Finding Fanny

Chanderi was staring at Chiranjeev’s name on her palm as everyone around her lost their collective marbles. The parents had been informed and were in a conference with the relatives. She didn’t want to know what picture they were painting of her, or Chiranjeev or her decision. She curiously felt outside of herself, disconnected from the chaos storming around her.

She was still in the powder room which had emptied once everyone had realized it was not the best of places to have this discussion. They had left her behind to mull over everything alone. She didn’t know if that was good or bad.

It was her perfume that alerted her that Pihu had entered the room. She didn’t look up from the contemplation of her mehendi. She wondered if Pihu had been recruited by her family to knock some sense into her. She was so numb, she didn’t even care.

“Chand, look at me please.”

Chanderi looked up. Her friend’s face was devastated, yes, but there was something else too. What was it?

Pihu said, “I’m sorry but I don’t understand. I thought you were happy. Your parents didn’t even want you to get married. You asked them to look, you chose him, you said yes when he asked. I’m confused what happened between then and now?”

What Chanderi had noticed in her friend’s face was terror. Because of her, Pihu’s parents had agreed to her marriage to Prachal. She worried how this turn of events would affect her chances. Would her parents take back the hard-fought permission? She knew her concern weren’t entirely selfless and it pained her to think about her self-interest above her friend’s but…what was she to do?

“Please,” she said, “help me understand.”

Chanderi looked away, embarrassed, because she wasn’t asking any new questions. Her mother had asked the same ones. Their questions were making her rethink everything. Were they being unreasonable, or was she? She didn’t know.

*

Chiranjeev hadn’t left the room until he had heard a commotion outside and realized Chanderi had done what she had meant to do. Even though he knew she had been serious, he couldn’t deny there was a part of him that had hoped she would change her mind.

He had stuck to the shadows as he saw everyone running here and there like headless chickens. It was only sheer luck that he found his parents before anyone saw him. He had taken them back to his room, not answering any questions until they were behind a closed door. Then, he had told them everything.

They were, obviously, unhappy. But not why he had thought. They were angry on his behalf. They knew he loved Chanderi and were aghast that she didn’t love him back. He was oddly touched by their defence of him, unnecessary though it was.

“Should we talk to her?” his father asked. “Maybe she’s worried that we won’t accept her? I know we were a bit harsh because of her status but we did apologise after. Should we…”

His mother interrupted his father. “We could talk to her family? Mrs. Chudasma seems like a reasonable person. If there’s any misunderstanding, surely we can clear it up?”

His parents went back and forth, throwing out suggestions. He knew they were hoping he would agree to one of them and then they’d be back to their regularly scheduled program. He paid them no mind. He only tuned back into the conversation when his mother said something completely out of left field.

“…marry someone else.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Wait, what did you just say?”

Some of his displeasure must have communicated itself to his mother because she stopped talking abruptly, going red in the face. But she repeated gamely, “I was just saying you could always marry someone else.”

Livid that no one seemed to care for his feelings, at all, he picked up his coat and left the room. Maybe the trees or some empty corridor of the haveli where perhaps ghosts of past guests ventured would be more sympathetic to his heartbreak.

*

Mr. and Mrs. Chudasma were proud of their only daughter but sometimes, she exasperated them. Being in the business of selling sarees, there was a reason they had named their child Chanderi but they had not anticipated she would turn out to be so…costly.

But still, as the daughter who had made a decision, they felt obligated to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Bajaj, maybe apologise? Perhaps commiserate over stubborn offsprings? Mrs. Chudasma could only hope.  

They were quite surprised, then, to find Chiranjeev’s parents in the front garden, off to one side of the trellis that Chanderi had so admired, sitting around an angeethi and sipping hot kesar milk. The Chudasmas sat on the two chairs next to the Bajajs and they spent five silent minutes looking at the fire and passing on the milk glasses to each other.

Then Mrs. Chudasma said, “We would like to apologise for all,” she waved her hand as if words couldn’t really do justice to what she was saying.

Mrs. Bajaj, who had given her husband a lecture on not interfering if she went on a warpath for her son, melted. In Mrs. Chudasma’s voice, she heard a kindred spirit. Of a mother who loved her child but found it increasingly difficult to understand said child.

Like Mrs. Bajaj still did not understand why her intelligent, well-read, son chose to be a primary school teacher when he could be so much more.

She gave a huge sigh. “Arey Mrs. Chudasma, let’s forget about it. Kids these days have a mind and destiny of their own. You can’t reason with them much.”

Feeling seen and heard as a mother for the first time, Mrs. Chudasma went on a trip talking about the frustrating habits of her daughter and something happened that night that nobody could have predicted.

The Chudasmas and the Bajajs became friends.

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Chapter 6 of 26 of the ongoing series Chanderi. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.