A Breath of Fresh Air Read Online Free Page B

Babli was Divya Auntie’s two-year-old granddaughter. “You should come, Anjali.”
    The army officer was going to be there and I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. “I will,” I said, biting my lips to stop them from curling into a smile.
    “Go early,” my mother suggested casually. “You can help Divya Auntie in the kitchen.”
    I nodded and raced upstairs to my room. I sat down on my bed, heart thumping. He looked like Dev Anand, I thought to myself, as a crazy excitement ripped through me. I was going to be married to an army officer and we would have parties and places to go. And I would have a handsome husband; it was the best thing that could ever happen to me.
    Since I had finished my B.A. in English Literature, I wanted to hurry up and get married. Not getting married soon meant that I would have to go to the university to do a master’s. My parents had been quite clear about that. I had to at least be “B.A. pass” to get a decent husband, and if I didn’t get married a year after I finished the three-year course, I would have to do a master’s in a subject of my choice.
    “Your chances will be better with an M.A.,” Mummy would say. “Better the education, better the husband.”
    Although that was not always true. Sometimes the girl was too educated and too smart and too independent and she never found a good husband. Men were not interested in a career woman; they wanted a wife, a lady, not some mannish woman who wanted to compete with them.
    And I didn’t want to study anymore, I wanted to have fun—and what could be more fun than marrying an army officer?
    I started to plan the wedding. I knew my friends would be horribly jealous, but then all of them were not fortunate enough to have my good looks. Even though I told everyone that I didn’t think I was pretty, I knew otherwise.
    I stood in front of the mirror primping my hair. My hair fell straight to my waist and shined if I washed it with the expensive shampoo. I would do that tomorrow, I thought happily and then turned around to open my closet. I went through the hangers, looking for the right sari to wear. There was the yellow silk one with the red border, but that made me look old. It was heavy with gold embroidery and old-fashioned sari-border work. There was the black one with the small golden flowers, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Mummy would never agree to a black sari. She would ask me, “Who died?”
    I fingered through silk and cotton and finally came upon the sari my grandmother had given to me on my eighteenth birthday. It was ivory silk with tiny blue and gold flowers, and it had a thin dark blue and gold border. I had the perfect blue silk blouse to go with it. It had a low back and made me look sexy. I couldn’t wait to enchant my army officer.
    The next day I spent hours on my hair, straightening it in the sun as I dried it painstakingly with a thick black comb. I ran the comb through my hair more than a hundred times, while I let the sun seep into the silky strands to remove the moisture from them. My mother came to my room and saw the sari and nodded approvingly. But her face fell with dismay when she saw the blouse.
    “No, you can’t wear that blouse,” she said, horrified that some of my back would be bare.
    Didn’t she understand? He was an army officer. He was used to seeing modern women, and I needed to look like one to attract his attention.
    “This is how they dress these days, Mummy,” I said airily. “I like this blouse. It makes me look modern.”
    Mummy was of course displeased, but she understood that an army officer would want a fashionable wife and she agreed grudgingly to let me wear the blouse.
    She lent me her prized pearl necklace and earrings for the occasion. We both knew why I was dressing up for the birthday party of a two-year-old, but we didn’t say anything. It was understood that these things were better left unsaid, in case the match didn’t work out.
    I looked