Chapter 10: The Marriage

She didn’t say ‘yes’, she said ‘okay’. It wasn’t a moment of jubilation – it was a moment of why-not-I’m-not-getting-any-younger.
On the bright side, though, I’m getting married to a girl who I have obsessed about for a year. That definitely counts for something.
Everything was finally supposed to come together now. I was going to marry Anita. I was going to have a better job and a way to provide for the both of us. I was going to be included in at least one legitimate society now that I had been baptised. And I had a few friends who didn’t mind my company either.
Things were coming together so quickly that I had to turn to my uncle to console me.
“Don’t worry Azad,” Deepu Chachu said, “Everything will turn out okay.”
I shrugged his arm off my shoulder. “That’s the problem – everything will be just okay. I’m getting married, Chachu. Marriage isn’t supposed to be ‘okay’. Marriage is supposed to be hooray and yahoo. What the heck is ‘okay’?”
Typical me. Even after I have achieved something I had desired so fervently, I have made room for depression in my achievement. This was just like the time I had finally mustered up the courage to confront Papa after Munchy’s death, and instead of celebrating my bravery of standing up to him, I tortured myself for days in guilt that I had raised my voice against my father.
Anita had finally settled for me. Her orthodoxy will be more than enough to ensure that she was never going to leave me. I had spent a year digging for this bag of treasure and now that I had found it, it was too heavy for my shoulders. And it was going to hang on my shoulders forever.
“Don’t worry Azad, it’s natural to be nervous,” Deepu Chachu’s words were clearly patronizing yet still effectively comforting, “Why, even I was scared before I married your Chachi. And you saw how happy we were before she…”
Deepu Chachu turned silent and looked away.
No way – this was my moment of quasi-depression “But this will be it, Chachu,” I brought him back to me, “The end-all decision of my life. Is this how it was meant to be for me? I’m now closing up all the other paths in life and going down just one Anita-directed gullie.”
Deepu Chachu sighed and shook his head in the manner he always did before excavating the deepest thoughts of his mind. I knew him well enough to predict what he was going to say before he said it.
“It was meant to be, Azad,” he said, “Anita was written in your fate.”
Fate. Due to some inexplicable retarded reason, people in our society have always found it consoling to have fate decide their destiny. All my life, I had grown up watching people be utterly comfortable with not having the free will to make any choices, instead blaming everything on their kismet.
So when a school-girl gets top marks in her board exams, God must have always planned for her to do so, and regardless of her study schedules, she would’ve still ended up as number one. She and the rest of her family happily take any credit away from themselves and praise her stars instead of praising the flickering yellow bulb under which she studied all those nights and the cups of coffee that kept her awake.
And with fate being a double-edged sword, it ends up with all the blame too. So if Mr. X gambles away his month’s earnings on a game of cards, he holds his luck responsible instead of accepting that he was a reckless fool.
The same could be said about me, except that I seem to have gambled away my whole life.
This ‘fatality’ has been this city’s weakness, Achilles’ heal, kryptonite… The truest Banarasi walks fearlessly through life, blissfully believing that he has no control over anything. This is the city of Shiv, and for as long as Shiv is here to take care of it, Banaras is safe. A Banarasi is optimistic that, no matter what, there is a plan and a reason for every thing that ever takes place.
But Deepu Chachu was not a man of God. Instead, he had blind faith in science and logic, shedding away the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke for those of Hawking, Penrose, and Dawkins. He scrimmaged through his book-shelves and finally landed his hands on one of his holy scriptures.
“It is just how it was determined, Azad,” Chachu put on the pair of glasses that were supported by a chord around his neck, “It is not just a matter of the future being fixed by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.”
He took his glasses off again and looked at me. “So, you see?”
I laughed. “No, of course I don’t, Chachu. Where did you steal that from?”
“I quoted that from Roger Pensore,” He said, “It’s one of my favourite passages – you have to realize that when the universe was first created, something happened at the Big Bang, and every event that has ever happened in space and time has since been determined by that first event. From the instant the universe came into being, it was decided that man would invent the wheel, that terrorists would attack the World Trade Centre in September, and that you will marry Anita in a few days.”
I rubbed my hair and bobbed gently on my chair, “Heavy stuff, Chachu. So my only way out is moving out to a different universe, right?”
He smiled, “Yes, maybe in that one you will realize and cherish what a wonderful woman Anita is.”
“So what happens next?” I asked him, “Where does St. Penrose think I will go from here. Will Anita and I be happy forever? Will we have a cricket team full of children? Or will I wake up slightly unhinged one morning and decide to slit her throat?”

