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That Rain, When A Peacock Danced

Mehreen Ahmed

    Days of the month slipped like water through the fingers. A wedding preparation had been well underway in The House of Chowdhury, for quite sometime now. It was Mila Chowdhury’s wedding, the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Chowdhury, to be betrothed to her boyfriend of three years, Irfaan Khan.
    As the wedding ensued, Mr. Chowdhury engaged decorators. They provided chairs, tables, tarp, fairy lights and a microphone to play recorded songs. This morning, the day of the wedding, the ceremony was to be held in the evening. Decorators made the final touches. They started work early. They brought in multi-coloured fairy lights and soft coverings —— linen for chairs and tables, and streamers. The chairs and the tables were laid earlier in the week.
    The wires of the fairy lights lay haphazard in a braided jumble all over the grounds. While some men untied the jumble, others used a ladder to haul the wires to hang the lights across the entrance gate and over the big house. In the evening, the entire house must look luminous. And it did. The House of Chowdhury, stood in the backdrop of a massive illumination that evening. A wooden gate was temporarily erected in front of the fixed gated entrance. The double gates glimmered in multi-coloured dimness. This artificial gate too was wrapped, crisscrossed and scissored in rainbow coloured cotton streamers.
    A tarpaulin was hoisted to cover the entire front-yard over hired wooden chairs for guests. The chairs were placed next to each other. The appointed chef cooked a wedding feast in the orchard on a makeshift wood stove made from clay. The menu was Biriyani, Mutton Kabab, and Murag Musallam. The chefs’ assistants were employed to serve yoghurt drinks, namely Lassi, along with the main meal. Microphones blasted off cheerful songs. Songs, which could be heard far afar all the way to the mosque square at the end of the alley. The rainfall added extra flavour to the Lassi drink; water dripped through the cracks and crevices of the tarp into the open Lassi jugs. However, the guests didn’t mind. Although some did grumble at sloppy management, mostly, people rejoiced and enjoyed the meal.
    The management was sloppy. But the bride, Mila, knew how difficult it was for her mother Nazmun to fight funds out of her father. Had it not been for her uncles Sheri and Ashik, who pitched in and supported this wedding, it would have been far less glamorous. They gave her all the ancillary supports. The bride’s aunts, Uncle Ashik’s wife Prema and Nazmun went out shopping each Sunday morning for two entire weeks. They bought wedding sarees, and gold jewellery studded with semi-precious stones of red ruby, green emerald and white sapphire of cloudy hue. The old family jeweller was only too eager to help. He found the best craftsmen in town. Her uncles poured in money to make this wedding a success; the family pride must be held up.
    Mila’s father had appeared in the morning of the wedding day. Just when she had come out of the bath and got dressed in an everyday cotton saree to go to the hairdresser, she saw him through her bedroom’s green shutters. He had sauntered through the outer gate. Mila rushed out of her room to greet him. Instead, she saw her grandmother there, at the dining table; she sat down next to her and waited. In a moment, he breezed in through the door. The sky was overcast as usual. Yet again, another monsoon pouring began.
    “Where are you these days?” Mrs. Chowdhury asked. “Am I glad to see you?”
    “Sorry, amma. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
    “Regardlessly, and thank God for your brothers, this wedding would have been a disaster.”
    “My brothers have saved yet another the day, then?” he asked.
    “Again, as usual,” Mila chimed in.
    “Anyway, I’m here now and that makes a difference, no?” he said.
    “Should it?” A shrill voice wavered through the doorway. Nazmun and Prema walked in with jewellery boxes and sarees. “Typical! How typical of you to disappear like this. Days on end you were gone. Not involved in anything. Then you appear suddenly, like a rare comet. Are you the father or what? A guest, come by to sneak a peek?”
    “Mum, please.” Mila said, “Not today.”
    “No? What is he going to do? Walk out? Has he even paid a dime?” Nazmun spat out.
    “How much? How much do you need? Here take it. There’s all the money, right here in this envelope.”
    He pushed a large A4 size brown envelope before them on the table.
