The Heart Is a Shifting Sea: Love and Marriage in Mumbai

  The couple was sent out alone. As Parvati drove them over to the local Café Coffee Day, Ashok talked on and on about Mumbai. She saw that he rambled the same way his father did. “Bombay is a place you’re going to fall in love with. It is very open, welcoming of people from all over,” he said. “Bombay has been very nice to me. People from Bombay are very nice. It’s more cosmopolitan than Trivandrum. Also you can make friends easily.”

  When is he going to stop talking? thought Parvati.

  When is she going to talk? Ashok thought, and babbled on.

  As they got out of the car, Parvati realized Ashok must have thought she was a small-town girl, with a small-town mind-set, who had never lived in a city before. She cut in, “Ashok, I was in Bangalore for almost two years. I like to be independent. Any place can be a strange land. If we are a good match, then it will be okay.”

  “Okay,” he said, and his phone rang. It was his father. “Is everything going WELL, Ashok?”

  “We just got here,” Ashok said. “We haven’t even had a sip of coffee. Don’t put a gun to my head.”

  “You’ve known each other for TWO MONTHS. You’ve CHATTED. WHY are you HESITATING?”

  Ashok hung up the phone.

  His father called back. “WHEN are you GOING to come BACK?”

  “APPA. We’ll start home in another ten minutes.”

  It seemed unfair that his father was acting like this. After all, his father had married his mother only after they had dated for eight long years. They met when she was just fifteen. Both had been smitten. But her parents had not approved and had promised to disown her if she went through with the marriage. And so Ashok’s parents had dated, and deliberated, and dated some more. When at last they married, his mother’s parents had kept their promise. They did not come to the wedding and never spoke to their daughter again. They even cut her out of their will. But Ashok’s mother and father had had almost a decade to think about it and did not regret their choice. Eight years, Ashok thought. And now he wanted his son to agree to a girl after just thirty minutes.

  “We need one more day,” they told the assembled family.

  Ashok’s father lost his temper. He began to shout at Ashok, who told him, firmly, “Dad, we’ll tell our position tomorrow.”

  “WHY do you need one more DAY, you’ve been TALKING, now you’ve MET her, this is not how you should ACT, not when we’ve come ALL the WAY from Thrissur.”

  Everyone stared at Ashok’s father.

  Am I saying yes to the wrong guy? thought Parvati. She thought of Joseph, and how much more serious he was than Ashok. She considered how Ashok would behave more like his father as he aged. But then she remembered the line on Ashok’s profile about giving his partner a free hand and expecting the same from her. She decided she had to trust him.

  Ashok and Parvati were told to go upstairs and decide right then, not tomorrow.

  “This isn’t romantic, not with the way my dad is acting,” Ashok said, as they stood facing each other, each on one side of a doorframe.

  “It’s okay,” Parvati said. “That’s how parents are.”

  “So we’ve met, and I feel this is going to be a positive thing,” Ashok said, looking Parvati in the eye. Somehow he was certain she’d say yes. “So it’s a yes from our side.”

  Parvati looked back at him. Earlier that day, they had hugged, and she had noticed that Ashok did not smell at all like Joseph. In that moment, she knew she would never love like she had loved Joseph again. Life with Ashok would be wholly different. But this was the life she’d been offered. And maybe, someday, she could also love him.

  “It’s a yes for me too,” she said, keeping her voice even. “I like you. And I feel like we’ll be happy together.”

  They walked down the stairs together and Ashok told the assembled family, “We’ve made a decision. It’s a yes from both of us.”

  They sat down to a proper South Indian meal: rice and dal and sambar, to celebrate the union of two Tamil Brahmin families. Someone asked them to stand next to each other, and all the relatives nodded and clicked their mouths in approval: “Haa, yeah, he’s a little bit taller.”

  * * *

  UCA, would you want to visit Mumbai before the wedding?

  In May, Parvati visited Mumbai for an interview at IIT Bombay, where she could get a PhD. The city was not like Ashok described it. Not outside the airport anyway, where a sea of taxi drivers stood chewing paan and speaking in rough Hindi. They reminded Parvati of every villain she’d seen in the Bollywood films.

  But then she spotted Ashok in the crowd, grinning as he held his long bansuri over his shoulder. He looked happy here, so maybe she could be too.