Before potentially slitting my fiancé’s throat, I was supposed to marry her first. Three days later, that is exactly what I found myself doing.
All the eyes were on her. The specialness of a wedding ceremony is supposed to be shared equally between the bride and groom – both have a 50 percent stake in the event in the present and the opportunities in the future. But today, it felt like I wasn’t even a part of this. Anita was the centre of attention and I looked on at my own marriage as if watching a documentary on Indian Church weddings.
The guests on her side were much larger in number than mine. Bubbles stood next to her, carrying the share of three bridesmaids by her lone wide body. I stood alone and played my own Best Man.
Deepu Chachu was amongst the few seated on the benches on my side, and he genuinely looked happy. Rakesh and Shubham sat at the back with their eyes gleaming like they were watching a stand-up comedian. A few other cousins and friends of Deepu Chachu were there, and so was Arora.
I hadn’t informed any of my older friends about the marriage – I can admit that I was too embarrassed to do that – although it would have been nice if they had somehow found their way there anyways. I did send an invitation card to Kalpana in Mumbai, but she obviously didn’t show up.
“Do you, Anita Neoline Lawrence, take this man as your lawfully wedded husband?” the priest propounded her as I stared down on the ground and all around. He asked many more things which I didn’t pay any particular attention to.
“Okay,” she sighed when he finally finished.
The priest hesitated. “Okay?”
“I mean, Yes, sure, I do.”
How did I ever get here? I’m getting married! And I’m also a Christian! Papa was probably looking up from hell and having a hearty laugh about this. “What kind of Christian name is Azad, anyways?” he would say, “You’re better off still being called Pinky!”
The sanctity of the church was overbearing. The dozens of candles that lay around the alter area were making me sweat and the colourful mosaics of Jesus and his compatriots stared down at me in contempt. The priest’s pure white robes made me feel dirty and the crowd’s eyes watching our every move made me dizzy.
This is the same place I first met her – I was a drunken tatterdemalion then, and I haven’t really done much better for myself the second time around.
Now I have to worry about her and the job. The staff had been disgruntled for the past few weeks anyways, and I was sure that Prabhu had been spreading false rumours about me. I had even slacked a little in overlooking the monthly accounts, and will probably have to get to that the moment this is over.
How did I ever get here? I retraced my steps. I could have stayed sitting when she was brought in her, looking all white and glowy and lovely. I could have taken another turn and gone down to the riverside instead. I could have not stalked her in stupid cupidity for six months.
But I did, and now I’m here shrieking at the opportunity of stalking her forever. As Deepu Chachu said, there was never another option for me. You are not free, Azad. Now, the chain of cause and effect will cause the priest to ask me the same questions he asked her and I will have no choice because of bloody history than to say ‘Yes, I do’. It was perhaps several billion years too late to ask the Big Bang to bang a little differently, so we all have to take the next best option and settle for the Anitas in our life.
“Do you, Azad Shanker, take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife?” the priest asked, again followed by a short lecture of how much I’m supposed to love and protect her and what not.
“Yes,” I exhaled a sigh of relief when I was finally given a chance to speak, “I do.”
It was over. I could finally focus on BTV again instead of wasting time meticulously worrying about invitation cards and wedding rings. The channel was still struggling to make profits, and the over-preparation time spent for just this one day had distracted me from figuring out a plan for success.
But now it was over. Anita will finally stop annoying me about how this was supposed to be the biggest and most perfect day of her life. Well, now it is done and dusted and there was nothing else I can do to make the marriage process itself any better.
The priest said some other things that went over my head, and soon declared us married and made us sign a large register. There was no kissing.

