Home by Manju Kapur

along with moderately expensive saris to give as presents plus a gold set for the bride.
    Murli found an opportunity to inform his son that his future lay with his mother’s family. He should guard against letting them get rid of him cheap, they had short-changed his mother and now they were trying to do the same to him.
    ‘Do you like the bride?’ demanded Ajay, Vijay, and Raju when their cousin came back an engaged man.
    Vicky scowled and said nothing.
    ‘Bhabhi will think her husband has gone dumb if you never say anything,’ they teased.
    The wedding was fixed for the end of May. The date was auspicious. The children would be on holiday, and as it was a slack period the shop could shut for a day. For a wedding everyone, far and near, must come, must come.
    A tailor was installed, cloth brought home from the shop. Day and night he stitched, to make way for an embroiderer who in turn embroidered day and night.
    Rupa moved in to help. Her husband was invaluable in getting things organised. Reliable, decent, honest, he saved them money on the vegetables and food he bought, on the bus he booked, on the pundit he hired, seeking the best for the least. It was a blessing that his job with the Government was undemanding and secure enough to allow absences to go unnoticed. The Banwari Lals were loudly appreciative of his services, and frequently pressed him to spend the night. But Prem Nath put a limit on the time he would devote to his wife’s family. Pleading his father’s ill health, he left his wife and Nisha, to return as early as he could the next day.
    At last, the night before the wedding. The hired bus stands outside the Karol Bagh house, while inside the last rites of puja, packing, and mehndi application are simultaneously taking place.
    ‘Lock the rooms.’
    ‘Have you got the keys?’
    In an undertone, ‘Have you got the money?’
    More undertone, ‘Have you got the jewellery?’
    This is repeated with variations as each adult settles into the bus that is taking the nineteen-year-old Vicky to his bride. As they start, Banwari Lal is filled with a sense of satisfaction. The family has seen to an orphaned child’s welfare, and is transmitting him with a sure hand into the future, equipped with the responsibilities of adulthood (employment) and the rites of manhood (marriage).
    The bus speeds across the city in the dark, still heat of May. The lights are put off. The barat tries to make itself comfortable in the hard, cramped space. Children stretch across laps. Vicky sits in front, a starched pink turban on, a firm red tikka blazoned across his forehead. He smells of cheap hair pomade, sweat, and nervousness. He is not sure of what the coming days will bring, but he is the centre of attention, and he likes that. This bus with all its passengers is going to Bareilly because of him, the shop is shut for one day because of him, everybody has got new clothes because of him. And it has been made quite clear he is going to live in Delhi, that is a battle he has won. He slumps down until his knees are level with his head and tries to sleep.
    The grandmother sits behind him, her heart full of strong feelings. Her grandson’s marriage is the completion of the final duty left by her daughter’s tragic death. It had been difficult with Vicky: failing continuously, Sona perpetually angry with him, but now everything is going to be all right.
    Nisha lies on the hump of her grandmother’s stomach. Her gaze flickers across the shapes of her family in the bus. Three years have passed since her removal to her aunt’s house, and the dark thing inside her is deeply buried.
    She thinks of the wedding, and all the clothes that have been made for her to wear. Slowly she drifts off to sleep, the jolts of the bus cushioned by the stomach she has her head on.
    The driver stops for tea at five a.m. at a roadside stall in Rampur, an hour away from Bareilly. A few step out into the dark, torpid air on to a pavement lined with