Band Baaja Baaraat

Her room was in chaos. Her mother and mausi were sitting on the bed, talking over each other, the gold in their sarees shimmering in the tube light. Her younger cousins were in front of the mirror, checking each other’s eye liners and working hard to match the thickness of the lines on the eyelids. There were empty chai and coffee cups on the floor and a plate of drying chilli paneer on the coffee table.

The upside of the chaos was she had forgotten to feel queasy. She knew she was looking beautiful in her yellow saree with painted pink oriental lilies. In one of the conversations she had had with Chiranjeev, he had waxed poetic about his fifth standard students who were learning about stamens and pistils at the time. He had told her about the nature walk he had organised for them so they could learn better while outside the classroom and how one of the boys had given a fallen lily to another because it had been full of ants.

She frowned, not sure why that story had prompted her to get lilies on her saree. She pursued her lips, trying to trap the ridiculous laugh rising inside her. She hoped he liked lilies nonetheless.

“Bacha, all okay?”

She turned, a smile on her face when she saw her father. He was in a shirt and pants, the colour of the shirt matching his wife’s deep purple saree. “All okay.”

He nodded his head, clapped his hand and commenced the difficult task of herding everyone out to the garden where the dinner had been organised. Chanderi kept checking her phone but Pihu’s chat was conspicuously silent. She hoped and prayed all had gone well with the afternoon meetup.

As soon as Chanderi exited the glass door towards the garden, she was enveloped in people and noises. It became impossible to even remember she was nervous, not when Chiranjeev was grinning from ear to ear in a mango yellow kurta and cream pyjamas.

He looked so cute and happy; she had no choice but to grin too. Now if only Pihu would come back, the tableau would be perfect.

*

Halfway through dinner, Pihu entered the garden, looking flustered. Chanderi immediately rose from her chair and pulled Pihu inside, before anyone could think to admonish her for disappearing from her own party.

She took Pihu to the loo. She couldn’t find a lock so leaned against the door to make sure no one interrupted them.

“How did it go?”

Pihu’s face turned red and Chanderi’s heart swooped. Then, her face split into a laugh and tears started to drip from her eyes and chin.

Chanderi wanted to leave her post and hug her but she needed to know why she was hugging her friend. “Tell me.”

“They agreed.” Pihu walked to Chanderi, took her hands in hers and squeezed. “Chand, they said yes. Thank you, oh my god, thank you.”

Trembling, she flung her arms around Chanderi and wept.

Although Chanderi had divorced her first husband, her parents had never questioned their daughter’s decision. It was one of the reasons they were going all out for the second wedding too. They never wanted anyone to question just how staunchly they stood behind their daughter.

Pihu, on the other hand, had been fighting with her parents for close to eight months, trying to get them to agree to her marriage to Prachal. The only reason they had agreed was seeing how well Chanderi’s parents were taking their daughter’s second marriage. It had given them the courage to see beyond needing to put Pihu in a box to protect her.

“Chand this is all because of you. Thank you. You just…oh my god I cannot tell you how happy I am right now.”

Chanderi tightened her arms around her friend, willing her to stop trembling from the adrenaline. She was so ecstatic and yet a dark germ of a thought wormed itself into her head: would she be more excited about her impending nuptials if she had had to fight her parents over it?

Pihu let her go and carefully wiped the area under Chanderi’s eyes to remove the traces of mascara that had dripped there. “How’s everything here?”

“Oh,” said she, hugging herself, “everything is splendid. The food is so delicious I want to live inside it.”

Pihu laughed, distracted, not noticing the way Chanderi’s eyes remained dull, even when her mouth tilted up.

“Let’s go eat then.”

“You go, I need to use the loo.”

Pihu clapped her hands and did a little on-the-spot dance, unable to contain her euphoria. She left, the door closing with a sigh behind her.

Chanderi walked to the mirror, staring at herself, willing herself to go back to the happiness she had felt when she had first seen Chiranjeev that night.

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Chapter 2 of 26 of the ongoing series Chanderi. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.