Instead, I placed my phone in Aditi didi’s handbag.
‘Your turn is coming soon,’ Aditi didi said.
‘Didi, I don’t feel like it,’ I said.
‘What? Your cousins are already backstage. They have waited for this moment since they came
to Goa,’ she said.
‘All the best,’ Brijesh said as the time came for me to go backstage.
‘Can you get me a drink, Brijesh?’ I said.
‘Huh? Yeah, sure. What do you want?’
‘Anything.’
‘Whisky?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
He returned from the bar with a large peg of Black Label. I chugged it in one shot.
‘Take it easy. Don’t be tense. It’s just a dance,’ Brijesh said.
‘It’s not the dance. We have to talk,’ I said.
Pinky came and tugged at my lehenga. I had to go.
‘We’ll talk later,’ I said.
‘What? Sure. Hey, rock it!’ Brijesh said.
On my way backstage, my mother stopped me.
‘What were you doing?’ she said.
‘What?’ I said.
‘I saw you. You asked Brijesh for whisky and drank it like a cheap bar girl. In front of him?’
‘So?’ I said, confidence soaring after the whisky shot. ‘I wanted to loosen up before the
dance.’
‘Do you have any brains? Your in-laws are watching you. What will they think? Their bahu
drinks like a jungli bewdi.’
‘Mom. My would-be husband gave me the drink. If he doesn’t have a problem, what’s their
problem?’
My mother gave me a dirty look. Pinky pulled my hand.
‘My suggestion, mom, is go get a drink for yourself. You need it,’ I said to my mother as I left
the function room.
I survived the stage. I did not let my choreographer down. I remembered all my steps. I nailed
chittiyan kalaiyan, even though I found it more challenging than foreclosing the assets of a distressed
Chinese factory. The audience cheered. Mickey kept repeating ‘one-two-three-four and turn round and
round and one-two-three-four’ from behind the stage.
The song ended. My cousins and I finished our performance with a huge group hug. The
audience broke into applause.
Why does one have to get married to have so much fun? Why can’t extended families just
get together once in a while and dance for no reason?
The crowd gave us a standing ovation. Brijesh clapped the hardest, perhaps not expecting his
investment banker bride-to-be to break a leg on stage as well.