“How long do the ceremonies last?” Liv asked.

“At minimum, three days. First you have the mehendi, then the nikkah, followed by a wedding reception,” Tania explained. “And then the valima . . .”

I had refrained from asking my mother any questions about Meena’s wedding because, frankly, I didn’t care enough to know. But based on Bollywood movies and albums I had seen of my own parents’ wedding and the handful of Indian weddings I had been forced to attend growing up, Tania was accurate in her assessment.

“Are you going to wear a sari?”

“Is there going to be dancing?”

“Will the groom ride up on an elephant?”

“Are you going to get your henna done?”

“Do you think there will be a lot of single guys at the wedding?”

“Liv, there’s always a lot of single guys at weddings.”

As Liv and Tania continued their discussion, my mind floated back to that morning, when I’d announced to my mother that I would accompany her on the trip. She’d wrapped me in her arms and held me in a tight embrace.

“We can take notes for your own wedding someday,” she’d whispered in my ear. My father, who was seated across from me at the kitchen table, tilted his head and flashed me a hopeful smile.

Thinking back on it now, my thoughts lingered on her last word. Someday. A part of me still hoped for that someday. A part of me wondered when that day would come, and another part questioned if it would come at all. But I knew in order for someday to be a possibility, I needed to get out of Los Angeles, away from this vicious cycle I had been trapped in. Perhaps going to India would not just appease my parents, but would also help me gain some perspective. Maybe India—a place that felt so familiar yet distant at the same time—would give me the clarity I desperately craved and the someday I so hopelessly desired.

Motherland

Sixteen hours. For the past sixteen hours, I had been wedged in between my mother and a wiry, bearded Caucasian man who was wearing open-toed sandals, a bright orange bandanna, and a tie-dyed T-shirt with the word NAMASTE written across the chest. As soon as I saw him place a yoga mat in the overhead compartment, I knew right then it was going to be a long flight. Luckily for me, Mr. Yogi passed out fairly quickly, after only forty minutes of mind-numbing conversation about his “spiritual journey of self-discovery.” While he dreamed blissfully about his Eat, Pray, Love fantasies on my left, my mother was reclined comfortably on the other side of me, snoring like a chainsaw.

The plane was dark, and the majority of the passengers were fast asleep. Although I was utterly exhausted—given that I had been awake for almost twenty-four hours—my mind would not turn off. I was going to India.

I wondered what it would feel like to finally set foot in my parents’ homeland. For the first time in my life—that I could remember—I was going to be in a country where everyone looked like me. Where my long black hair, dark features, and wheat-colored skin were not considered “exotic” but just normal. A place where Bollywood romances were born, and the supply of South Asian men was abundant.