This is how I portrayed marriage negotiations in a draft of Shiva's Arms:
“Hush,” said Varun. “Amma is trying to marry you off to someone in the parlor.” There was a rumor that child-marriage was about to be outlawed, the legal age raised to thirteen. He twitched his new mustache, a growth Shiva had nicknamed Bandicoot after a legendary rat that lived on the property and could not be caught... Shiva nodded; she didn’t give the matchmaking in the parlor another thought. It was only when the defeated look on her parents’ faces began to seem permanent did Shiva fear for her freedom. A suitable match would provide the parents with momentary happiness, but after the wedding they would only see their daughter when her husband’s family allowed it. “Taking pains with a daughter is like watering another family’s garden,” she overheard one family’s representative say as she was ushered out of the house. Some minor disgrace might render Shiva unmarriageable and put an end to this parade of grasping, fortune-hunting crones. She had to come up with a plan to save herself... Wizened female relatives of possible suitors finagled their way into the parlor of the old stone house. With cunning eyes, they calculated the immense wealth all around them. Each one imagined that Shiva’s mother would drop to her knees in gratitude that her ruffian daughter could have a future with a respectable family. But Shiva’s mother was a good negotiator and would not be swayed by the trickery of some old abacus- counter. “Your nephew is quite dark, quite rugged-looking, I see,” she might say, holding the suitor’s photograph in her fingers as if it offended her. “It was taken on a cloudy day only,” the marriage-brokering aunt would sniff, clattering her bone china cup on the saucer. “The boy is quite fair under sunlight, perhaps fairer than your daughter. Her skin must be toughened from her times on horseback, isn’t it?” Shiva’s mother kept her voice low, so that the old woman had to bend forward to catch all the words. “It is so surprising what some people will criticize! Some people have nothing better to do than limit a child’s abilities, and measure her value in gold and jewels only. My Shiva has great wealth beyond beauty, and I must be careful who I give her to! On the occasion of her baby-naming ceremony, the priest saw that she loved all the objects set before her to determine her future. He pronounced her capable in all areas.” Peeking out from her hiding place behind the damask curtain, Shiva silently cheered her mother on as she exposed one old woman after another for the greedy viper she was. But as time wore on, Shiva’s mother became more anxious, more fretful, not so indulgent of Shiva’s childishness. She became less critical of the women, more eager to establish a fruitful rapport. Shiva, standing behind the heavy curtain, hand over mouth, was terrorized by the thought of a new life in which she would be captive. What would she hide behind, which curtain, whose family? Her throat seized up. I can’t breathe! Throwing off the damask, she’d hurl herself into her mother’s arms, sure she was about to die... All the coughing fits in the universe could not have changed Shiva’s fate, and deep down she knew it. At each unveiling, she would do her best to discourage the bride-seeker. Her rude answers to prying questions, inexplicable memory lapses in the middle of her singing performances, the sudden physical awkwardness in her dance movements did not change the fact that she was the daughter of a wealthy man with a large dowry to give. Her parents became stricter and more unyielding to her resistance, which came to nothing in the end. Her parents didn’t really want her, it was clear, so Shiva consented to be married to a stranger called Trichur Venatesan Sambashivan, Iyer. She was fifteen years old.
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AuthorCheryl Snell is an award-winning poet and novelist, author of the new family saga Bombay Trilogy, a retelling of her previous novels Shiva's Arms, Rescuing Ranu, and Kalpavriksha. Archives
October 2020
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