had worked for a whole week? And family, friends and families of friends who had flown across India and overseas for the occasion?
A knock at the door intruded upon her thoughts. Sheetal flopped onto the bed. It was useless. There was no escape.
“Sahiba?” Preeti called.
Sheetal turned her head toward the door and took a deep breath. A summer breeze swept across the room, drumming the fabric of Sheetal’s nightgown against her curves and causing the scent of lavender, from the bed sheets, to fill the air. The scent usually soothed Sheetal’s nerves, but nothing could ease the present tension.
“Sahiba?”
“Come in,” Sheetal answered.
Preeti entered, dressed in one of Sheetal’s hand-me-down salwar suits. She beamed from ear to ear. “Memsahib say help you get ready. So many people waiting downstairs,” the pitch of her voice rose in excitement as she crossed the room. “Man with big light. Holding big camera.” She pronounced it ‘kamraa’ because English, for Preeti, was a foreign language, as it was for many locals.
“How many people?” Sheetal asked.
“Fifty…sixty…maybe one hundred.”
Sheetal rolled onto her side, turning her back to Preeti.
“I see your mehndi?” Preeti referred to the henna latticework running from the tips of Sheetal’s fingers to her elbows. Preeti lifted Sheetal’s wrist. “Look at color. Very red. You know, Sahiba, it meaning?”
Preeti traced doodles on Sheetal’s hand, which reminded Sheetal of the gentle brush of Arvind’s fingers. If Papa’s business hadn’t succeeded, she could have been in Preeti’s shoes. She pulled away from her hold.
“It means your husband love you lots. Other one…other one…show. Show!”
“Really, Preeti.” Sheetal sat up, annoyed at the girl’s begging. Here she was trying to figure a way out and all Preeti wanted was to decode the color of her mehndi.
“Sahiba, please open fingers. It so-o-o beautiful. So red. Think how pretty you look with all your jewelry on.”
Sheetal left the bed, crossed to her cupboard, opened its door and flipped through her clothes. “Here we are.” She pulled a silver hanger off the rod and swiveled the floral-printed, pink-and-cream salwar suit she had worn to the Broken Fort. It was easier to get rid of it than try to explain how the dupatta had ripped if Mama came across it later.
“Oh, Sahiba! It…it beautiful,” Preeti said. “You take this?”
“No.” Sheetal yanked another hanger off the rod, which held the matching trousers and dupatta, the tear hidden between its folds. “It’s not new, but it’s one of my favorites. And I want you to have it. There’s a little tear in the dupatta. No need to tell Mama about it.”
Preeti raised her hands to her mouth in awe. “Oh, Sahiba.”
“Think of it as a goodbye gift.” Sheetal folded the salwar suit, pulled open a dressing table drawer, located a yellow plastic bag and stuffed the attire in. Then she dropped the bag on the floor near the dresser. “Remember to take it with you when you go home.”
“Sahiba?”
“Mmm?”
“After you go, this still your room?”
Sheetal knotted her waist-length hair into a make-do bun. “Nothing will change after I go. Mama promised to keep everything as it is.”
“Your board?” Preeti pointed to a corner of the room.
“My what?” Sheetal turned to look at the corner that held her oil painting equipment. An easel stood upright beside a desk. “Oh, that’s going. It’s the only used thing I’m taking. Everything else is supposed to be brand new.” She went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth.
Seconds later came a knock on the bathroom door. White foam covering her lips, Sheetal sighed at her reflection. “What now, Preeti?”
“It’s me. Your grandmother,” called Asha Prasad, Papa’s mother. “Hurry up. Everyone’s waiting downstairs.”
Like all the Prasads, she was in a hurry when it came to attending public events.
“I’m trying, Dadi,” Sheetal used the term of respect to address Papa’s mother and then pressed her ear to the door.
