Geetanjali Krishna: A marriage made in Bihar

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

I've always believed that truth in Bihar is stranger than most fiction. So I was prepared to hear lots of stories when Arti, who's worked for my mother for several years, recently got back from her village near Patna after marrying off her daughter. As she settled down in the sun with a hot cup of tea, I asked, "Did everything go off all right at the wedding? Are you happy with your son-in-law?" Her eyes filled with tears, and I wondered what I'd said wrong. For she had been so happy about the match she'd succeeded in making for her daughter. The boy was a school teacher in a nearby village, and wanted his would-be wife to complete her schooling as well. His parents, progressive and prosperous, had also seemed very happy with the match. I wondered what could have gone wrong while Arti continued to sip her tea silently as tears coursed down her cheeks.

"The marriage couldn't take place," said she, after she'd composed herself. "We liked the boy so much, it was a big blow!" I was aghast, for I knew that Arti and her husband had gathered all their meagre resources to buy a trousseau for their daughter. Before she'd left for her village, she'd told me they were planning to invite at least a hundred people to the marriage feast. They'd even given an advance of Rs 5,000 for the tent and catering. "What happened?" I asked. "All the preparations had been made "" there were just two weeks left for the wedding. My husband's sister had just arrived, and we were all busy with the arrangements," said she. That was when they received the news that their son-in-law to be had been shot dead.

"Who shot him?" I asked, horrified. She shook her head: "Nobody knows. His school, family and friends had no idea why anyone would want to kill him." I asked her if they called in the police. "Of course we did," said she, "but they couldn't figure out who did it either! Nobody saw it happen, or at least, nobody came forward to give any information!" I wondered how her daughter reacted to the inexplicable tragedy. "Of course she was very shocked and upset," said Arti, "and we were scared. For a whiff of this to the rest of our clan, and my daughter would have been branded as unlucky. Nobody would have ever married her!"

Arti's sister-in-law, the only one amongst them with any presence of mind, came up with a solution. "I know a decent family in Kanpur who've an eligible son. Let's try and end this episode on a positive note by arranging another marriage for our daughter!" she said. At first Arti wasn't convinced. Her daughter, sad and resigned, was silent. Eventually, Arti decided that to ensure her daughter's future welfare, this was the only thing to do. "We went post-haste to Kanpur, met the family. They were not as progressive as the other boy's family had been, but they had their own house," said Arti. Having slaved in people's homes all her life, she was happy when they said they didn't allow their daughters-in-law work outside the house. Arti's sister-in-law told the boy's family that their pundit had advised a marriage in the next ten days.

"All our preparations had already been made, and all we needed to do was to return and invite the hundred guests we'd planned for the wedding feast. Everything was as we'd thought it would be, except that the groom had changed," narrated Arti. Suddenly her smile faded: "I often wonder how that poor boy met his end..."