I try not to let my dejection show on my face. She looks happy now, I think, looking up at the stage. She looks happier than happy. She looks exuberant. It brings out a kind of beauty that I hadn’t seen in the back room, a beauty that has nothing to do with her red and gold dress or the intricate henna pattern weaving its way up the length of her arm, or with the heavy set makeup that makes her skin twice as pale as normal and her red lips as dark and voluminous as Angelina Jolie’s. It’s more like a spark of happiness inside of her that’s now shining through on the outside. I wonder if Dulabhai can see it too. I think he must, from the way he looks at her.

When I look away, I catch a glimpse of the girl from the back room, the one with the curly hair. She’s speaking with someone she bears a striking resemblance to.

I frown, realization dawning on me.

It wasn’t her that I recognized, but this other girl with the same sort of curly hair and dark brown skin. I went to primary school with her a few years back. As soon as I catch a glimpse of her, that part of my life suddenly floods back.

She turns her head all of a sudden, like she can sense someone watching. She catches my eye, and for a moment it’s just the two us taking each other in from across the wedding hall. If I didn’t know better I would call this my own Bollywood moment.

But I do know better, so I turn away quickly, before our gaze becomes something longer than I can explain away.

3

MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE PART OF THE WEDDING DISTRACTS me from all of my worries. It even perks Priti up from her bridesmaid melancholy. Food!

For starters, the waiters bring out kebabs and sticks of chicken shashlick with green and red fried peppers stuck between the pieces of chicken. I start piling food onto my plate before the waiter has even set everything down. The Auntie sitting opposite us looks at me fearfully, like she didn’t think Priti and I could be so ravenous in our hunger. I smile back at her, hoping that she’s not too closely related to Sunny Apu.

I’m about to start eating when Priti stops me with a tap on my shoulder.

“You can’t eat with your hands,” she says with a frown.

“Why not?” But I realize the answer as I look around and notice that everybody else has picked up the cutlery next to their plates and is politely cutting into their kebabs. Like we’re Westerners and not Bengalis.

“I can’t believe we’re supposed to eat like white people even at a Bengali wedding,” I complain in a whisper.