“Well, you’d better be ready before I die of old age. Or I’ll just have to get the camera man and all those singing women up here.” At sixty-six, Dadi was nowhere close to dying. A split-second later, Dadi’s voice shot an order for Preeti to spread a brand-new, yellow-gold sari on Sheetal’s bed, which set in motion another auspicious ceremony to mark Sheetal’s wedding.
***
Two hours later, Sheetal returned from the Pithi Ceremony that had been held on the Garden Terrace. The ceremony took place before Lord Ganesh, the elephant-headed god worshipped by Hindus before initiating anything of significance. Female relatives had dabbed Sheetal’s cheeks with pithi, an herbal mixture of yellow, moist chick-pea flour peppered with turmeric, oil and sandalwood, to initiate the cleansing of the bride and mark her transition from one household to another. After the ceremony, Sheetal was escorted back to her room so that Mira Bai, a masseuse, could complete a massage.
After Sheetal changed into a yellow petticoat that covered her from waist to toes and wrapped an orange towel about her upper torso, Mira Bai directed her to sit on a footstool in the bathing corner of her bathroom. Sheetal’s bathing area consisted of a tap, located three feet above the tile floor, and a plastic bucket with a floating plastic mug. As she bathed, excess water ran over the bathroom floor and spilled into a corner drain.
Sheetal hated the sandpaper texture of Mira Bai’s caloused fingers covered in layers of sticky yellow pithi, which scratched back and forth along the length of her upper arm. And the way Mira Bai chewed paan like a cow, grinding the condiment-stuffed betel leaf, made Sheetal sick. She hoped the woman had the decency to spit the blood-colored juice in the sink when the time came.
The pain of having a body wax three days ago, then having her eyebrows and upper lip waxed yesterday, and now this pithi massage, were all taking a toll on Sheetal’s sanity. But tradition demanded a bride be cleansed and purified in precisely this manner over a two-week period prior to the wedding day. A bride had to be absolutely perfect for the groom when the couple consummated the marriage.
Sheetal had not even visited Rakesh Dhanraj’s home on Barotta Hill, and here Mira Bai was preparing her for his bedroom. Sheetal squirmed with the thought of the ‘first night.’ It was the only thing the women downstairs had been discussing in hushed tones during the Pithi Ceremony. She tightened the towel around her torso, careful to keep her feet away from puddles of water on the floor that still hadn’t dried.
Mira Bai gathered the front pleats of her tattered, dark blue sari, yanked them up between her legs and tucked the fabric in back at the waist. Then she squatted on the floor, facing Sheetal, causing the sari to puff in two balloons around her brown knees.
Mira Bai raised her eyebrows and her large red bindi glinted like a third eye. “Now pull up your petticoat so it doesn’t get wet.”
Sheetal squirmed. She inched her petticoat up her ankles, aware she would insult Mira Bai if she questioned her order because Mira Bai held an unprecedented reputation in Raigun for polishing up a bride like no other masseuse. “Thank God this is the last day,” Sheetal murmured.
“You’re going to miss all this tomorrow. No more pampering.” Mira Bai tilted her head back, no doubt to prevent the paan juice from drooling out of her mouth. “You only get to be a bride once in your life. Every girl looks forward to this day. I know. I see it in their eyes.” She let go of Sheetal’s left foot, grabbed her right arm and dragged her fingers back and forth, spreading the pithi to the tip of Sheetal’s elbow, skillfully avoiding the mehndi. “I’ve seen at least half of all the brides in Raigun, but the pithi only shows its true colors on you.” She smiled and her nose pin gleamed in the soft, yellow light.
“You’re hurting me,” Sheetal squealed.
“Not as much as our new Sahib will tonight.” Her attention flew to the ten-carat princess-cut diamond ring on Sheetal’s finger. “Pretty. Always good for a woman to have beautiful jewelry and wear beautiful things. Precisely why some of us are blessed. But not all are lucky. Poor people like me can only make enough to put a decent roof over our heads and a little food in our bellies.”
Sheetal hated the attention Rakesh Dhanraj’s ring drew. First Kavita, now Mira Bai. When Mira Bai turned away, Sheetal rotated the ring with her thumb so the diamond faced her palm.