  On the first day of the trip, which Parvati had made with her father, she noticed how skinny Ashok was. Perhaps it was that everything was bigger here: the new residential skyscrapers that towered over the city, the huge, multilane freeways and expressways that cut across town, and the colossal cable-stayed bridge that linked the suburbs to the downtown—its cables the shape of an upside-down V in the sky. The bridge’s wires could span the circumference of the Earth; this was exactly how vast the city felt. He is looking so puny, and I so heavy, she thought. Should I reduce or ask him to fill up?

  To Ashok, Parvati hadn’t seemed heavy down south, where all the Tamil girls had a belly. She was not at all large, just of average build. But in Mumbai she somehow seemed plump compared to the thin, modish city girls—girls who wore lipstick and heels, straightened their hair, and went out to clubs in tiny tops and tight jeans. He worried that they would not look good in photos together and told himself he should start lifting weights.

  On the second day, when the sun was high in the sky, Parvati took Ashok’s hand as they were crossing the road, just to see what it felt like. Parvati’s father was walking ahead of them, and Ashok was surprised. For a moment, Parvati brought Ashok’s hand up close to her chest. When her father turned back to them, they hurriedly detached.

  On the third day, Parvati had her interview at IIT Bombay. She and her father were staying at a guesthouse on the campus. It was her father’s plan for her to get a PhD in engineering there. PhDs were cheaper in India than abroad, and it would be the perfect way to anchor her in Mumbai. Parvati had not had a say. Parvati’s father had come around to the value of women working, but on his terms. If she got in, she would begin attending in the fall, just after she and Ashok were married. Now, as they waited for her interview, Parvati, her father, and Ashok sat talking over coffee on IIT Bombay’s campus, which looked a lot like IIT Chennai, with the same banyan trees, wide promenades, and scatter of school buildings.

  “Hey, Ashok, why don’t you have a car?” Parvati asked. It was a casual question, perhaps just to make conversation, but Ashok felt ashamed. There was no reason he shouldn’t have one; the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, had come out in India that year. And he knew Parvati had grown up with a car at home, plus two scooters. He wished Parvati’s father wasn’t sitting there, waiting for his answer. “You don’t really need a car in Mumbai,” Ashok began. “There are trains, buses, rickshaws—”

  “But why can’t you drive?” she pressed. This is a real weakness in me, Ashok thought. He knew what a car meant: status, privilege, freedom. He didn’t make enough money to afford one. But he promised himself he’d buy her one someday.

  The engagement came soon after, in a big hall in Trivandrum, where Ashok and Parvati sat on the floor with a mountain of sticky-sweet laddoos between them. They were surrounded by piles of fruits, some of them expensive and out of season: apples, grapes, even tender plums. Parvati wore an eighteen-yard blue sari, and Ashok had on an expensive blue dress shirt. They both wore garlands of white carnations around their necks. As Ashok grinned and talked with ease to the party guests, Parvati watched him, not knowing how to feel. At the end of the ceremony she sang a Carnatic song about Lord Vishnu, protector and preserver. Ashok had already performed in his confident but unpracticed way the “Raag Desh,” a
romantic nighttime song. He had wanted to accompany Parvati with his flute, but it had been too hard to pull off. Parvati thought the songs had come out better separately.

  That night, after the ceremony, Ashok tried to take Parvati’s hand as they walked out from the engagement hall. “This is Trivandrum. This is not Bombay,” Parvati said, and shook him off. “If you hold my hand at this time of night, people will come and bash you for taking advantage of a girl.” “But what is wrong? We’re engaged,” said Ashok. “Not here, Ashok,” she said. She had been in Trivandrum long enough to know. “And if they see me smiling, then it means I’m a different kind of girl.” Frustrated at her prudishness, Ashok dropped her hand.

  What if this doesn’t go well? What if we decide to call it off because of some fight? thought Ashok. There was still time before the wedding. Time for everything to go wrong.

  In the months between the engagement and marriage, Ashok’s thoughts ran. He thought of the last engagement, and of Nada’s last-minute call. Parvati could phone anytime now and say she was still in love with Joseph. She could say that if she and Ashok got married they might end up fighting and get divorced. Or she might not get into IIT Bombay, and then she’d have no good reason to come. She would call off the wedding, his father’s name would be beyond repair, and he would never marry.

