That night I lay awake thinking about marriage. It was so different from all the Hindi movies we’d watched. In the movies, young people fell in love, sang songs, danced; and at the end of the story, no matter what, the hero and heroine got married. Where would the love be in Nimita’s marriage? Maybe there was no love in everyday life. Maybe love only whispered in the hearts of poets, actors, and musicians.

And then I had a dreadful thought. What if Girishji never came to love Nimita? Would her soul stay as empty and lost as her eyes? Would she ever experience a flicker of his affection, or would her heart fumble like her hands did?

Now that they were engaged, Girishji took Nimita out every Sunday around five-thirty, and brought her home at eleven.

May first was set for the wedding date. Mommy and Foi made all the arrangements for the ceremony, the hall, and the reception. Pappa and Mummy paid for it all, as was the custom.

Nimita also needed saris and jewelry, so Mummy took her shopping every day. Mohini’s exams were finished, so she went with them. I couldn’t go because I still had to study for final exams. I was relieved, though. It was good to be out of Mummy’s way when she was as tense as a stretched rubber band.

For the garba, a folk dance party two days before the wedding, I wore a satin skirt that stopped just above my ankles and a short blouse and a matching odhani, half sari. The skirt, the sleeves of the blouse, and the odhani were all embroidered with real silver threads. I draped the odhani over my right shoulder, pinning it to my blouse so it wouldn’t slide off, and tucked the two free ends of it into my skirt. I wore a silver necklace, silver hoops, thin silver bangles, and silver anklets that Pappa had given me on my last birthday. I kept admiring the mehndi design that was painted on my hands. Mummy had organized a party the night before, and all the women of the family had had their hands painted with mehndi in intricate designs of flowers, fruits, vines, birds, the sun, and the moon.

With every turn, my skirt flared, my half-sari sparkled, and the tiny bells on my anklets sang. We danced in a big circle and clapped until we were dizzy and our hands were red and itchy. Then someone brought in a box of sticks, and the boys and girls and men and women paired up to do another folk dance called dandia raas.

A boy my age stood next to me. He wore a cream-colored kurta-pajama with a saffron-colored scarf tied around his waist. I didn’t know him and wondered if he were from the orphanage. Before I could decide if I wanted to dance with him, someone began playing dholak, dhamak, dhum, dhum, dhamak, dhum.