“Now, off with that towel.”
Sheetal held on to the orange fabric.
“Relax, Sheetalji.” Mira Bai raised both hands. “There’s nothing I haven’t seen.”
Blood rushed to Sheetal’s cheeks. She protested, but Mira Bai lathered more pithi along her collarbone and neck and then suddenly reached for the towel.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Sheetal twisted out of reach.
“But Sheetalji, don’t you want your husband to melt in your beauty? The most eligible bachelor in Raigun, I hear. He’s going to see you for the first time.”
Goose bumps rose along the length of Sheetal’s pithi-plastered arms. The first night? Alone? With Rakesh Dhanraj? “No one touches me.”
“As you say. Still, not a disappointed husband whose bride was in my hands. Every one of them blessed with at least three children.”
Sex…children… The thought of Rakesh’s naked body touching hers and the agony of his organ ripping through her caused Sheetal to shudder. Would he force her into sex? Would he leave her stiff and rigid like the layer of pithi drying on her skin? From what she remembered, he was supposed to be graceful. Charming. Suave. Too refined a man to force her against her will.
Mira Bai turned her face away and spat out the betel juice, staining the white marble floor in reddish-brown streaks. Then she casually dipped the plastic mug into the bucket and sloshed water across the floor, causing the juice to glide toward the drain, leaving the tiles stained in dirty red streaks.
Cold water filled the hollows between Sheetal’s toes and a chill shuddered up her spine. It was twelve-thirty. Ten and a half hours left. She had to dress and find Mama. Now.
***
Under a white tent on the front lawn, relatives and friends clustered around a buffet table mounded with artfully displayed food. The aroma of fried onions, tangy tomato gravy and spices flavored the air as waiters, dressed in black and white suits, passed in a steady stream from the kitchen to the lawn and back, burdened with silver trays of food and drink. The guests helped themselves to the fare and spilled out across the lawn, their plates loaded with curries, saffron rice and tandoor-cooked breads.
A topiary hedge of peacocks, elephants and deer surrounded the garden, and guests wandered from one display to another while eating.
Sheetal spent fifteen minutes looking for Mama. She had to convince her to stop this wedding. She couldn’t just sleep with some stranger on his bed and have sex with him for the rest of her life. There was enough time for Mama to talk sense into Papa and call off the wedding.
Sheetal gently urged people aside so she could make her way across the lawn while congratulations flew at her from all directions.
“There you are!” someone shouted.
A fishy odor fouled the air, and Sheetal froze. Only one person could tear through a commotion in just three words. Hemlata Choudhary, Papa’s younger sister, known among the family as Hemu.
Dressed in a gaudy green sari and balancing a plate of food, Aunty Hemu made her way toward Sheetal. “Hambe! Let’s see it.”
Sheetal drew her right hand behind her back. “I’m looking for Mama. Do you—”
“Come now. The ring.” Aunty Hemu swallowed a spoonful of sweet almond halwa coated in a leaf of edible silver. “About time I see what I’ve been hearing for weeks.” She swiped the mixture of mashed almond, ghee and sugar from the corner of her mouth with a napkin then squeezed the soiled end of the fabric between her teeth and sucked hard. “Out with it.”
Sheetal held out her hand for Aunty Hemu to see.
Aunty Hemu leaned in for a closer look, her shadow falling over the ring. A trinket in Sheetal’s world was a fortune in Aunty Hemu’s.
Without warning, Aunty Hemu spun around and her waist-length plait lashed Sheetal. “Look Veena, Rita, Meenu!” She waved, summoning three of Sheetal’s aunts. “I was right. See! I was right.”
The three plump women rushed over. One grabbed Sheetal’s hand and held it up for a crowd of more than fifty to see.
“I told you it was a princess cut,” Aunty Hemu declared. “Not five, but a whole ten carats!”
“Let me see!” Aunty Veena seized Sheetal’s wrist.
“And me!” a stranger declared from the crowd.
