A Good Indian Wife: A Novel Read Online Free

please to go now and do your homework by yourself. Leila, you must to pay attention,” Amma commanded as soon as Kila left the room. “Indira, put that paper away.” Amma used the ends of her pallao to wipe the sweat off her glasses.
    Indy reluctantly gave up solving the chess problem and folded the newspaper. In the humidity, her hair stuck out like a halo and she constantly fought its waywardness, hands smoothing the serrated mess, trying to flatten it against her head. Now the two sisters grimaced at each other.
    “Mrs. Rajan herself came this morning. Her nephew is coming from Ahmerica in two weeks and the family wants for him to see you,” Amma told Leila triumphantly. She emphasized that the request came directly from the boy’s family.
    “What is he, a fourth-time-tried-but-failed PhD?” Indy inquired sarcastically. The last proposal was from a man living in Dallas who had failed to get his Physical Therapy license for the fourth time. He had kept Amma and Leila on tenterhooks for a week. Amma went to the Temple every day, making pujas so he would say yes. Leila prayed silently that he would not. Indy sided with Leila. She could not picture Leila, with her fish-shaped eyes, even pomegranate teeth, and soft, straight hair, married to a man with cratered skin who made smacking sounds when chewing his food. Leila did want to marry; she just didn’t want to be ashamed of her husband. She wasn’t like some girls who didn’t care who they married as long as they acquired the “Mrs.” label. But she knew that if the man agreed, Amma would force her into the marriage. Afterwards, the sisters had laughed in relief at his put-on American accent and cowboy hat that had got stuck in their low, narrow doorway.
    “Indira, please, just because of only one man. No, no, Mrs. Rajan’s nephew is a doctor. He came first in his class from some virry good college. Sanford, Sunford, something like that. He owns his own house, a big one, in a virry good locality, and Mrs. Rajan says he works for some famous-famous hospital in San Frahncisco.”
    “So what’s wrong with him?” Indy asked.
    “Amma, do they know we can’t afford a dowry?” Leila asked at the same time.
    Amma glared at Indira. “There is nothing at all wrong with him. You will to see for yourself. I saw him at Raju’s wedding. That was what, three years ago? He is tall and virry handsome.”
    “Amma, you haven’t answered my question,” Leila said. She was tired of men who assumed that her family, once rich but now only “good,” could somehow still come up with the requisite rupees.
    “Yes, yes, Leila, the family knows our situation. Mrs. Rajan came out herself and said they do not want a dowry. They want only a good girl. Her doctor nephew makes enough of money. Why does he need Indian rupees?”
    “When is this to be?” Leila asked, resigned to yet another rejection. She wondered why the Saraths wanted their son to see her. Men from America were the ultimate sons-in-law, fought over by the mothers of every nubile girl. She had always assumed she would be part of that group of desirable girls, a logical progression for someone popular in school and college. She had been known as pretty and clever, admired because the Anglo-Indian girls asked her to help them write love letters to their boyfriends, imitated because she often wore her straight hair in fashions that were almost Western. But once even the ugly girls got married, she had become the object of whispered conversations. People cruelly—and correctly—deduced she taught English only because she wasn’t married. Everyone knew that colleges hired single women as cheap labor. Most girls’ colleges had a constellation of aging, anxious women who had been forced to make teaching their career because the “Mrs.” career, the one they really wanted, had bypassed them.
    “He is to come next Sunday. Only two days after he arrives,” Amma said with great satisfaction.
    Leila was surprised that