    “Huh? Stuff you,” Nazmun turned on her heels and walked away.
    “Here, amma, you keep the money, then.”
    Mila’s father’s name was Dr. Magrub Chowdhury. He had a flourishing medical practice in town. He insisted that his mother take the envelope. In fact, he forced it into her hand. Mrs. Chowdhury took it. But she frowned deeply. She looked at Mila and gave it to her. Mila’s father stood up and walked towards the orchard where her uncles were seated with a large pot of chai under the tarp. As soon as he appeared, they greeted him and asked him to sit down.
    The day advanced. Sheri’s wife, Lutfun, one of Mila’s aunts took her to the hairdresser. A pageboy summoned a rickshaw. It waited for them outside the decorative gates. They walked up to the vehicle and embarked it. The afternoon was quiet and grey. The rickshaw puller cycled slowly down the narrow alley and headed off for the salon down by the mosque square. Mila put her head on Lutfun’s shoulder. Lutfun cruxed it into her elbow, caressing it with her idle palm.
    “Everything will be fine,” Lutfun said smoothly. “I’m going to get my hair done too. I’m doing a French Knot.”
    “Yeah, you’ll look really good. What’re you wearing?” Mila asked.
    “Glad that you sound a little upbeat now. It’s your wedding for God’s sake. Cheer up, girl! Yes, I’ll wear my pink Kathan with the diamonds I bought recently. But we did discuss it the other day, remember?”
    “Oh yeah. I remember now.”
    The slow paced rickshaw reached the salon. The puller’s hard-pressed hand brakes stopped the vehicle. They disembarked awkwardly from its chair-like body, and stepped onto a sodden path. Mila followed Lutfun, tiptoeing through a rainwater puddle into a shop which had Salon written large on a billboard down the parapet. The outer wall looked musty. It had peeled off paint in various places, through which a set of horizontal bare bricks grinned. Walking up two stairs, Lutfun and Mila entered into a crowded salon. There was only one empty, corner chair left in the parlour. Lutfun egged Mila to take it, as Mila did the same to Lutfun. She pushed Mila right up to the chair and sat her down.
    While Lutfun stood by Mila, they watched from this corner, all the other young brides-to-be, sitting in a row before their respective mirrors; still little dolls in the process of a full bridal makeover. Mila’s turn came as soon as one finished. She sat down before a mirror; her reflection, clear. Lutfun was next, when another chair became available. Mila and Lutfun sat close by, but they didn’t speak much during the session. Only occasionally, they made eye contact through the mirror. Mila sat straight-faced like a dummy. She looked at her cobweb mass of long hair arranged by the expert hands of the hair-dresser. It took a while to get it right. Lutfun’s French Knot was done before Mila. She waited, as the dresser fine tuned Mila’s bridal bun. Pleased. Lutfun walked over and paid at the counter by the entrance. As soon as Mila finished, both egress through the nearby front door.

    The rain had not abated. They stood under the shop’s roof parapet wall looking for a rickshaw to take them home. One came along, while they waited here. They hailed it and dashed in the blinding rain in its direction; pulling the saree’s fallen drape as half a veil, to cover the hair arrangements. Getting up on its slippery foot-board was challenging; once they stepped on, they dropped themselves on the seat immediately with a sigh, and rushed to pull over the collapsible hood over their heads. The rickshaw puller gave them a long plastic sheet. They pulled it up to the chin, trying to hold it tightly about them in these blasting winds and the rain.
    “I hope you won’t get a chill today,” Lutfun said.
    “I hope not. I think I’ll be fine,” Mila answered.
    After a pause, Mila asked. “Are you happy, aunty Lutfun?”
    Lutfun looked at her and said,“Yes, of course I’m happy, dear. Do you not see it?”
    “I do, but who knows what’s going on deep down inside your heart?” Mila asked, then regretted it. “Never mind. You don’t need to answer that.”
    “No, I will, since you asked. Happiness is elusive. Money can’t always make people happy. Material objects, can’t either. Even if it does, it is short-lived. Happiness is something else. It’s much deeper. It’s almost like a twinkle in a star; we know that it is there. But we cannot really house it. One cannot house a vanishing twinkle, you see.”