  But Parvati was accepted to IIT Bombay and moved in July to the city, where she planned to stay in a campus hostel until their wedding day. She arrived with her parents and her baggage at Kurla, one of Mumbai’s most chaotic train stations. Ashok had booked them a taxi from the station, hoping to impress her father. As her parents unloaded her bags, Parvati took note of the scene before her. The station was filled with trash, stray dogs, and limbless beggars. The signs had dried paan spit on them. When a train arrived, men and women hurled their bodies onto it—pushing, shoving, and shouting obscenities at one another. In the rush to get on, many people were left behind on the crowded platform. Some who made it on hung off the side of the train cars or sat on top, risking electrocution.

  A nearby overpass was also under construction, adding to the chaos and noise. But Parvati was thrilled. She could not wait to leave sleepy Trivandrum behind. As she got down from the train, she placed her hand into Ashok’s, who squeezed it as a welcome to the city.

  After Parvati’s parents left to go back to Trivandrum, before the wedding, it began to monsoon in Mumbai. It always monsooned in the city in July, but this year the rain was heavier, harder. Meteorologists blamed it on El Niño or a subtropical westerly jet. Parvati had seen enough Bollywood films to know that the monsoon in Mumbai led to romance: shared umbrellas, wet saris, the dreamy way the trees and seashore glistened in the rain. When Ashok came to see her at her hostel, he found her bags packed for an overnight stay.

  “Oh,” he said, looking up at her, surprised. “I wanted to ask you, but I was not sure if you would want to come.”

  “You’re the only reason I came to Bombay,” she said. “So I just want to be with you, and get to know you.”

  When they left the hostel it was still pouring, the kind of rain that covered everything in mud. The kind that splattered kurtas and ruined chappals and exasperated the city’s maids, who clucked at all the work they had to do. The rain soaked through Parvati’s jeans to her skin, but she did not mind.

  Ashok’s apartment, in a busy eastern suburb, was neat and clean and compact. Parvati liked him better for it. She imagined them living together in just a bare single room and found herself charmed by the thought. She decided she wanted to try kissing him inside the cozy apartment as the rain beat hard against the window. But then she remembered when he’d surprised her with a kiss in Trivandrum, and how his breath had been awful. She’d told him, prudishly, “You have to brush your teeth twice.” “Do you think couples sharing a toothbrush is romantic?” he had joked back, trying to save the moment. “No,” she’d said, unsmiling. “It’s unhygienic.”

  Now, inside his apartment, Parvati said, “I’ll kiss you only if you brush your teeth.” He did, and they kissed, and it was better. Afterward she used his toothbrush without shame, and even felt that he was right: it was romantic to share.

  “Hey, Ashok,” Parvati said. “Let’s take a shower together.” Her jeans were soaked, and it was chilly being wet, but that was just an excuse.

  What will this be like? Ashok worried, as he had with the Gujarati girl as they danced in his living room.

  The shower was very small, and the two of them filled up the space. As the water ran, they hugged each other. Parvati was ready to go further. Forget the kanyadaan at the wedding; plenty of women were given away not as virgins. But Ashok seemed uncomfortable. He had not expected a girl from a conventional background to be so forward. He worried she was only acting this way for him. I don’t want to take advantage of her, he thought. And he didn’t want to do anything that could ruin their chances of making it to the marriage hall.

  His unsureness endeared him to Parvati. “You go,” she said, after he had finished washing. “I’ll take some more time.” Ashok kept Pears brand soap in the shower, the blue kind that smelled of mint extract. When Parvati smelled it afterward, she would always think of that night.

  After they got out, Ashok started making his bed on the floor, still thinking that he should not presume.

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Parvati, who got down on the floor to sleep beside him, and it was settled. They lay awake for a long time, talking and hugging, as the rain pounded down outside.

  For the next few weeks, Parvati came to stay with Ashok on the weekends. In August, just before their wedding day, Parvati bought Ashok a small red wooden car for his thirty-third birthday, shaped like a Rolls-Royce from the 1930s. She hoped it would show him that she didn’t mind that he didn’t have a car. Forget status and privilege. She also drew a homemade card. When she got to his apartment, she handed him the model car and card and said, “We’re not going to get a car, so let’s have this.” Afterward, she gave him a big hug. But Ashok didn’t say anything, not even thank you.

