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A few weeks later a lesion appeared on her stomach, making it easier for her nails to get to the troubled spot.

As her hands roamed across her body, scratching and drawing blood, word spread through the community: only daughter of the Banwari Lal Cloth Shop is ready to marry, they want a boy, now, now.

But how to attract proposals from rich, decent families, with a mangli horoscope that decrees the death of a husband, or at the very best unhappiness? In return for a large dowry, beauty, and trade connections, pundits from both sides would agree that just as there is nothing without a problem, there is nothing without a solution.

Day and night the issue was canvassed through the extended family, allowing everybody an opportunity to feel responsible for the girl’s future.

The grapevine groaned under the weight of all this communication.

After three years of thinking that Suresh was her future, Nisha had to adjust to the idea of another man in his place. A better man, according to her parents. Would he be able to gauge the extent to which she had been touched?

It would reconcile her much to her future if she could open her heart to him, but how to trust someone she didn’t know? It would go against her, everything around her indicated it would. Far better to keep this thing hidden.

Alternatively, suppose she were to tell her parents she didn’t want to get married? There were such people in the world. But where? Nobody in her social circle, simply nobody, had not married. They were without children perhaps, widowed perhaps, but not married? Her memory could only dredge up a few teachers in her college, objects of pity, sympathy, and secret speculation.

Now a prisoner in her home, she played the part of the king in chess. She needed to be protected, as without her there could be no game. The moves concerning her were carefully planned, but she herself was powerless, quiescent, mute, and waiting.

The day came when Vijay’s luck upstairs translated into Nisha’s luck downstairs. Pyare Lal brought the news that he had found a boy from Rekha’s family. Should the meeting go off well, their combined pundits could work something out about the mangli aspect.

Sona cracked her knuckles around Nisha’s head. ‘I knew you could not look like Suriya for nothing.’

Next evening. Rupa has been called for the event. Mother and aunt hover around the girl. Thick gold bangles are put on each wrist, a heavy gold necklace adorns her neck. A Benarsi silk, with gold threadwork on the border and palla, is laid out for her to wear.

‘I’ll die in it,’ protested Nisha, as her hidden lesions prickle in alarm.

‘Once you get married you can feel hot and cold as you like,’ scolded Sona.

‘It’s just for a while,’ reassured Rupa.

‘Should we put on a little foundation?’ Sona worried. ‘There are two pimples on her face. Never gets them, but today of all days …’

‘Let it be. They might think that she is not naturally fair,’ Rupa replied.

‘People do anything to look fair,’ observed Sona. ‘It is not right.’

‘A face like a champa flower,’ said Rupa, tilting Nisha’s chin up.

Nisha jerked her head away. She felt stiff and awkward, she hoped the boy would like her, so she could be over and done with the whole thing. Life would be easier and her family would be happy.

Was her appearance enough to create the desire that was going to accomplish this? This stiff, gold-covered figure, red lipstick, step-cut hair, pale face, five foot three inches tall, would this overcome the bad stars prevalent at her birth and force the man who was coming to escort her into marriage?

He was hardly a man, more a boy, thin, brown, shy, small-moustached, with a tendency to twitch. She was seated on a sofa, the boy in front of her, the mother next to her.

‘What have you been studying, beti?’ started the mother.

‘I’ve just finished my BA,’ Nisha said to the floor.

‘English Honours,’ added Sona.

‘Which college?’ continued the voice.

Rupa, standing behind her, gave her a small poke. Nisha raised her head a few millimetres. ‘DBC.’

‘Good college, very good college,’ intoned the mother. ‘Not one of these co-ed places.’

Silence fell.

Rupa sighed into the vacuum. ‘Arre, it’s so hard to find good girls these days. They should be educated, yet homely. Our Nisha is both. Throughout a position holder (her niece’s future demanded gilding the lily) and still so simple.’

The woman looked enquiringly at the speaker, and Sona said, ‘Nisha’s real aunt, my real sister.’

The woman nodded and turned her attention back to Nisha.

‘What do you like doing at home, beti?’ she asked.

