the new bride

The first day of bride

It was her first morning in the house as ‘the new bride’. She was hesitant and terrified as to what were the systems in this unknown place. She tried to reach for her mobile in the dark and actually knocked off the steel plate on the side stool of bed. The plate went flying with an erring irritating sound and luckily landed on the nearby carpet. She thought “Damm….not a good start. Thank God the carpet was there otherwise the whole house would have been awake.” In the dim mobile light she saw Avinash sleeping like a baby, oblivious to all the worries in the world which had been bothering her since days. “Why only females have to leave their parents and house to come to unknown world? If there is anything called ‘reincarnation’ I would like Avinash to be my wife and I should be the husband in next life.” A smile crossed her lips at this funny thought. She was not sure how she was going to survive in this alien house for even fifteen days.

Where she met him

     She had met Avinash at her friend’s wedding where he was the cousin of the groom. Wedding parties are like free passes for flirting for the young and ‘match-making’ for the adults. The old ladies keep staring at all the eligible boys and girls to fix them in suitable alliances. She had noticed eyes of Avinash following her everywhere. But he never confronted her and that’s what she liked about him. When the ‘phere’ was going on, everyone requested Avinash to sing a song. She was swept off her feet by his deep hypnotic voice. She had to admit to herself that she actually liked him. Later on she was thrilled when she heard the same voice on phone. They started chatting as friends and slowly the length of conversations converted from few minutes to hours. They talked about everything under the sun and that’s when she discovered his close relationship with his younger brother Abhi who was studying in US. She never got a chance to meet Abhi who came directly from US for their marriage.

     She was supposed to leave with Avinash to Singapore where he got posting for two years in World Bank. He was supposed to leave after a day and she would follow him after fifteen days. Now she was anxious how she would survive without him in this new place.

     She looked at time in mobile which said ‘6 a.m’. She brought herself back from her reverie, took bath and tried to drape herself in sari, which itself took about forty minutes. She missed her T-shirts and pajamas badly. She was praying that the sari should stick properly as she had managed it somehow with a dozen safety-pins. She wanted to wear salwar-kameez but her mother in law had insisted that she should wear sari for few days, at least till the relatives were gone. She knew she had managed well because when she touched her mother in law’s feet she was showered with tones of blessing. She thought “Well dress is a very small price to pay for so much of affection.”

     

First day in the kitchen

      Now came the most difficult part ‘kitchen’. According to the custom, everybody wanted to have tea made by her so that they could hand over their gifts to her. She couldn’t remember when she had made tea for more than three people and there were approximate fifteen people in the house. She nervously looked for her mother-in law who was overloaded with work and called upon every second.

      It was then, Abhi her brother in law came to her rescue. He said “come bhabhi, I will do this magic for you.You start your work and I will take care of everything.” Those words acted like magic for her. She was so relieved thinking someone was there who could understand her plight. She went inside the kitchen, put all the ingredients for tea in the vessel and waited. Finally Abhi turned up and when they both tasted the tea it was really ‘a disaster’. She felt like crying. But Abhi consoled her and brought a special tea-masala from his bag. Finally he corrected the proportion of ingredients, added that masala and when they tasted the tea again it was authentically delicious. She was amazed “how come you are such an expert at this?” He replied “Bhabhi this is the side-effect of staying in a foreign land all alone. I am in US since four years and I do most of my cooking there myself.” Everyone was happy when they tasted the tea made by ‘the new bride’ and her marks accumulated in the score-card of relatives.

       She looked at Abhi who was smiling and sipping his tea and she knew she had found a life-long friend in his brother- in law. Now not only her husband but even she was affectionate and full of appreciation for her new friend.