House of Cards by Sudha Murty

ordinary doctor in a village earns more than him.’
    On the journey back to Bangalore, Mridula was all praise for Lakshmi and Shankar. She was blissfully unaware of what they actually thought of Sanjay and her.
    A few months passed and Shankar’s niece Usha’s marriage was fixed. The groom was an insurance officer.
    Usha’s mother, Vimla, did not like Sanjay even though she had once thought of Sanjay as a prospective groom for her daughter. At the time, she had been impressed by the fact that he was a doctor—despite his deformity. He came from a good family and was a good-looking and decent boy. More importantly, everybody was aware that Ratnamma had money and the biggest share would go to her son. Though Ratnamma was stingy, she was not a cruel mother-in-law. Keeping this in mind, Vimla and her husband had thought that it was a good match. But Lakshmi was not interested and had not even entertained the idea.
    Now, Sanjay was married and Usha had found another groom.
    Secretly, Vimla and Lakshmi could not stand each other but no one would ever know it from the way they behavedwith each other. Vimla gave a few wedding invitation cards to Lakshmi and told her to call whomever she wanted.
    When Lakshmi sent a wedding card to Sanjay, Mridula was enthusiastic. The wedding was in Bangalore. She wanted to attend the entire three-day ceremony since she had not had a chance to attend family functions from the time they had moved to Bangalore. In Aladahalli, her house always had guests and there were plenty of invitations for gatherings. Mridula really missed the social interactions.
    After her trip to T. Narasipura, she felt uncomfortable thinking of going to her mother-in-law’s house again. Though she liked Lakshmi’s company, she could not visit her often. So this wedding card brought her great joy. She asked Sanjay, ‘Can we attend the ceremonies on all days?’
    Usually, Sanjay did not care about these things. But this time, he categorically told her, ‘No, we’ll only go for the reception.’ Mridula was raised to believe that she should not question the elders in the family when they made a decision. So even though she was disappointed, she did not push the matter.
    They bought a gift and went to the reception. This was the first time Mridula was seeing a wedding celebrated with such grandeur. A lot of money had been spent on the decorations, flowers, live music and designer clothes for the bride and groom. There was a separate room full of gifts to be given to the guests. If someone from Aladahalli had seen this, they would have mistaken it for the wedding of a minister’s daughter.
    Lakshmi’s relatives from Mysore saw Sanjay but did not bother to talk to him. There was a big queue of people waiting to greet the newly married couple. Before long, Sanjay and Mridula ran into Lakshmi. She had just come from the beauty salon and was looking even better than the bride. She asked them to wait to greet the newly-weds till the rush of people reduced.
    Weddings are a gossipmonger’s paradise. There was a group of people sitting in a corner and chatting. Sanjay knew them.They had not seen Sanjay and Mridula yet but Sanjay could clearly hear what they were saying. One of them said, ‘I heard that Vimla’s husband, Dinesh, has spent almost five lakh on this marriage.’
    ‘Yes, he had to—because Usha was rejected by many people,’ said another.
    ‘Do you know that even Sanjay didn’t want to marry Usha?’
    ‘Which Sanjay are you talking about—Lakshmi’s brother with the short arm?’
    ‘Yes, the same dumb fellow.’
    ‘I heard something different. I was told that Lakshmi wasn’t keen about Usha’s proposal and the matter never even went to Sanjay. Lakshmi said that Sanjay wanted to marry a doctor.’
    ‘Well, he’s married now. Whom did he get married to?’
    ‘A girl from a remote village agreed to marry him. She must have some handicap too or her parents must be very poor.’
    ‘You’re right. Sanjay