the day...

I wished to have a moment of peace in my home. But that I think is the least I could hope for tonight. There's music blaring from the speakers. The sound of people talking to each other at the top of the voice came from all possible places-inside, outside, the living room, kitchen, bedrooms...everywhere. The phone kept ringing...and no one seemed to pick it up...

I am sitting in my bedroom. There are people all around me. Aunties, grandmothers, babies, little imps of kids...everyone. I want a little peace, a room of my own. But of course am not allowed that. I have to smile, and exchange pleasantries with the million faces that present themselves before me. I cringe inside and keep smiling and nodding my head to the aunty who keeps rambling about my childhood antics to anyone who'd listen. In between wanting a little silence, and trying to ignore the pain in my cheeks from excessive smiling, i wonder how this 'aunty' knows so much about my childhood, when I don’t seem to remember seeing her at all.

My sister, the ever welcome whiff of fresh air comes in and declares. "Amma says Chechi has to sleep early. The function begins early tomorrow". A sudden outburst of "is it time already?", "Look at the time", "poor girl, she must sleep. Dark circles wont do tomorrow" was followed by my sister shepherding the twenty or so people crowded in my room, out to the hall.

I sigh and sit at last in relative silence. The speakers are still blaring.

I open my cupboard to pick out something to wear for the night instead of the heavy Kanjeevaram saree that I am wearing and my eyes fall upon the dozens of velvet boxes sitting on my shelves. Slowly I pull each out and lay them open on my bed. Nagaphanam, kaashi maala, poothaali, palakka mothiram, pearl and ruby, garnet necklaces... and other boxes full of bangles. Some new, some old, yet polished so that they defeat the new ones in their brightness...

I looked at the red Kanjeevaram silk saree that I was supposed to wear tomorrow.

I had longed so long for this day. This hullabaloo happening in my home, the guests, the noise, the colour of the mehendi, now deep on my palm. I had seen myself adorned and bejeweled, looking happy and content beside the man of my dreams. This had mattered so much to me...the wedding, the preparations, the dressing up, the invitations, the fragrance of jasmine flowers, and the scent of the incense sticks, everything...

And yet, today when I should have had genuine smiles on my face, instead of the plastered one, when I should be delighted at how dark my mehendi has come out, all I feel is numbness, a vague fear at the back of my mind, a wild desire to run away...

Tomorrow is my wedding. With the man I love with all my being. I should have been happy….but am not…