You know what is really funny? I think I had begun to obsess more about my work than about my fiancé/wife, a fact especially ironic since I had started working on BTV just to impress Anita in the first place.
It wasn’t all gloomy though. By the time the reception, the dinner, and the drinks rolled along, I was feeling fairly satisfied about the proceedings. After all, I had succeeded in marrying a good looking, well educated, conservative girl, straight out of the five-star section of the weekly matrimonial. Not many men can claim to that.
“Mr. and Mrs. Shanker!” Rakesh ran up to greet the two of us, “Sala, you’re finally done for, eh?”
Anita quietly stepped back, probably revolted by the smell of pungent booze from his breath. “I’m going to get some food, Azad,” she said, “Would you like something?”
“Sure, sure,” I smiled congenially between her and Rakesh, “I’ll just share off your plate.”
“Azad Shanker sharing food?” Rakesh gawked as she left – the high pitch drunkenness in his voice reminded me of the infinite dinner table humiliations that Papa made me go through whenever he caught me reaching for another helping of Muttar Paneer. “Things are really going to change around here, aren’t they?” Rakesh laughed.
Shubham’s voice called out from afar, “Hey, hey, Azad,” he crept from behind, “How does it feel to finally be married my friend?”
“How do you think he feels, yaar?” Rakesh interjected, “The man is fucking scared!”
“Hey, Rakesh, let’s go have a drink yaar,” Shubham nudged him before I could respond to either of them, “Azad do you want one?”
“Oh, no no, I’m fine, thanks, Shubham.”
They looked at each other and smiled. “See, this is what happens when you get married,” Rakesh giggled, “You have to change your ways to suit your wife, eh?”
They laughed some more and then trotted away towards the bar. I was in no mood today to prove to them that marriage wasn’t going to change me. But as Anita came back with a plate full of food – none of which was paneer – I decided that I would have to assert myself pretty soon.
Anita had to know that I wasn’t going to quit seeing my friends now that I’d married her, and my friends had to believe that I was still the same old, free, Azad.

The apartment at Mehmoorganj had been ready a month ago, but Deepu Chachu said that it would only be appropriate if I waited until after the marriage to cut the red ribbon.
With the first ever conversation we had in that house, Anita cut straight into my suppressed consciousness.
“Tell me about your parents,” she said.
I laughed, like I always did whenever Papa and Mummy were brought up. “Some other time, Princess,” I stroked her hair.
“No, no, tell me now,” she pleaded, “Why don’t you ever talk about your father?”
I brushed the back of my hand against her soft, fair cheek, “Because I hate him.”
She was clearly taken aback and shifted a step away from me. “And your mother?”
I briefly rummaged through my memory. “Mummy brought me a dog once, whom I loved.”
Anita grew pleasantly quiet. In the later years of our marriage, I finally did reveal more titbits about my childhood, but none of the horrific stuff.
“Well, let’s set up this place, shall we,” she looked around at the furniture-deprived large white rooms of the house, “This is the beginning of our new life, Azzu...”
Later that evening I did get to kiss her. And the more I did, the more I realized that marrying the next best thing to Kalpana was not that bad of an idea after all.

The second time that I ever had sex in my life wasn’t on the day of my wedding, because according to Anita, we were too tired that day.
The second time that I had sex in my life was a day later, in the afternoon. The third time was the same evening, and the fourth time later that night.
Fifth, sixth, and seventh happened over the course of the following week, but there was a long break before eighth.
After that, Anita was really stingy with ninth and tenth, and then I stopped counting because it barely happened anymore.
Now that I was married, and was probably going to remain so forever, I tried to look at the positives. I now had a sure-fire tonic of self-esteem every time I was to feel a little down on myself. I was able to remind myself forevermore that no matter how worthless the world may make me feel, there was at least one person who had decided to spend their life with me. If this is what they call marital bliss, then I guess I’m happy now.