    “I don’t understand. When you feel happy that usually means you have housed the emotion in your heart. Although, I do agree, material objects cannot always make one happy. Those who are happy, they’re so regardless. If one really searched for it, they could find it among slum-dwellers, even.”
    “Yes, I meant, it’s not a steady emotion. One cannot be consistently happy, just as a star wouldn’t consistently twinkle. The twinkling usually vanishes in a second. Happiness could too. They vanish, then they come back. You know what I mean? An interplay, of sorrow and happiness, if you like.”
    “Yes, like gas. They cannot be pinned permanently in one and the same space.”
    They were quiet after that. The rickshaw soon stopped at the entrance of The House of Chowdhury. The puller got off his seat in the front and stood on a puddle. He removed the plastic sheet with one hand. And took the fare in the other. Lutfun had opened her purse, she had been carrying within her palm all this while and placed the money on his open palm. Mila sprang out of the vehicle from her side, Lutfun followed. They ran indoors in the bucketing rain. They held the veils to protect the expensive buns until they were in.
    “Now, go to your room and get some rest, dear, I’ll bring you lunch in a bit,” saying so, Lutfun walked towards her mother-in-law, Mrs. Chowdhury’s room, and disappeared in the passageway. Mila, walked towards her own bedroom and entered through the open door. It was empty. Through the green-shuttered tall window of her bedroom, she saw her mother, her aunts and uncles outside under the umbrella of a neem tree, giving instructions to the decorators and supervising the wedding dinner. Just this once, her father was also with them, jostled in the front-yard.
    She inclined her neck. Her eyes fell on a mosaic table near the window —— a rotund, drawered table. It stood on curved antic legs by an easy chair set at an angle. A radio sat on the table. She reached out for the radio and peered through the long, horizontal window grills. A dense rain splattered over trembling leaves outside. She picked up the radio, and tuned it to Dhaka station, popular movie songs; Abdul Jabbar singing, Ore neel doriya, from the movie Sareng Bou. She spaced out for a while into the dazzling rain; it charmed her, this dark rain. She turned around with the radio in her hand, and walked towards her bed. She climbed it and sat on its edge; the radio by her side.
    Oddly enough, she thought of her old fling. He had become a relic by now, who remotely reminded her of a lost relationship. Rahim Ali, had married Papri. Were they happy? Oh! Stop! Stop it! She screamed in her head. Not now; not ever. She could still hear her relatives. Their air-borne faint laughters sound a tinkle off a Morano glass. She lay down on one side of the bed, listening to the song. An ephemera. How fragile was this existence? Her journey had only just begun, and a sense of an ending was already closing in. This house, her relatives where they would all be in fifty years time. She wondered. Where would she be on this bumpy road to posterity? Her eyes were closed but they had glistened. She didn’t realise that Lutfun had entered with a meal. She stood before her, smiling. She coughed lightly to awaken her from a reverie.
    “Oh! It’s you?” Mila said, opening her eyes.
    “I hope you haven’t ruined your hair,” Lutfun said, scanning her heavily sprayed neat bun. “No, it’s okay, I think. Here take this and eat up. You’ll need a lot of energy today.”
    “I don’t think I have much appetite.”
    “Eat just a little, still,” Lutfun insisted.
    At her behest, Mila took the plate and ate a few mouthfuls of rice and fried fish. Then she gave the plate back to her.
    “Are you okay? What’s bothering you, if I may ask?” Lutfun asked, touching her forehead.
    “No, it’s just, just that I’m suddenly all philosophical today, thinking of life and death and the journey itself.”
    “Oh! This is no time to have such profound thoughts,” Lutfun said.
    “I know, I know,” Mila said.
    “Tender. Don’t think of these things. Where is your trousseau, now?”
