One Indian Girl(2)

‘If you take fifty, ma’am, we will only have thirty left for them,’ Arijit said.

‘Where is Suraj?’ I said. Suraj was the owner of Moonshine Events, the event manager we had appointed for the wedding. ‘We will manage last minute’ is what he had told me.

‘At the airport,’ Arijit said.

My father ambled up to the reception desk. ‘Everything okay, beta?’

I explained the situation to him.

‘Thirty rooms! The Gulatis have 120 guests,’ my father said.

‘Exactly.’ I threw up my hands.

Mom and Kamla bua came to the reception as well. ‘I told Sudarshan also, why all this Goa business? Delhi has so many nice banquet halls and farmhouses. Seems like you have money to waste,’ Kamla bua said.

I wanted to retort but my mother gave me the Mother Look.

They are our guests, I reminded myself. I let out a huge breath.

‘How many from our side?’ my mother said.

‘Mehta family has 117 guests, ma’am,’ Arijit said, counting from his reservation sheets.

‘If we only have eighty, that is forty rooms for each side,’ I said. ‘Let’s reallocate. Stop the check-ins for the Mehtas right now.’

Arijit signalled the smiling ladies at the counter. They stopped the smiles and the check-ins and put the shell necklaces back in the drawer.

‘How can we reduce the rooms for the boy’s side?’ my mother said in a shocked voice.

‘What else to do?’ I said.

‘How many rooms are they expecting?’ she said.

‘Fifty,’ I said. ‘Call them now. They will readjust their allocations on the way here.’

‘How can you ask the boy’s side to adjust?’ Kamla bua said. ‘Aparna, are you serious?’

My mother looked at Kamla bua and me.

‘But how can we manage in only thirty rooms?’ I said and turned to my father. ‘Dad, call them.’

‘Sudarshan, don’t insult them before they even arrive,’ Kamla bua said. ‘We will manage in thirty rooms. It’s okay. Some of us will sleep on the floor.’

‘Nobody needs to sleep on the floor, bua,’ I said. ‘I am sorry this screw-up happened. But if we have forty rooms each, it is three to a room. With so many kids anyway, it should be fine.’

‘We can manage in thirty,’ my mother said.

‘Mom? That’s four to a room. While the Gulatis will have so much space. Let’s tell them.’

‘No,’ my mother said. ‘We can’t do that.’

‘Why?’

‘They are the boy’s side. Little bit also you don’t understand?’

I didn’t want to lose it at my own wedding, definitely not in the first hour of arrival. I turned to my father. ‘Dad, it’s no big deal. His family will understand. We are here for six nights. It will get too tight for us,’ I said.

Dad, of course, would not listen. These two women, his wife and sister, controlled his remote. For once, both of them were on the same page as well.

‘Beta, these are norms. You don’t understand. We have to keep them comfortable. Girl’s side is expected to adjust,’ he said.

I argued for five more minutes. It didn’t work. I had to relent. And do what the girl’s side needs to do—adjust.

‘You and Aditi take a room,’ my mother said, referring to my sister.

‘Let her be with her husband. What will jiju think?’ I said.

‘Anil will adjust with the other gents,’ Kamla bua said.

Over the next twenty minutes the two women sorted the extended Mehta family comprising 117 people into thirty rooms. They used a complex algorithm with criteria like the people sharing the room should not hate each other (warring relatives were put in different rooms) or be potentially attracted to each other (mixed gender rooms were avoided, even if it involved people aged eighty-plus). Kids were packed five to a room, often with a grandparent. Kamla bua, herself a widow, dramatically offered to sleep on the floor in my parents’ room, causing my father to offer his own bed and sleep on the floor instead. Of course, Arijit kept saying that they would put extra beds in the room. But how can you compare sleeping on an extra Marriott bed with the Punjabi bua’s eternal sacrifice of sleeping on the floor?

‘I am happy with roti and achaar,’ Kamla bua said.

‘It’s the Marriott. There is enough food, bua,’ I said.

‘I am just saying.’

‘Can you please focus on the reallocations? We all need to be checked in before the Gulatis arrive,’ I said.

In the middle of this chaos, I forgot what I had come here for. I had come to change my life forever. To do something I’d never believed in my whole life. To do something I never thought I would. I had come to have an arranged marriage.

Here I was, lost in logistics, guest arrangements and bua tantrums. I took a moment to reflect.

I will be married in a week. To a guy I hardly know. This guy and I are to share a bed, home and life for the rest of my life.

Why isn’t it sinking in? Why am I fighting with Suraj on chat instead?

Me: Major screw-up on rooms, Suraj. Not cool.

Suraj: Sorry. Really sorry. Political reasons. Tried. Really.

Me: What else is going to get screwed up?

Suraj: Nothing. IndiGo from Mumbai just landed. We are ready to receive guests. See you soon.