“You must be so excited about your first karva chauth!” my mother-in-law quipped, as I took off the rubber band from today’s special edition newspaper and spread it out on the dining table. My eyes darted to the date on the top corner of the newspaper. Was it karva chauth already?
“I remember my first karva chauth thirty-five years ago,” she continued, unbothered by my lack of a suitable response. “I didn’t eat a single morsel of food, didn’t drink a drop of water… all day long. At first, I was angry, so angry… After all, I was only what? Twenty when I got married…? A young girl straight out of college!”
My eyes fell on my mother-in-law’s grey strands, tightly wound in a knot so not a single hair was out of place. It was hard for me to imagine her as anything other than middle-aged. Then again, I had only known her a few months. I met my husband Rajat in January, met his parents in March, got engaged in April, and married in June. There was little I had learned about his family by now, but whatever I knew so far, I could sense that my mother-in-law would exactly be the type of person to encourage starvation and dehydration for a whole day to extend the long life of a man one was married to.
“It’s a woman’s day of showing love, commitment, and devotion to her husband…What can be more beautiful than that?”
Um, food and water?
I cleared my throat. “Will Rajat be keeping the fast as well?”
My mother-in-law looked at me, horrified. “What? No! Of course not!” She all but screamed. “Why would you even – uff, your generation! I hope you understand this is the most important fast for married women. Not men!”
“Why not? If it’s about happiness and longevity of a spouse, shouldn’t my husband want the same things for me too? Or… what about non-cis het people? Is karva chauth really inclusive or – ”
My mother-in-law got up, replaced the dining chair in its position, and left the dining hall without a word. I was fairly certain she was headed to the bedroom to tell my father-in-law what a disobedient bahu I was. I sighed.
Great. Only six more months to go before Rajat and I could move out of their house.
Rajat’s parents had told us that we had to live at their place for the first year of our marriage so that they could get to know me better. We had decided to move out to another apartment a little closer to my workplace a week or so after our first anniversary. I had wholeheartedly agreed to the idea at the time of our marriage, but lately, I hadn’t felt so sure.
Is this what I really wanted? Patriarchal traditions forced upon me, an editor at a feminist literary magazine? Rajat had described his parents as “the most laidback people in the planet” but little did I know that the laidback attitude was reserved solely for their son. My father-in-law insisted that I make him chai first thing in the morning, because “that’s how we bond”, and I could no longer say that I didn’t want to wake up so early. I couldn’t tell him that I was not a morning person – and I certainly didn’t enjoy chai either.
People really give you a very romantic idea of a marriage, don’t they? The first few months are supposed to be a honeymoon period – the kind where you cannot keep your hands off each other. But I often look at my husband snoring next to me in bed after I’ve come back from cleaning up the kitchen, and I feel a great degree of annoyance. Only a few months ago, this man used to drive two hours from one end of the city to another just to see me for an hour. He would stay up all night to talk to me on the phone about everything and nothing. When was the last time he stayed hungry or awake for me?
We didn’t know each other too long, but we did spend a great many evenings in his car, drinking chai and eating Parle G, chatting about the lives we had lived and the ones we planned to live together. Sometimes, we would plan a weekend trip on a Friday evening and just take off the next morning, everything else be damned. In all of that time, he had never told me I would have to succumb to the patriarchal tradition of karva chauth. I already knew how he would respond if I asked, “It never came up.” If only I had even imagined this was something to ask!
I found it extremely difficult to sleep that night. I kept tossing and turning, angrily thinking about all the times I had tried to explain my point-of-view to my in-laws. I remembered my mother-in-law’s face the last time I talked to her about my work. I had made the mistake of discussing with her a topic as sensitive as marital rape, when she completely shut down. In her words, I was too young and had too much power without the wisdom to know what I was talking about. I had decided that day itself that I would never treat her like a friend. She was Rajat’s mother and that was all there was to it.
At 5 am, I got up from our bed and made my way into the kitchen. I picked up a banana from the fruit basket, pocketed a couple of chocolates from the pantry, and popped some makhana into my mouth. Then I walked very slowly towards the guest bathroom. My stomach growled loudly, but I didn’t let myself get impatient. The walk from the kitchen to the guest bathroom was the longest minute of my life.
I thought of my mother-in-law’s face again, her horrific reaction when I had told her I was volunteering one weekend to help the children of sex workers. She had warned me about going to “the red light district”, told me more than once that I didn’t care about anyone but myself. I went, still. Because I did care about other people. She didn’t know it yet, but I did care about her too. Even if she wasn’t my friend.
Finally, I reached the guest bathroom. I gently opened the door and almost doubled up in surprise.
There she was, my mother-in-law, in a nightgown and henna’ed arms, perched on the edge of the bathtub eating a pav. I must have been frozen in shock for a few seconds, because the next thing I knew, she was impatiently gesturing me to come inside.
I closed the door shut behind me and sat down next to her. We looked at each other, not knowing what to say.
“So…” I broke the silence. I needed to eat, after all. “How long have you been doing this?”
She took a deep breath and said, “only thirty-five years”. A smile crept up on her face, making her look ten years younger.
I smiled back. “We don’t have to do this, you know. We can just eat in front of our husbands, don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” she sighed. “But not today. Pav?”
“Yes, chocolate?”
We exchanged our snacks and continued eating in silence, smiles plastered on our faces.