    Lutfun looked under the bed and pulled out a heavy trunk. She opened it and found a few sarees, bed linens and blankets. She took them out and glanced over them. She decided that more clothes needed to be trunked. She stood up and zipped out of the room in a flash, into her own. She opened her wardrobe and found some new sarees sitting in their virgin folds. She pulled the bunch out and returned to Mila’s room. Mila looked at her surprised.
    “But these are all yours,” she said.
    “So? They’re yours now. What would your in-laws think if they knew you have a near empty trousseau?”
    “Who cares? Mila pounced. “I don’t want your sarees, aunty Lutfun.”
    “Don’t worry, you can buy me heaps later,” she said smilingly, as she dropped them in the trunk and ironed the creases with her palm, levelling the clothes neatly. She closed the metal lid with both hands.
    “Are you sure?” Mila asked.
    “A hundred percent.”
    Lutfun reached for the lunch plate. Exiting the room, she crossed her path with Prema on the threshold. Prema entered with a cosmetic case. She was doing the bridal makeup. She left the case on Mila’s bed and sped out of the room, saying that she forgot something. She closed the bedroom door behind her and caught up with Lutfun in the passage.
    Mila reached for the radio. She turned it off. She climbed down her bed and sat on the easy chair. She felt trepidation. An ink doused, monsoon afternoon; viewing it through the window, she couldn’t tell if it was evening already, because the sky never cleared. She sat on the easy chair absorbed, listening to the rain’s natural music. She heard a knock. The door opened and in came her friends, Shreya and Shuvo with their mother, Shri Devi Mukherjee. Mila called her mashima. Shri Devi came straight up and pulled her out of the easy chair. She gave Mila a tight hug and a deep kiss on her forehead.
    “Why do you look so grim, dear?” she asked.
    Mila smiled and stood aside. She offered her the chair. Shuvo and Shreya smiled back at her, who had by now settled themselves cozily on the edge of the bed. Mila walked across and sat with them alongside facing Shri Devi. Their feet dangled off the cold floor. Mila’s bed was a high fashionable antic with an ornate headrest, back in the day.
    “How’s everything coming along?”asked Shri Devi.
    “So far so good, I guess. But the rain could spoil it,” Mila said.
    “You know what? There’s a saying that wedding rains are not a harbinger of bad luck. To the contrary, they bring peace into the house.”
    “I hope so.”
    Mila mumbled thinking of her rather angst-ridden childhood with her parents. Had it not been for her grandparents, uncles and aunts, a street life was imminent. Shreya looked at her metal trousseau peeking under the bed.
    “Are you taking that with you?” she asked.
    “Yes, that’s my bridal trousseau,” Mila said plainly. “It has some sarees and bed linen.”
    “Well, it’s all in the stars, I believe,” Shuvo began suddenly.
    “What do you mean? Don’t you start already?” Shreya snapped.
    “Start? What have I said? All I wanted to say is this, that we’re born out of the elements from the stars, which when showers upon us, makes us. Humans are borne out of stars. They give us the essential building blocks, but they’re unique. Like the many Rubik’s Cube variations of colours, if you like. They govern us. They give us our unique characteristics. Our destinies are made in Heaven, including marriages.”
    “How astonishing! I wonder which star made you? Must be something totally out of our orbit? However, I do know which star governs you for talking such nonsense! Saturn!”
    “Hmm! You’re insanely critical,” Shuvo reflected calmly.
    They all laughed. Mila, laughed the most. Shuvo sure brightened up this dull day for her.
    Evening had now well and truly set in. The ceremony would start soon. Prema and Lutfun flitted in and out of the room. Cars’ incessant honking at the entrance began. Chatters rose, and became louder; laughters and greetings enlivened the house, awakening it from a hundred years of hibernation, as it were. Shri Devi rose from the easy chair and excused herself saying that she must meet with Mila’s mother and grandmother. She stepped out just when Prema also returned gasping, nearly colliding with Shri Devi at the door. She entered the room and stood before Mila and company under the ceiling fan. She gauged the situation for a few seconds and asked Mila to move to the middle of the bed. In the meantime, more people poured in causing a jam almost in the doorway. Decked in expensive sarees and glittering jewellery, her friends entered, crowding into the room. Some sat around Mila, on the bed. Prema walked up to bolt the doors. It was now time to begin the bridal make-up.