Nisha glanced sideways and saw his hand drumming against the chair, the foot in its white-toed chappal wagging like a machine. Her aunt did some more poking and prodding from the back.

Cooking was the right answer, but Nisha in a trance refused to give it. Her attention was taken by those movements: hand, foot, hand, foot, shake, shake. Rupa gave her niece a harder nudge. This time, in an exaggerated reaction, the plate Nisha was holding fell to the floor. The almond barfi and salted cashews lay scattered amongst the broken china. It was an inauspicious sign.

The woman laughed. ‘These things happen,’ she said soothingly. ‘When one is nervous the fingers are like butter.’

‘Would the young people like to go to the veranda and talk?’ asked Sona’s mother. Nisha had agreed this invitation could be issued.

The boy blushed, drummed, shook, and looked away. There was no need, said his mother, they were a traditional family, the son listened to his elders.

That was a positive sign, they declared after the visit was over. With a girl as beautiful as their Nisha, affection was guaranteed with just a glance. After the dowry and marriage date were finalised, the pundits would be consulted on ways to convert the inauspicious into the auspicious. They were ready to give as advised, to this temple, to that charity, to these Brahmins, to those cows, while during the ceremony the girl would be married off to a tulsi plant before the actual union with the boy.

But the stars were not going to be cheated so easily. The Banwari Lals were told that the family was conducting its own research, they needed more time.

Anxiety levels began to rise. As the days passed Pyare Lal told his brother that he had acted in good faith in suggesting Nisha’s name to his daughter-in-law’s family, but he could not be held responsible for their decision.

Yashpal knew his brother seldom spoke without ulterior meaning. The feelers he would almost have certainly sent out to Rekha’s family had been met with rejection. But why? Could it be the girl (unlikely), the dowry (negotiable), the horoscope (resolvable)? He waited impatiently for his brother to clarify matters.

Two days later Pyare Lal said to Yashpal, they have heard rumours about the girl, and unfortunately her prettiness lent them credence. They were an old-fashioned family, they believed in old-fashioned values, and those values included absolute purity. He had assured them it was all nonsense, but they did not want to start a new life with a girl on whom there was even a shadow of a stain. What could he do, some people were suspicious just like that, this was Rekha’s mother’s cousin, the situation was too delicate for him to insist.

‘No, no, of course not,’ said Yashpal; where his daughter was concerned, there should be willingness, not coercion.

Knowing he would feel like that, continued Pyare Lal, he felt it best to let the matter drop. ‘Arre, with a girl like Nisha, will there be a shortage of offers? If they are being so picky, let them go to hell.’

Sona could not take the same view. ‘Are you satisfied, Madam?’ she demanded. ‘
This
is what your roaming around has done.
This
is the way people talk. Are you pleased with our humiliation?’

Yashpal intervened. ‘Pyare Lal felt they actually wanted more dowry, but since it is Rekha’s family they can’t be open and are using this as an excuse.’

‘You will think good of everybody till the day I die,’ moaned Sona.

‘Leave it. If they don’t want Nisha, there are other parties,’ commanded Yashpal, while his daughter drearily thought that had they agreed to Suresh, they would have saved themselves many lakhs and much torture.

The hunting grounds expanded to include Meerut – Sona, Rupa, and Seema’s home town. Within a month a boy was found and a day fixed for the viewing. To compound his glory, he had no sisters, only one much younger brother. The dowry was negotiable – we are only interested in the girl and an early marriage.

On a day in June when the loo blew and the windows of the new house were shut against the dust and glare, when the heat lay thick and heavy upon everything, the Meerut party eagerly made its way to Karol Bagh to view the girl. Father and son came, allowing the family to view in the heavy, overflowing bulk of the father the future of the portly son.

The suitor had plump cheeks, and a moustache that cut the fleshy pockets of his face in two and shadowed the full lips below. His brown leather chappals betrayed square, splayed feet. He wore dark-brown pants, a striped beige bush shirt with a Cross ballpoint protruding from the breast pocket. His face had a scattering of acne scars, his forehead and nose were shiny; but then in such heat all human surfaces were glazed with sweat.