“How about us?” someone else yelled. “We want a look.”
“It must have cost at least—”
“Take it off,” Aunty Hemu ordered. “I want to see that ring. Now.”
The air thickened with tension.
Sheetal grasped the ring and started to twist if off when Mama called, “There you are, Sheetal!”
Mama made her way through the crowd, and Sheetal exhaled in relief.
“Shashiji’s waiting upstairs in your room,” Mama said. “You need at least two hours, if not more, to get dressed. Now, off you go. Quickly! I’ll have lunch sent up for you.”
“I must say, Bhabhiji,” Aunty Hemu addressed Mama, “all I asked Sheetal was to give me the ring. For a minute. Just one minute. But she refuses.”
Liar! Sheetal ground a heel into the grass.
“Hambe. As if I’m going to keep it,” Aunty Hemu didn’t slow, oblivious to the irritation in Mama’s expression. Then she pressed a palm to her head and flattened the black strands of oiled hair. “I would never even think of such a thing. How could I? After all, I’m…I’m her own blood—in a way. But young girls nowadays…” She clucked her tongue while the crowd mumbled its disapproval. “Spoiled.”
Sheetal tugged Mama’s hand. “We need to talk.”
“Later, Sheetal.” Mama raised her voice, “Now, now then, Hemuji, that’s such a small thing to worry about. I have so much more of Sheetal’s jewelry you must see before it leaves for her in-laws’ house.”
Sheetal curled her right hand into a fist. Why did Mama have a soft spot for Aunty Hemu when all Aunty Hemu did was meddle in family affairs and make life difficult?
Two years ago, when Papa bought a new car, he first called Aunty Hemu to share the details of the purchase. When Sheetal passed her Master’s exam, Mama and Papa first shared the good news with Aunty Hemu. The reason was always the same…Aunty Hemu was family and had once been a Prasad. Because she was not as well-off as them, Mama and Papa continually kept Aunty Hemu engaged in the loop of their lives because they had risen in wealth and status shortly after Aunty Hemu’s marriage to a man of the lower class, and they still lived with the guilt of having left her behind. Though Mama and Papa had consulted several family members about Sheetal’s dowry, as was customary, Aunty Hemu was given priority over everyone else. This time, the excuse was that any family member who had not been consulted would feel left out, take offense, and possibly try to sabotage the wedding.
How was an attack possible, when weddings gave families an opportunity to come together, rejoice, renew family ties, and forge new ones? In any case, this was too much! Mama had given Aunty Hemu more than her share of attention during the Pithi Ceremony this morning. And during Aunty Hemu’s son’s wedding, Mama had practically managed the event. Sheetal needed Mama now. “Mama, I need—”
“Sheetal,” Mama was firm. “Later.”
Mama placed a hand on Aunty Hemu’s shoulder and steered her away from the crowd, curtailing the opportunity for more public fury. “Now, Hemuji, I need your advice for the most important…”
The cluster of women followed Mama and Aunty Hemu to the dowry room, and Sheetal, furious, broke away.
***
“Hatto chowkidaar,” Indu Prasad ordered aside one of the fifty security guards manning the three thousand square foot hall and invited Hemlata and the women in. According to rumor, Rana Prasad had arranged for a fraction of Raigun’s military to guard the dowry.
Thirty designer salwar kameezes, one hundred and one saris and a dowry fit for a princess glowed beneath twelve crystal chandeliers. Each sari had been puffed, pleated, folded, and pinned into an endless display of shapes and designs. A pink crepe silk sari, shaped to resemble a rose, lay beside a yellow sari resembling a sunflower. A boat of red organza sailed on an ocean of blue chiffon. An olive-green sari, folded to resemble a kite with gold trimmings and a tail of bright pink chiffon, was followed by a succession of colorful silks, tissues and organza.
