PROLOGUE

Kriti’s Diary: One night before the wedding

It’s dark on this terrace. Everyone has just disappeared into their bedrooms to get some sleep after all the work we did today. Since my parents and grandparents are resting, my cousins must be busy on their phones talking to their girlfriends or boyfriends, nurturing their budding relationships, whispering secrets to near strangers with whom they are sharing some fleeting spark of passion. I’m imagining them all, deep in conversation, making promises of an eternal bond. And here, in this darkness, I need to share something with you, my dear Diary. I am alone. Dark, just like this balcony, all the way down to my soul.

My world is about to change. Tomorrow, I will have to abandon this life I’ve lived the last twenty-five years. I will be surrounded by new people, and those new faces haunt me. I have no idea what things will be like. I think I have lived a pretty decent life. I wish it could have been better, though, I’ve never been dissatisfied with what God has given me. Today though, today I admit that I have always been hidden in my own cocoon. Up to now I‘ve never had the courage to face the real world, have always hidden in my own little bubble. But, all this is going to end. That buffer, that safety ends tomorrow. I will be married to him, and I will have to leave my home, the room I share with Betu, that tea Mumma makes me in the morning after breakfast. Mumma, Daddy, Betu, and I visiting relatives on weekends, those silly fights for the remote, and those long and lovely chats with Mumma and Betu at the house. I will be expected to change my surname, too. All I’m going to have left are memories of my free life. How will I ever hide my emotions about losing my life so completely and starting a new one all of a sudden?  How will I ever come out of that cocoon of mine around so many new people?

These people, they seem kind enough. I have met this new family of mine a couple of times, talked to them for a few hours, but I still do not know anything about him. Life often takes such sudden turns. Where will this turn take me? I began accepting each of life’s turns without any kind of rebellion, a long time ago. I have learned to compromise with every challenge life has presented. I knew that I would have to marry one day, ever since I turned nineteen. I had gone to a wedding reception of a distant relative and Maasi introduced me to all the prospective families where I might one day find a suitable match. That day I learned I would only ever be judged, not by my love of literature, but by the fact that I am educated so that I can be a status symbol for my future family. I have fair skin, I am not overweight, and I know how to cook, too. Growing up, I had been prepared, day by day, to be a good wife and a good daughter-in-law.

And so again, I will walk down the mandap and into yet another compromise.  I have nothing left in me. I have no energy to rebel. I will let that ‘grand ceremony’ happen. Although, it is giving me shivers thinking of how my life will be from tomorrow on. Is this really what life is supposed to be like? Am I really mean to drown in adjustments? I had to marry someone, everyone has to marry, and so, like all other girls dreaming about their future husband, I too had thought about him, but I hadn’t expected it to be like this. I know nothing about him except for his name and a vague idea of what he does.

When I was still a teenager I dreamed of a knight in shining armor who would come and take me away from this life. But then, I grew up and I learned that there are no fairytale endings. As a child I thought that marriage would be a bed of roses but, eventually, I realized that it’s, of course, more than that. My Mumma’s life has taught me that marriage involves extreme adjustments. However, deep inside my heart, I’m still hoping for a miracle.