    Prema was a natural. She knew exactly what to do. She started with facial foundation, then rubbed some of it down her neck and then to her arms and forearms. Her kit was fully equipped and she, a skilful makeup artist, left no straw unturned. The rouge, the powder, lipsticks, a detailed makeup was underway, the eye makeup was performed with great precision, with eyeliner, eyeshade and long brushes of mascara strokes. Not until each nail was painted and perfected painfully with nail polish, Prema didn’t give up. The bed was strewn with stained cotton buds, ripped clothes, little pieces of chucks to wipe off the extra colours. By the time she finished, Mila had transformed into this beauty. All that was left now was to put her bridal attire on.
    A ruckus outside alerted Prema and everyone in the room. Someone screamed that the groom’s party had arrived. Mila’s friends who were seated calmly over the make-up session, rose with a sudden alacrity. They clamoured to rush towards the door to greet the groom; a perfumed trail of sweetness lingered in the air, as they left. Mila felt her heartbeat increase; stifling hot on this muggy evening. The ceiling fan was in full swing, but the steaminess couldn’t be rid of anytime soon.
    Shouts and cheers at the gate. The groom’s party had been held up here by a queue of pretty girls. They barred them from entering unless he paid a certain amount of toll.
    “How much?” The groom’s party shouted.
    “Not less than a thousand rupees,” one of Mila’s cousins screamed back.
    “Wow! That’s too much,”
    “No. it isn’t. Our sister doesn’t come cheap.”
    “How about five hundred?”
    A friend negotiated on behalf of the groom.
    “No. Eight hundred,” the girls cried.
    “Deal.”
    A clear win for the girls; the deal closed after about fifteen minutes of haggle. They let them in. Some of the groom’s friends winked at them, too; eligible bachelors tried to gate crash, pushing through the young beauties.The girls led the groom and his friends to the bridal dias.
    The dias, built out of wide, wooden floor plank, were decorated with the same multi-coloured streamers as the outer gates were. It had a supporting back wall and was covered with a thick Persian rug. Over the rug rolled bolsters of glittery velvet were thrown as soft cushioning. Irfaan Khan, the groom, climbed up with his friends and sat on the rugged plank. He looked handsome in his new white sequined Sherwani suit and plain russet turban. Irfaan sat in the middle of the dias, flanked by his friends. They leaned against the bolsters like a King with his knights in a King’s court. He cracked jokes and laughed with friends in his derbar, tonight. One night’s King; Mila, his Queen would be by his side.
    “There’s still time to escape, before signing on the dotted line,” a friend joked as everyone chimed in. They laughed and they knew that this was it. Irfaan’s bachelor days were over.
    Prema did the finishing touches on the bride’s make-up. The room was now quiet because the girls had gone to greet the groom’s party. She put her index finger under Mila’s chin to lift her face to look into a small mirror which she held in front of her. Mila looked into the mirror. She sure looked pretty. It was time to put on the wedding saree. Prema and Mila both climbed down the bed.
    Prema asked Mila to wear the matching blouse and the petticoat. Mila obeyed. The saree was expensive. It was a red sequined Kathan, heavy with gold threaded gems. In her slim fitted blouse and the petticoat, Mila stood in the middle of the room. Prema took the saree and unfolded the nine metre drape to wrap around Mila. She did this with much deliberation. Not a rushed job, slowly, and artfully making sure that every single pleat of the unstitched drape fell evenly in place. She secured the pleats midway down the fall with a safety pin which pierced through a small piece of paper to protect the fabric. The pleats had fallen uniformly at her feet. She drew the rest of the drape to wrap it around her tender, curved waist and threw it over her full breasts. She pleated it again over the left shoulder and pinned the pleats through the blouse on that shoulder. A trail dangled elegantly at the hip.