The display of Sheetal’s clothes went on and on in different hues of burgundy, cream, yellow, blue, maroon and silver until there wasn’t a color in the rainbow unrepresented. In the center of it all, mounted on a pedestal, under the grandest crystal chandelier, a golden tissue peacock, pleated together from fifteen different saris, stood proud, jubilant and three feet tall. Brocaded in threads of emerald-green and ocean-blue, the bird’s tail fanned over an array of twenty open-top jewelry boxes, wrapped tightly in sheets of transparent cellophane, with guards positioned to protect their contents.
Word spread quickly that the dowry room was open and a crowd of three hundred gathered in less than five minutes. In one of the twenty jewelry boxes, the curve of a pearl necklace separated a pair of matching earrings and a triple-string bracelet. A golden Cartier set in another box, dotted with pigeon-blood rubies and pink sapphires, was fashioned in loops and rings. Drops of white gold graced the edge of a swan neck choker, and fine latticework encrusted with diamonds sparkled in the center. The spectators drooled, uncertain where to look or which way to turn. There was so much to see and so little time.
Then Hemlata Choudhary sidled between several people and made her way to the teardrop necklace from Belgium, matched with a pair of earrings and a double-string bracelet. Strands of one-carat diamonds, woven with slivers of white gold, converged upon a two-inch wide pendant. She put a hand to her throat, her chest heaving, as if struggling for air.
Indu led the women forward, ordered two security guards to step aside, and pulled open panels of white chiffon curtains, revealing the hidden dowry.
Wedgewood Serenity Goblets encrusted with sapphires nestled on a blue velvet bed. Two dozen Araglin glasses marched across a red tablecloth. Each tulip-fluted glass, fashioned with diamond-shaped vertical wedges, reflected light from a chandelier. A Paris Evening tea set in copper and gold hosted five-dozen teacups, enough to serve fifty guests. Matching globe sugar bowls, cream holders and teapots complemented several velvet display boxes brimming with sterling silver cutlery. Fancy soup bowls, custard troughs, decanters and punch bowls, all bearing the same zigzag pattern, trailed like a never-ending maze.
The dowry was, everyone agreed, a grand display of affection. All this was intended for Sheetal’s mother-in-law, Pushpa Dhanraj, to use as she deemed appropriate.
“And those are Sheetal’s personal things.” Indu diverted the crowd’s attention to three Louis Vuitton suitcases in one corner of the room, the only items not open for display. “And this is for Rakeshji.” Indu pushed a green button on a remote control and a wooden folding wall on the left began to lift, revealing sharp streams of daylight.
Hemlata Choudhary squealed and stumbled backward, and spectators gasped as a car, unlike any ever seen, rolled into view.
The convertible’s metal and chrome chassis shimmered in the pool of sunlight. Its hood sloped with the same vicious slant of a hammerhead shark. The exterior mirrors had been sculpted to resemble the mammal’s wide-set eyes.
“It’s…it’s…” Hemlata’s jaw dropped.
“It was flown in from Italy. A Lamborghini. Onyx Diablo,” Indu said. “A twelve-cylinder purchased well in advance. Three years, in fact, because only eighty have been released.” Then she pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse and unfolded the yellow fabric to reveal a car key. She pushed a button and the doors of the vehicle opened skyward, revealing a tan leather interior shaped like an airplane’s cockpit.
The crowd crept closer to the vehicle, and Hemlata leaned forward, a hand extended toward the mullet-shaped exterior, before Indu placed a hand on her arm and urged her back.
“We have been planning this for some time. For the lucky man who would marry Sheetal.”
“Remember your time, Hemu?” Asha, Indu’s mother-in-law, turned to Hemlata. “I packed everything in your dowry when you were married. From your toothbrush to the four saris, petticoats and whatever else I could.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I tried to do the best so…so you were well supplied for at least a year. It was so simple then. So easy in our two-bedroom flat, compared to this.”
Indu’s attention wandered to the Lamborghini. “You know your brother when it comes to giving. He’s all heart. Remember how much he spent on your son Vikram’s wedding two years ago? I—” she turned to look at Hemlata, but Hemlata had slipped away.
