‘Sorry, madam. I am sorry. We don’t have to do this dance.’
It wasn’t the dance. It was the thoughts that danced in my head. What on earth was I supposed
to do?
‘Madam, I change song? Romantic song? Aashiqui 2? “Tum hi ho”? Just walk around looking
sad. Easy. Try?’
I shook my head. My cousins ran up to the stage and surrounded me.
‘What happened, didi?’ Sweety said.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I am so useless. I can’t get these stupid steps.’
‘Didi, I can be the centre girl,’ Sweety said.
‘How can you be the centre girl? Are you the bride or what? Idiot,’ Pinky, another second
cousin of mine, said.
My mother came up to us.
‘What is happening?’ she said to me.
I stood up. I gave her a tight hug. I cried again. She patted my back.
‘Calm down, my bitiya. Every girl has to leave her parents’ home one day.’
Sure, that’s what she thought this was. I am crying at the thought of leaving home. Never
mind I have not lived at home for years anyway.
‘Give her a break. She will do it in a few hours,’ my mother said.
‘But, madam, sangeet is this evening,’ Mickey said in a concerned voice.
‘She will do it later,’ my mother said in her trademark stern, no-more-negotiation voice.
I came back to my room with my mother.
‘Rest, I am sitting here,’ my mother said.
I lay down in bed. My mother opened a newspaper and sat next to me.
‘Mom,’ I said.
‘Close your eyes. Try to sleep.’
‘Mom, I want to talk to you about something important,’ I said.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Oh, did Aditi call the beauty parlour? Their staff should have come.
Anyway, what?’
I looked at her face. Where do I even begin with her?
‘Nothing, mom, it’s personal and I don’t know if I should.. .’
‘It doesn’t hurt so much,’ she said.
‘What?’ I said, surprised.
‘Sex. I know you must be tense. It doesn’t hurt so much.’
‘Really, mom?’ I said, my sarcasm not evident to her.
‘Yeah. See, I am not like those backward mothers who can’t talk frank with daughter. I talk
frank. That’s what you wanted to say, right?’
‘Yeah, pretty much,’ I said.
‘Good. Rest. And do chittiyan kalaiyan only. No sad tragic songs at my daughter’s sangeet.’
Suraj and his team of decorators outdid themselves on sangeet night. Bollywood posters from movies
of every decade adorned the walls. Streamers made from fresh white lilies and deep-red roses filled