  I thought he would think it was romantic, Parvati thought, but it was clear he didn’t. She felt stupid about the gift, the card, all of it. She realized Ashok was not the kind of guy who would quote her scenes from movies like Up, the way Joseph had. He was not the kind of husband who would be romantic.

  * * *

  On the day of the wedding, Parvati woke up annoyed. The beautician began her work at 3 a.m. sharp, because the first ceremony was to begin at 5:30 a.m.—the early time chosen by an astrologer. Parvati fidgeted as she was caked with makeup, draped in gold jewelry, and wrapped in a nine-yard red and gold sari her mother had chosen. She hated wearing the color gold, which felt ostentatious and gaudy. I feel like a clown, she thought.

  When the ceremony began, Parvati was kept to the back at first, while Ashok looked out at the crowd. Parvati came from a prominent family, so some three thousand people had shown up. Ashok did not know most of them. Her family came out in droves, he thought, and was upset that he did not have more guests there.

  The wedding officially began with a pooja, followed by the custom of the bachelor pretending to leave for Varanasi, saying he did not want to get married and instead would become a wandering ascetic. Ashok, bare-chested except for his yajnopavita, or sacred thread, and wearing a dhoti, acted the part, holding his stick, begging bowl, and copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a book that discussed the self, nature, and God. “I don’t want to get married,” Ashok said, though his voice was halfhearted. Parvati’s father, also bare-chested, his sacred thread also crossing his chest, replied with more vigor: “No, there’s a girl waiting for you. Don’t give up everything. Just take a look at my girl, and you’ll change your mind.”

  Ashok did, and told the crowd that he had decided to get married after all. He and Parvati exchanged garlands of roses, marigolds, and jasmine. Parvati’s face shone as she smiled, and Ashok saw how beautiful she was when she was happy. There were white carnations in
her hair. She was weighed down with bloodred bangles and gold jewelry. As Ashok smiled back at her, he decided he didn’t care that she had more guests there. He was proud that his extended family—who had witnessed his failed engagement to Nada—was here to see him make it to the marriage hall. Now that they had exchanged garlands, he and Parvati were said to be two souls in one body.

  The wedding lasted six hours and was filled with tradition and ceremony. They performed one ritual in which Ashok bent down to touch Parvati’s feet in respect, which was the tradition Parvati liked best. They also did the kanyadaan, in which Parvati’s father symbolically gave away his virgin daughter. At last came the most auspicious time, when they were required to physically tie the knot—three knots, in fact—on a gold necklace with three threads, for which Ashok’s mother had bought a big jewel. As Parvati sat on her father’s lap for the tying, he smiled out at the crowd, looking confident and happy. His hands rested on Parvati’s shoulders. Just for a moment, Parvati looked back and gave him a knowing sidelong glance—a look that was captured by the photographer. It was an expression that said that although he had won, she had won too, because, like many women now, she was marrying a man he didn’t quite approve of.

  Then Parvati looked forward again and lowered her head as was expected. Soon, a priest began chanting mantras in Sanskrit. A nadaswaram played, its sound as celebratory and loud as a trumpet but reedier. It was an instrument of good fortune, and together with the mantras it built the emotion in the room. As the music swelled, Parvati closed her eyes. As Ashok tied the knot, she could feel him standing close beside her. For once, I’m not going to be lonely anymore, she thought, and hoped this would be true. It’s going to be the two of us, through thick and thin.

  Their honeymoon, in Coorg, was to be a trip of firsts: first time to the land of coffee plantations, first vacation together, and—they both hoped—first time they’d have sex.

  It was the year Ashok turned thirty-three and Parvati twenty-six. It was the year India launched its first mission to Mars, whose position in either of their star charts could have made them unmarriageable. And it was the year astrologers predicted vulgarity and Western influence would spread like a virus, infecting Indian youth, and a leading politician proclaimed that women who drank liquor and wore jeans were bad for Indian culture. Parvati packed her favorite blue jeans for the trip, and on their first night in Coorg drank wine for the first time ever. As they ate a meal in a treehouse restaurant, she grew tipsy, and then they kissed as if they were not in India but some Western country far away.