Nisha glanced at him, and found his eyes did not catch and hold hers. She was a girl on whom gazes habitually glued themselves, and now this non-engagement settled at the back of her mind. Was he shy? Did he too have something to hide?

The response was immediate. The boy’s side were keen, so keen that they wished the wedding to take place at the earliest. The girl was homely, the family matched their own, the union would be very auspicious.

‘How do you like him?’ they asked Nisha, ready to cajole, such a good match, you will be treated like a jewel in their house. Look how flexible they are about dowry, unlike others who exploit a girl for the sake of money.

Nisha tentatively remarked that there was something not quite right with him. At this her mother collapsed. Who are you to decide what is right or no? You have only had low-class bhangis to compare him with. But Nisha had spent much time in the company of a man who was attracted to her, and though she was too inexperienced to go beyond a gut feeling, she persisted with each family member that there was something wrong, hoping that despite her blackened reputation and tarnished morals, she would be heard.

Yashpal paid attention. His daughter was too precious for him to throw away on someone she was uneasy about. The enthusiasm of the other side began to look suspicious. They started doing what they should have done earlier: get in touch with people in Meerut, look for the skeletons, look for the secrets, why the need for haste, look, look.

It took only a few days for the skeleton to emerge. The prospective groom had been discovered with a boy in a compromising position, a boy who worked in his shop. The parents were insisting on immediate marriage, and he had been forced to agree.

Yashpal declared this was a sign from the Devi, Nisha’s marriage could not be rushed. His daughter was not medicine for some man.

It was morning. Nisha had just finished frying the last puri for breakfast, and was sitting down to eat. As she scraped the remaining sweet mango chutney out of a bowl, her mother started lamenting.

‘Did I know what troubles would be caused by my children when I fasted ten years?’ she stated bitterly.

‘How have I caused you trouble?’ demanded Nisha, vocal with the triumph that the error in judgement had not been hers.

‘She can’t marry a eunuch,’ said Raju reasonably.

‘Why is it my fate that such a man come to our house?’

‘Must be thinking in Meerut, everybody knows, let us try Delhi.’

‘When a boy comes to see us, we take him in good faith. We are too innocent and trusting,’ grumbled Sona.

‘I don’t want to be seen by all these people, why can’t I do some course?’ complained Nisha daringly.

‘You will do the housework, Madam, just like Asha before you. All this time I have been treating you like a princess.’

‘Ever since I have finished my exams, I am doing that only,’ objected Nisha.

‘You talk back to your mother?’ shouted Sona. ‘For years I have spoiled you, now get out of my sight.’

Silently Nisha got up. She cleared the dishes from the table, put the china ones in the kitchen sink and the heavy utensils on the floor for the mai to wash, returned the pickles to the cupboard, the milk, dahi, and fruit to the fridge, put the melon seeds to soak, wiped the plastic sheet on the table with a damp cloth, then pushed all the chairs in.

As she started washing the china, breathing in the sharp, clean smell of Vim, the part-time mai came in, and squatted on the floor next to the tap under the sink. Bang, bang went the pots as she scoured them with ashes and a tattered piece of coconut husk.

‘How can anyone clean with only ashes? They blame me if it is not done properly,’ she muttered.

Nisha mutely sprinkled some Vim on to a small steel plate and gave it to her.

The mai was in a chatty mood. ‘What happened, Didi?’ she asked. ‘About that boy coming to see you?’ she persisted, against the girl’s reticence. ‘He must have liked you? If you are fair, things are easy,’ she sighed. She herself was black as coal.

‘Nothing came of it, Rajo,’ replied Nisha.

‘Why nothing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Dowry, must be,’ was the philosophical observation. ‘People today have become very greedy. With your looks and background there can be no other reason.’

Nisha let her think what she wanted. She washed the dishes quickly, occasionally scratching herself as she did so. The soap irritated her skin but in the kitchen there was no one to comment on her actions.

The women of the Banwari Lal family had never been advertised for. There was always someone belonging to someone in the extended family with the essential prerequisites of caste, community, and like-mindedness. But Nisha’s circumstances demanded a larger playing field. An ad was placed in the mangli section of
The Hindustan Times: