while I served them tea, happy to be of help, since Vinay was Sowmya’s suitor, not mine. Vinay’s parents seemed like very nice people, polite and nonconfrontational. Vinay was thirty-five years old and was looking for someone who was homely and religious. Not too religious, though, just enough—should know how to do puja and keep madhi. Sowmya was par excellence at both. While Sowmya’s grandmother, my great-grandmother, was alive, Sowmya was asked time and again to keep madhi; that is, to cook right after she took a bath before touching or doing anything else and preferably in wet clothes. Sowmya flat out refused to cook in wet clothes as great-grandma expected, but she knew the ins and outs of all the religious nooks and crannies.
They didn’t want a working daughter-in-law, Vinay’s parents said. They wanted grandchildren soon. Oh, Vinay is still single because he was so busy with his career. Couldn’t be that busy, I thought cynically, after all he was just a small-time lecturer at some out of the way engineering college.
While I served tea, Sowmya sat demurely looking at her painted nails as her fingers fondled the yellow tassels at the edge of the red border of her sari.
“Do you play any instrument?” Vinay asked Sowmya and she nodded.
“I play the veena,” she said.
Jayant had brought the veena out from storage just that morning and Sowmya and I had dusted it clean. Thatha had been informed from a good source that the “boy” liked music and since Sowmya could play the veena, everyone thought it would be a good idea to keep it handy.
I slipped out of the living room into the backyard when Sowmya started playing. As the notes filtered through the house, it was obvious that the veena idea was a bad one. It had been almost three years since Sowmya had touched the musical instrument; she needed practice and a lot of it.
I found Nate in the backyard tying his shoelaces by the tulasi plant.
“Where’re you going?” I asked.
“Home,” he said without looking at me.
“Oh.”
He stood up and then looked me in the eye. “You should tell him, Priya. You should tell him.”
“I have told him,” I said, and when he looked at me suspiciously, I spilled the truth out. “The email bounced back, but I will send him another one. I will call him and tell him. Ottu, promise. I will.”
Nate shook his head.
“And even if I didn’t tell him, I don’t see what the problem is. It’s not like I’m going to marry Adarsh or anything,” I said belligerently.
“No, but you definitely gave everyone the idea you would marry him,” Nate pointed out. “Look, none of my business, but I just think that . . . I don’t know what you’re waiting for. They’re going to make a proposal, what do you plan to do then? Not say anything?”
Sowmya stopped playing the veena, just as I got ready to lay it on Nate. Who did he think he was? Some laat-sahib, some big shot who could tell me what to do and when?
“I just feel bad about all of this,” he said before I could yell at him. “I wish I could help, Priya, but I’m just going to go home and enjoy the house without Ma.”
“I’ll call you, as soon as . . . ,” I said. I knew he was being honest with me because he cared about me.
“You’re going to break Nanna’s heart,” Nate said. “That’s going to be hard.”
“Yes, and Thatha’s,” I said. “But what has to be done—”
“Priya?” Lata came out and I bit my lip. How much had she heard? Did we say anything incriminating?
“They’re leaving and your mother wants you there,” she said, and then smiled at Nate. “Going, Nate?”
“Yes,” Nate said casually. He winked at me before leaving.
“He is so aloof,” Lata complained. “As if we are not good enough.”
“He just likes his own company,” I defended Nate immediately. “And he is not aloof.”
“Oh, come on, he has always been in his own world, not interested in the family or anything,” Lata said, and then sighed. “Of course, you don’t see anything wrong because you are his doting sister.”
“There is nothing wrong with him,” I said annoyed.
The family was not fond of Nate. It was as if he was more Nanna’s son than Ma’s. Even Thatha was more close to me than to Nate. It probably was because Nate spent more time with his friends and on his own than with the family. Nanna always