***
A renowned beautician had been called upon to dress Sheetal for the wedding. With more than twenty-five years’ experience in the bridal business, this woman maintained a flawless reputation, and was hired to assure that Sheetal outshone any other bride. But the robust woman, in her mid-forties, merely looked from Sheetal’s cousin Tina to the golden wedding gown spread across the bed, to Sheetal, and her eyebrows plunged into a V. She made her way to the fishtail ghagra—designed by Anita Dongre, India’s leading fashion designer—that lay glimmering in the sunlight. “Is this what I’m supposed to work with?” She shook her head and her large earrings trembled.
Sheetal wiped the corners of her lips with a white napkin and covered the half-finished plate of food. “Is something wrong?”
“We need to begin right away. There’s no time to lose. Just look at your ghagra! I’ve never— Why, the world has never seen anything like it. It’s…it’s an Anita Dongre creation! I can tell by the look. Your make-up, your hair…they have to live up to this masterpiece. Everything must be perfect. Absolutely perfect.” She glanced at the watch on her wrist and frowned. “Two and a half hours. Hair, make-up, clothes—” She clapped her hands and turned to face the team of three beauticians and Preeti. “Right girls. Air condition on full. A bowl of ice-cold water. Take out the number five brush, compacts fifteen, four and nine…” she reeled off a list of items and then stopped, slapping herself on the thigh. “How silly of me.” She turned to Sheetal. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Shashi Behn.”
Sheetal knew who she was.
“Now, let’s mo-o-o-o-ve it!”
Within minutes, Sheetal’s room was cluttered with sponges, brushes, lipsticks, powders and hair clips. The room buzzed with excitement, and Shashi Behn orchestrated her staff with the precision of a symphony conductor.
An hour later, Tina left Sheetal alone with the women and returned shortly with a thick, white towel pressed to her chest. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she panted, closing the door behind, “but I heard something about a commotion in the dowry room.”
Sheetal tried to catch a glimpse of Tina from the corner of her eye, but Shashi Behn, who ran a comb through her hair, tightened her hold on the strands and nudged her head back into position. “What commotion?”
“Something missing.” Tina lay the towel on the bed, opened its overlapping folds and was about to lift the lid of a jewelry box when the creaking of the bedroom door and the thick odor of fish caused her to snap it shut. She rewrapped the jewelry box, placed the towel and its burden on a chair and sat on top of it, fanning the folds of her A-line kurti around the chair’s edge.
Aunty Hemu entered and made her way across to the golden ghagra. “Very lavish.” She reached for the gown with long brown fingers, a look of regret in her expression as her chipped nails caressed the pool of molten gold fabric encrusted with diamonds.
“It’s designed by Anita Dongre. Designerwear.” Tina apparently added the explanation for Aunty Hemu’s benefit. “It’s the latest in bridal outfits.”
“Hambe.” Aunty Hemu waved a hand in the air. “That’s the trend I hear, nowadays,” she sneered, oblivious to six women frowning at her obtrusive manner. “In our days, we wore our wedding sari several times. Got our parents’ money’s worth. It’s precisely why our mothers had things so sensibly made for us. Nothing too heavy, too expensive, or overly done. So we could wear them again and again.”
“That’s odd,” Tina said. “Didn’t you just say this morning at breakfast that weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that every bride should have the best?”
“The best doesn’t have to mean the most expensive,” Aunty Hemu retorted and approached Sheetal. “Some parents can’t afford what they want for their children. And we never forced our mothers to buy us the best. We understood. We compromised. We—”
Sheetal tightened her jaw at Aunty Hemu’s audacity.
“Didn’t you say you didn’t have much in your time?” Tina interrupted. “So even if you wanted, you couldn’t really do much about it.”
“Relax now.” Shashi Behn tapped Sheetal gently on the chin and Sheetal relaxed her jaw. “Loosen up or the style and setting will go wrong.” Shashi Behn then ran her fingers through Sheetal’s hair, sprayed it with water and chemicals from several bottles, and then started blow-drying the strands.
