33. A Suitable Girl 1941-1942

WITH THE LONG, DARK YEAR OF MOURNING finally ended, Janaki becomes eligible for marriage. Horoscopes begin arriving, but Vairum insists that Sivakami disregard them. Every marriage begets another, as the saying goes, and it takes only one such function for Vairum to target a family he considers suitable: relatives of Vani’s who live in her hometown, Pandiyoor, a market town close to the city of Madurai, some seventy miles south and inland from Cholapatti.

Closely related to Vani, and distantly to Gayatri, they are a grand and wealthy family. The eligible son is the youngest of three boys; there are also three daughters, all married and well-off. Vairum has a long-standing casual acquaintance with the father.

Sivakami does not see how this is going to work. It’s well and good for Vairum to say he has no truck with astrology-he has always had strange notions and she has never been able to influence him-but, she asks him timidly, what sort of a family would marry their child off without the advice of the ancient science?

“It’s not a science.” Vairum is as brusque with Sivakami as she is gentle with him, as dismissive as she is credulous. “It’s inexact and manipulative. I won’t consider any family who can’t recognize that.”

Sivakami withdraws, suitably cowed. Astrology has brought her misery her whole life-she’s not going to argue further for it. She has no doubt it will be operative, no matter what Vairum does, but maybe, for once, she would rather not know the future.

Vairum doesn’t bother explaining that he doesn’t yet know if this family is as willing as he to undertake a modern marriage. One of his reasons for targeting prospects above the middle class is that the upper echelons tend to be more sophisticated in such matters. The family’s elder sons work as lawyers-they employ reason and logic, even in highly emotional circumstances. This detail, he thinks, bodes well.

But how to handle protocol when the usual formalities are so pointedly not to be observed? Vairum is a man of forethought and has considered this. The matching of horoscopes is the primary method his community uses to arrange marriage, but the Laws of Manu describe others: kidnapping, for instance, trickery, sorcery. Vairum opts for enticement, targeting the boy’s mother, a formidable aesthete and lover of the intellectual arts, a woman who Vairum guessed might appreciate those virtues Janaki has so consistently cultivated. He need only find or create the means to display her in all her eminent suitability

He suspects an opportunity will arise before long. The daughters of the Pandiyoor household are gadabouts and use any excuse to travel for functions. In November, he hears from Vani that they will come to Cholapatti to celebrate Gayatri’s granddaughter’s first birthday, and he hastens from Madras to brief his mother and Gayatri.

“Concocting such a womanish scheme,” Gayatri marvels to Sivakami in a rare pause for breath amidst her preparations for the function. “Who would have suspected him capable?”

Sivakami doesn’t respond, and Gayatri reassures her.

“I think it’s wonderful, Sivakami Akka. I have met this boy, Baskaran. He is a nice boy, very devoted to his parents.”

“Hm.” Sivakami feels she needs more information. “Is he a college graduate?”

Gayatri raises her eyebrows. “I suppose not.” She purses her lips and continues. “What I have heard is that Baskaran completed his second year at American College in Madurai. He is an intelligent boy. But then his grandfather died, and his father became sad, it’s understandable. He was having difficulty managing at home, and so on. The father, Dhoraisamy, had inherited the responsibility for a charitable foundation his uncle…?” Gayatri pauses, frowning. “Maybe his father? Someone established this charity-I don’t remember. But there is a paadasaalai and a chattram, and Dhoraisamy now is the in-charge of managing them. The elder sons work as lawyers, perhaps they are too busy or not so interested in family affairs. So Baskaran stayed home and helped. He is very devoted to his parents.”

Sivakami is not in a mood to discuss her reservations, and Gayatri leaves soon afterward, clearly hoping she has not said anything to contravene the match.

Sivakami broods. So many Brahmin families have lost their properties in the last thirty years, including many on their own Brahmin quarter, including Goli’s family, because they failed to keep up with the times, thinking their wealth would continue to perpetuate itself. Perhaps this Baskaran is canny, a man, such as Vairum, able to recognize that Brahmins’ old wealth must be transformed into new money, given new life through new methods of management. Her observations suggest, though, that Vairum is exceptional. She would feel so much better if Baskaran earned a wage.

It’s both too early and perhaps too late for her to object. Perhaps Baskaran’s family will not be taken in; perhaps they will demand a horoscope and it will be unsuitable; perhaps some other obstacle will arise.

But if Vairum has decided on this match, she says later to Muchami, as they go over grocery lists, it’s probably too late for her to do anything about it. Muchami tells her she’s right.

“If Vairum decides on it, though,” she says, “he will do everything to make sure it does turn out for the best. His pride will never let a match he makes go wrong.” She shrugs and sighs. “At least I have that insurance.”

On the morning of the birthday party, Janaki, Kamalam, Radhai, Krishnan and Raghavan walk down the Brahmin quarter to Minister’s house. Radhai is under specific instructions, which Janaki and Kamalam are charged with enforcing, to behave in a ladylike manner. Radhai, ten, is never deliberately disobedient, but the force of her personality is such that she is easily distracted. At the height of Kamalam’s coming-of-age ceremony three weeks earlier, for instance, Radhai burst into the courtyard covered in mud, a frog in each hand, clamouring for a pot to put them in. Raghavan, at three, worships her.

The girls are welcomed by Gayatri’s youngest daughter, Akila. While Raghavan and Krishnan run to the back to play with the other little boys, Akila invites Radhai to help her greet guests, offering them rock sugar, sprinkling them with rosewater. Akila is a placid girl, and Kamalam and Janaki encourage Radhai to spend time with her, while they seat themselves against a wall and examine, with disguised curiosity, the family Vairum has targeted. They whisper to one another: the family looks familiar, they must have seen them sometime; they may even have seen the groom-oh! They used the word! Now it can’t be taken back! Janaki hits her sister unconvincingly and frowns, holding her braid in front of her mouth and trying to keep out of the sightlines of her potential in-laws.

Only the matron and her daughters have come. The daughters’ saris are of a rich silk, with heavily embroidered pallus that slimmer bodies would not support. Fortunately the sisters are unvaryingly large, one plump and squishy, another bustling and broad, another solidly stout as though a slap to her thighs would ring like a brass pot. They all carry additional weight in the form of large gold ornaments and hairpieces. Their mother trumps them, though. She might be the largest person Janaki has ever seen, sitting in soft mounds that roll and break with each of her movements, though she moves rarely and slowly. Her eyes are small and sharp between rising cheeks and drooping forehead.

Watching them, Janaki feels skinny and unadorned. She is barely ninety pounds, wrapped in a conservative sari of serviceable silk, wearing a complete but understated set of earrings, nose rings, chains and bangles. Her thick braid, which she fingers as she watches them, is probably the weightiest of her ornaments, its end hitting just above her knees.