    Prema stepped back and assessed Mila. She thought the saree looked tight and tucked around Mila’s taut body. She turned her attention towards jewellery. They were in boxes inside a tall, ornate Almirah in one corner of the room. She opened the Almirah with a key, kept in the drawer of the mosaic table by the green window. She pulled a few crisp, new boxes out of a hidden safe in the Almirah. A diamond necklace and several other semi-precious gilded necklaces, studded in stone. She helped Mila wear them one after another. They adorned her fresh, smooth neck. Prema took Chanel no 9 out of her make-up box, and sprayed some over Mila’s sari. This transformation brought out her inner beauty pure as the white full moon on a mellow winter afternoon.
    “How do you feel?” Prema asked.
    “Nervous.”
    “You’ll be fine. Before going to bed, take off your jewellery and put them in the box, if you can. If he’ll give you the time, that is.”
    Prema smiled slyly, giving her a slight nudge.
    Mila nodded. Little did her aunt Prema know that she had already been there. Done and dusted.
    “It will hurt the first time,” aunt Prema continued, oblivious that her niece wasn’t little anymore, and that she was a doctor. That’s what elders did. Love blinded them in a way that they didn’t see the obvious. That was how Mila’s family was. Love was paramount over hardships. Whatever happened in their lives, nothing came between relationships. Credit be to Mr. and Mrs. Chowdhury for raising such a devoted family, where love burst at the seams; the same love to blanket distant relatives too, as far back as it could go in a close knit family. The door burst open. The girls came giggling in, pushing through the doorway.
    Mila, who now looked like a demure bride, sat in the easy chair under the full speed ceiling fan. Prema left her to the girls. Their uus and the aahs put a delicate smile on Mila’s curved lips. The room had now begun to reek of light sweat of mingled perfume. In a bit, there was a knock on the door —— the Moulavi seeking permission to come inside. He had brought with him two elders — her two uncles, Sheri and Ashik as witnesses to ask for Mila’s permission to this wedding. If she said no, then the groom’s party must depart without a marriage.
    Drizzles continued through the evening, well into the night. The Moulavi entered with the Quran in his hand with her uncles. He recited, while her uncles gave a patient hearing, ‘Mila Chowdhury, do you of your own accord take Irfaan Khan to be your wedded husband?’ Mila was silent the first time. This silence, however, was not to be misconstrued as anything foreboding, but it was uncivil and too forward to have replied straight away. She paused a few seconds between each time she said, ‘yes,’ ‘yes’ and then ‘yes,’ to the questions asked three times. A contract was now handed to her with a pen. She held it tightly between her sweaty fingers, while her uncles held the contract paper on her lap to keep it steady. She signed. The most important moment of her life, her maiden life was now signed away; this free life she has had until now was over. Mila felt strange; an ugly cramp slowly rose in her lower belly. The Moulavi and her uncles departed.
    The same happened outside on the dias too. Irfaan Khan signed the contract. The wedding was now properly sealed and declared official. The guests paired their hands up like half opened Pistachio shells to pray. When prayers finished, they vocalised, an Ameen together in sombre and a befitting manner.
    The chef’s page boys brought the food: Biriyani, Morug Maussallam, and Mutton Kabab. They spread them out on hired dining tables in the makeshift dining area, not far from the guests where they had been seated all this time, and praying before the bridal dias. They also poured Lassi in each glass. A special banquet was prepared for the groom and his friends. The groom’s table was served with several whole chickens, roasted in almond and ghee; whole smoked Hilsa fish on silver platters.
    The formalities out of the way, Nazmun Banu could relax. She was still worried about the Lassi being too watery from rain dripping, but the constant presence of her two brothers-in-law by her side gave her some respite. They made sure that the food did not fall short in supply. The guests enjoyed the meal.
    Prema and Lutfun, each ate fast. They hurried to return to Mila’s bedroom. Mila sat, looking sedated in a Queen’s attire in her full bloom of youth. Her silken veil trembled under the ceiling fan. It was time. She had to be moved to the bridal dias outside. The guests had by now sat down and settled in their chairs after dinner. The groom too reverted to the dais with his friends, enjoying an occasional witty joke, sometimes fell short of wit, but the jokes elicited a hiccup of laughter anyway.