“Hambe. I see you still have a long way to go.” Aunty Hemu raised her left eyebrow. “Strange—no? Beauty. Supposed to be natural, but you girls nowadays go to such extremes to achieve perfection. Adequately blessed, but still want to be better. Tch…tch…tch… Will there ever be an end to all this madness?”
Shashi Behn took a deep breath and twirled a fistful of Sheetal’s hair into a knot. “What you call madness will end on the day love dies, or when women stop caring for their men—and what their men think of them. Love works both ways. Anyway”—she whirred the hairdryer back and forth, blowing strands of hair into Sheetal’s face—“I heard your son was married only recently. Two years ago—yes?”
“Oh yes. A beautiful wedding in Vilaspur. The talk of the town!” Aunty Hemu smiled. “For weeks and weeks that’s all everyone went on about.”
Aunty Hemu had been going on and on about it until the announcement of Sheetal’s engagement to Rakesh Dhanraj.
Shashi Behn turned off the hairdryer and silence filled the room. “In that case, I’m sure you know all the wedding preparations are happening outside. Not here. Now, if you don’t mind.”
Aunty Hemu raised a hand to her chest, took a deep breath, then turned and stormed out the door.
“Negative energy,” Shashi Behn murmured. “Doesn’t do any good. Ever.”
“Thank you.” Sheetal took a deep breath and exhaled, grateful for Shashi Behn's intervention. Any trouble today would give Aunty Hemu reason to glorify the Prasads’ faults, to gossip, and to mar the family’s reputation.
“Don’t thank me,” Shashi Behn replied. “I’m used to dealing with obstacles in life. And you will learn, too. It all comes with experience.”
An hour later, one of the servants asked Preeti and the team to come downstairs in order to give Sheetal some privacy. Tina and Shashi Behn stayed back, helped Sheetal into her wedding gown and added the final touches to her make-up.
Shashi Behn contoured the edge of Sheetal’s lips, dusted her bun in glitter and darkened her eyebrows. She took the golden chiffon dupatta between her fingers, fanned it behind Sheetal and pinned it to Sheetal’s chignon. The paper-thin leaf of fabric, embroidered and dusted with diamonds, fell to rest along Sheetal’s voluptuous curves. Gold tassels, edging the dupatta, tinkled and chimed on brushing the lower half of the fishtail paneled skirt.
“Come now, quickly.” Shashi Behn flipped open the jewelry box and pointed to the earrings. “Hand me those first.”
Tina did as she was told, and Shashi Behn clipped the earrings on Sheetal. Then she fastened the choker, adjusting it to the left and right until the pendant hung just above Sheetal’s cleavage. She hooked a thin strand of gold to Sheetal’s chignon and ran the six-inch-long maang tikka down the middle of her head like a river. A diamond teardrop at the end rested on Sheetal’s forehead. Then she slid thin, gold-colored glass and diamond bangles along her wrists. “Perfect.”
Sheetal wriggled. Nothing was perfect. The gold-colored blouse with diamond strands woven between swirls of leaves and flowers that exploded at the cups of the bodice in a firework, stuck to her like a second skin. She preferred loose, airy clothing, not body-hugging outfits that padlocked her behind its stitches. Sheetal tugged the choker away from her throat and took a deep breath, but the air wouldn’t come.
“Uh-uh-uh.” Shashi Behn shook her head. “No fidgeting. Just stay away from the sun. These impossible summers, you know! And if those camera lights at the reception get too much, I’ll be there to freshen you up. Well, I must be off. Two other brides to dress, but I’ll see you later this evening—and, oh yes!” She leaned toward Sheetal and whispered in a hurry, “If you need…you know…to do your business, have at least two people hold up your ghagra. Or better, slide out of the skirt, do your thing, and then slip it back on.” Then she kissed Sheetal’s head and turned to leave as Tina giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Sheetal whispered, catching the loose ends of the dupatta. She crossed to her bed, her feet snug in open-toe, golden Manolo Blahnik sandals, and fanned the paper-thin sheet apart before lowering herself onto the mattress’s edge, careful not to sit on embroidery that would crush under her bottom. Then she let go and the golden leaf of chiffon drifted from her French-manicured nails to the crimson duvet.
