A few days later, finding her daughter listless and thin, Parvati’s mother asked her, “What’s the matter, Paro, not feeling well?” Parvati shook her head; her eyes were small with sleeplessness. “If there’s something worrying my daughter, she can tell me, you know,” her mother said gently. Parvati looked at the floor; she said nothing. “Can’t I get a word out of you?” said her mother, pretending to be hurt. “If you can’t trust your mother, who can you…” Parvati said, “Mother, there’s nothing wrong,” angrily; and the next moment, crying a little, said, “I can’t tell you about it!” Now her mother attempted to bribe her and plead with her, ran her hand through her hair and massaged her arms, until Parvati finally admitted she wanted to marry and, on further obdurate prodding, said the word “Shiv.” Immediately, the palace went into mourning, as if a great calamity had occurred; loud wails were heard, and not everyone, in the midst of the noise, knew what the fuss was about. Eventually, Himalaya came to see his daughter; not so much to confront her, as to reason with her.

“Parvati, what’s this I’m hearing?” said the king. “I can’t believe that what I hear is true.” He was a short, squat man with a beard, with hair coming down to a little below his shoulders. “I know you to be a sensible girl.” Parvati deployed silence to indicate that what he’d heard was true.

“He can’t make you happy,” said her father. “He’s unclean, temperamental, and generally not fit for polite society.”

“He is,” said Parvati coldly, “the Destroyer of the Universe.”

“I don’t care what he is,” said Himalaya, equally cold. “I haven’t met him, but I’ve heard of him—of his damru, and his tiger skins, and his third eye. I know of far better suitors for you. As far as I know, he doesn’t even have any possessions, and he doesn’t seem to intend to acquire any. You’ll have to sleep on the floor, you know, if you marry him.”

Meanwhile, Shiv was sitting with the nandi bhringi, his cohorts, and smoking a round of ganja. The cheroots flickered in the dark. There was an air of tempered happiness and sadness in the congregation, not unmixed with nostalgia, that these quiet intervals of camaraderie and introspection should be about to end, and a sweet expectancy at the wedding. Someone, absently, began to hum a tune, not very melodiously.

“There’ll be glitter and there’ll be shehnai,” said one, who was lying on his back. “There’ll be payesh and yoghurt.”

Himalaya sighed as well; he’d been unable to persuade his daughter. How could he get out of this one? Then to give his daughter away to that … that … He’d always visualized the wedding as a grand occasion.

White Lies

White Lies