    Lutfun and Prema stood on both sides of the bride. They each held her arms and slowly walked her out of the door, down the passageway towards the dias. Her shaded eyes were downcast inside her transparent sequin veil. She had the most surrealistic feeling of being semi-suspended. Off the floor through the air, in her aunt’s good hands, she felt she didn’t know her own house. Where she was born and raised these last twenty-five years, running along this passageway. The yard had transformed too. The house looked unrecognisable through this prism of a heavy makeover. Just as the bride was all dolled up herself.
    There she was. Her aunts had brought the bride to the dias. Prema lifted her saree a tad bit at her feet. She climbed the two low steps and sat down gently next to the groom. Mila blinked her downcast eyes. The groom too exuded unfamiliar newness. He smelled fresh, perfumed and bathed. She could smell his understated cologne, as he could smell hers. But they hadn’t looked at each other even once. A wedding ritual ensued.
    By now other people, Milas’s friends, her cousins had all clambered the small dias. They kneeled behind the bridal couple to watch the ritual. A flimsy, transparent red scarf was laid over the couple’s heads. An assortment of two traditional sweets, Firni, and Zarda, were placed in small silver spooned bowls on a tray before the wedded couple. Lutfun performed the ritual. She took Mila’s hand and planted a dollop of rice pudding, or the Firni in the middle of her palm. She stretched Mila’s hand across towards the groom’s mouth. He swiped it with the tongue. The groom now returned the courtesy to Mila, whom Prema assisted.
    Irfaan stole a sly look at Mila. He saw her downcast eyes covered in shaded layers. A careless lip touch on Irfaan’s soiled palm marked a red lipstick, as Mila licked her share of sweets, off his palm. This faded red, bore testament of a secret kiss in full public view; in the moment, he wished the stain had never erased.
    Mila’s jovial friends and cousins noted this and found an excuse to be naughty. Prema unveiled Mila’s face, and lifted it by the chin for everyone to see the new bride. Another long mirror was placed before the newly wed for their private eyes only. Irfaan gazed at her grinning unabashedly through the mirror. His sisters-in-law chirped behind him, ‘What did you see? Tell us, tell us.’ He answered gleefully, ‘a full moon.’ Then there was more joyous clamour. Mila lowered her head further, but Irfaan noticed a coy smile.
    After about a couple of hours, the ritual was nearly over. The last ritual was the exchange of the garlands. The couple now stood up on the dias, as the guests did too on the grounds. Irfaan couldn’t resist it any more. He reached out for Mila’s hand from under her silk veil and pressed it. Mila didn’t press it back. Something went awry within her. This new life, in a new house, all this experience, leaving The House of Chowdhury, her mother, Lutfun and Prema, Grandma, and her uncles, the orchard, her bedroom, even the green window, the roof garden beckoned her. Everything beckoned her —— memories, one too many. Where she grew up, her entire life suddenly stopped breathing. She was having difficulty breathing. Oh! Where was her breath, now? She should respond to those signals by pressing Irfaan’s hand back, or deal with his wrath later. Well, that was another story.
    Irfaan continued to signal. Her hands clasped in his; they walked towards the car. Her eyes downcast; in the grip of this strangeness, numbed her. Then suddenly, two strong arms held her. They slammed her against a man’s chest. No less, but her own father. He began to cry. She cried; her father cried; a drop from pure delight to pure grief. There they were, father and daughter, clung together as though someone had died. There were no deaths. But there was. She was leaving them now to become someone’s wife, a new becoming, a newness tore her in the gut, as though as of this moment her past had died.
    Some moments passed. Prema now came forward and extricated Mila from her father. She held her from behind, and walked her towards the bridal car. Mila sniffled, and didn’t stop to see the expensive floral decoration over the car. A chauffeur opened the door of the passenger seat in the back of the car. Mrs. Khan, her new mother-in-law entered first, followed by Mila and then Irfaan. Irfaan’s father took the front seat next to the driver —— the car’s slow drive through a milling crowd; a peacock danced in the rain.

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