Shashi Behn reached for the doorknob just as the main door swung open and Mama entered. She surveyed Sheetal and turned to Shashi Behn. “You have truly outdone yourself.”
“Nothing more than was already created by God,” Shashi Behn replied modestly.
“This is a work of art. You…you absolutely must have lunch with us before you leave,” Mama said.
Shashi Behn glanced at her watch. “I’m running late. Two brides are waiting for me and—”
“I will not take no for an answer,” Mama insisted. “Please join us.”
“All right, then.” Shashi Behn smiled and left, closing the door behind her.
Mama approached Sheetal. “You look absolutely beautiful.”
Beautiful. Isn’t that what Arvind used to say?
“Gorgeous,” Tina agreed. “Isn’t Shashi Behn amazing? Taiji,” she addressed Mama with the respect due her father’s older brother’s wife, “what was all that commotion downstairs a while back?”
“Oh…nothing.” Mama frowned.
“I heard something about a theft.”
“It’s…it’s…really nothing.”
“What happened?” Sheetal asked. “Tina said something was missing from the dowry room.”
“One of the necklaces. No one understands how…what… I don’t know exactly when it happened, but Hemuji came running to us outside. She was the first to see the cellophane on one of the boxes slit through and the necklace gone.”
How did this happen under such tight security? What would this do to Papa? The wedding? “Which one?” Sheetal asked.
“The diamond-drop from Belgium.”
Ten million rupees!
Papa was probably tearing up and down the dowry hall this very minute, sealing off the premises, hyping up security and shooting a hundred orders at once.
Maybe he’ll call off the wedding, order an immediate search.
That would be bad.
No, not bad. Awful for the family’s reputation. An omen.
No. A secret intervention from God to stop the wedding.
Sheetal turned to look past Mama at the clock. Five o’clock. Three hours to inform Rakesh’s family that the wedding wouldn’t take place. “Did the guards see—?”
Mama shook her head. “Four hundred guests in the house. Three hundred of them, family. Your father and I can’t even imagine the humiliation that would cause. Even if we ordered a search, even if one of the servants took it, it’s probably gone by now.”
“So, what happens?” Her heart raced with hope.
“I…I don’t know,” Mama said. “I’m going downstairs with Tina. She needs to get dressed. Keep the door locked. You’re wearing five million rupees worth of jewelry, and I simply can’t risk anything more going wrong. As soon as one of us is dressed, we’ll escort you downstairs.”
“So, everything is going as planned?”
“Of course. What did you think?”
Sheetal’s heart sank.
“I don’t want you outside until I call for you,” Mama cautioned. “And Tina,” she turned to look at her, “I want you to change and be back before the hour. You will stay with Sheetal until we leave. If I’m back first, I’ll wait for you to return.”
“Yes, Taiji.” Tina left and closed the door behind.
Sheetal straightened her posture. “What if we don’t find it?”
“I don’t know.” Mama sighed.
“I need your help, Mama. Listen to—”
“I can’t deal with any more right now, Sheetal. I know how distressed you are with the awful news. But I’ll deal with the theft after the wedding is over.” Then she made for the door, punched the lock in place and closed it behind her.
Sheetal’s heart grated the pit of her stomach. She rose, walked over to the dressing room mirror and stared at her reflection, searching for the woman she knew. But a mermaid with hips cast in golden scales and thousands of beads and diamonds stared back. Who was this golden Venus?
Sheetal opened the balcony doors in search of fresh air. She needed light. She needed to breathe. Sunlight streamed in and spilled across the carpet. She remembered Shashi Behn’s warning, turned and headed back in, away from the balcony, so that her makeup wouldn’t melt. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself.
A hand clamped over her nose and mouth.