New Marriage Mantra: If It Doesn't Work, Chuck It
Verve|September 2016

What are young ladies looking for in their married lives? Madhu Jain creates an imaginary scenario that presents a succinct picture of couples today

Madhu Jain
New Marriage Mantra: If It Doesn't Work, Chuck It

SCENE ONE

It had to be Kerala. And it had to be December. That time of year when our diaspora desis come swanning in. The sea was a sparkling blue. The water in the infinity swimming pool was an even more sparkling blue. The champagne never stopped sparkling,as corks kept popping. This marriage was made in NRI heaven. Most of the guests were from NRI land — the Eastern Coast. Relatives had been kept to a minimum.

She was from Lady Shri Ram, Delhi and Columbia, New York. He was from St. Xavier’s in Mumbai and Wharton, Philadelphia. Their respective CVs and bios were sterling, sparkling if you like. Both were good-looking, athletic. What could be more perfect? They had met at a common friend’s wedding in Goa the year before. Both had good corporate jobs in the land of opportunity, paradise for clever desis. But, soon there was trouble in Paradise. The bride came back home.

SCENE TWO

Six months later, in a living room with fake Louis XIV chairs and a genuine, but small Raza, in a sprawling bungalow in South Delhi, with a lawn as smooth and green as a billiard table. Photographs in silver frames of the smiling couple taken during the wedding in Kerala adorn the little tables in the living room. She, one of those fair and lovely Punjabis, sits on a sofa with her mother. The latter holding her head as if in real pain; a turbulent tooth it would seem. The father, stoic, his forehead layered like a millefeuille, is slouched in an armchair facing them.

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