Sonali's Suitors by Bharati Rose (red white and royal blue hardcover .txt) 📖

Sonali’s Suitors
Chapter One

I walked into the dining room at 8:00 a.m to find my parents seated before the computer. Now there was something new. They usually had far too many things occupying their time to even eat a meal together. While at this very moment they were engaging in some activity together. What that activity was, I hadn’t a clue.

“Hey Ammi, what are you two up to?” I asked my mom curiously. She turned around to glance at me and immediately frowned.

“What?”I asked raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“How many times do I tell you Sona to wear less revealing clothes? It isn’t proper child.”

At this I gave her an irritated look. I had heard this far too many times for it to even warrant a response, but yet it still managed to get a reaction out of me.

“What is revealing about this mom?” I enquired through gritted teeth pointing at my clothes.

“Everything. You’re wearing a tank top and jeans that look as if someone threw white paint on them. Why pay good money for such junk? People are going to think I can’t even afford to buy you proper clothes. What will our relatives think of me?”

“FYI mom, the jeans are acid-washed for style and I happen to like tang tops. They’re pretty much hassle- free if you ask me. You should look at how some of my cousins dress before you start howling after me.”

“Sona, I’m only looking out for your best interests. You are at an age where you should be entering wedlock and I don’t want any man in our community to say that I haven’t raised my daughter well. I just want your happiness sweetheart. Try to understand.”

“It’s not that I don’t understand. I just don’t like people dictating even the most trivial things in my life. Don’t I have the freedom to dress as I please Ammi?”
“ Sona.....” she began to argue.

“Of course she does,” interrupted my father.

To my mother he said, “Paru, ease off the kid would you. Let her live her life. God knows whether she will be able to when they imprison her in the name of marriage,” he teased.

“What is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to say that being married to me is like serving a prison sentence?” she fumed. She also punched him playfully, though quite forcefully on his arm. Then regretting the action she gently rubbed the spot. Holding onto her hands, he laughed.

To me he said jokingly,” See what you’ve gotten me into.”

I couldn’t help but feel amused. My parents were a strange pair. My mother chided my father every day for some reason or another but she would always have a brightly lit face for each and every moment he walked into the room. In fact, she has told me once that she loved him more than she did me or herself. Once my father walked into the room with wet hair from the pouring rain outside and she scurried around the whole house trying to find a towel, all while chiding him for being irresponsible. She has this weird theory that if you get drenched in the rain, the probability of you getting sick the very next day increases tenfold. On the other hand you have my father. He has always been openly expressive about his love towards my mother and continues to be that way. He could tease her non-stop throughout the day, but couldn't possiibly bear to have her stay too far away from him.

In fact, although it is customary in our culture for pregnant women to go to their mother’s house for the birth of the child, my mom did not go when she was pregnant with me. The reason behind her not going was my father. He couldn’t stand to have her disappointed though, so he uprooted her entire family and brought them to his house for over two months despite the additional costs he would have to bare. So you can see the depth in their relationship. It makes you wonder if arranged marriages can really work, looking at their pair. Theirs was a purely arranged marriage. My mother only saw my father at the wedding altar. I didn’t know if I had her courage.

“Lost in the clouds again Sona,” chirped my father.

“Sorry Appa, just had something on my mind.”

“Well, the answer to your question before we got sidetracked is that we’ve contacted a matrimonial bureau to assist us in finding suitors for you.” he explained.

“What? Why all of a sudden?”

“It’s not all of a sudden Sona. Remember we discussed this with you the other day. You said ok, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d start today itself.”

“Sonu Kutty! We need to take out all the weeds before we can have a nice selection of possible grooms that will suit you. Besides, we’re just going to be looking at them one at a time. We’ve still got a long way to go before we can get you to tie the knot.”

I hated when my dad used my pet name, Sonu Kutty. It’s not that I wasn’t fond of the name, but he used it as a weapon to get me to agree to certain things he knew I was evasive towards, marriage being the top-most item on that list.

I didn’t know how I was going to tackle this one. I didn’t really want to get married and an arranged marriage did not seem the least bit pleasant except in my parent’s case. However, my maternal aunt and uncle are like a snake and a mongrel, always at each other’s throats. Theirs was an arranged marriage too. In fact my uncle is my dad’s older brother, and my aunt, my mom’s elder sister. So I’m not too sure that the result of the marriage will always be good.

My parents would definitely have put up a fight to get me hitched, but for now I think I’ll have to revert to using my grade 9 drama class lessons to ride the tide.

Publication Date: 11-05-2011

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