Everything's Official About This

***

The goldsmith was playing his favourite game. Guessing who his customer was from the order that he had placed. This one, he said to himself, was middle-class. He had wanted something showy and elaborate (at a discount). The rich usually played it simple, deceptively so. The designs they chose were stark but set off by ridiculously expensive stones. 

The choice of stones also told the goldsmith a great deal about his customers. The middle-class was fond of sapphires and emeralds. Still hungover from the colonial period, the goldsmith laughed. In those days when there were still women around, the goldsmith had hardly seen any with eyes of such colour. The goldsmith was very old (he had stopped counting the years after sixty) but his memory was unfailing. There had been a girl with light brown eyes in his street but other than her, every other woman had had dark eyes. The goldsmith thought of her wistfully.

He studied the sketch of the woman given to him. Invariably, the middle-class chose the image of an actress and he was proved right this time as well. He had forged this woman from the fire several times for many bashful grooms. With slight differences in specifications, of course. Some wanted her with long hair, some with short. A few fancy ones even wanted a fringe, the goldsmith snorted. 

The goldsmith’s wife (he had made her with his own hands but she had been paid for by his father-in-law as was the custom) was made in the image of the girl with the light brown eyes. He had loved her desperately but she hadn’t even known he existed. She had married some man and left his village. A pathetic teenage sob story, the goldsmith smiled to himself. Except, he hadn’t been a teenager then. The world hadn’t stopped for his tears and the years had rolled by with indifference. Till it was too late for love. 

The goldsmith shook his head and the memories fell away like drops of water. He looked at the chest of gold ornaments that his customer had given him. Some of them were truly exquisite, he thought, holding a necklace to the light. Who had worn this once? His mother? Or maybe a beloved aunt? 

The goldsmith hated this part. Melting the work of older craftsmen. But he had a job to do and sentimentalism would get him nowhere. The wedding was only a week away and it was in the goldsmith’s hands to deliver the bride, well within time. 

***

The bachelor’s bachelor party was over. To be honest, it was quite lame as bachelor parties go. In fact, it was quite lame by the standards of any party. All that they had done was get drunk and tell each other dirty jokes that were not even funny. Or even dirty for that matter.

The only married man in the group had repeatedly thumped the bachelor’s back and told him that he would have to buy sanitary pads along with the monthly provisions from now on. For some reason the bachelor couldn’t care enough to understand, the married man found this to be hilarious.

Now they were all gone (and it wasn’t even midnight) and the bachelor was alone at his bachelor pad. His last night of peace, his friends had assured him. From tomorrow,he would be a slave to his wife. Buying groceries and jewelry (and sanitary pads, the married man reminded him). The bachelor sighed and tried to recollect the bride’s face. His bride’s face. He had seen her only once and the lasting impression had been that of the bovine.

Her mother had assured him earnestly that she had absolutely no interests in life. She would therefore make an ideal wife, a woman who thought of the hearth and his stomach always. The bachelor had wondered then if he was making a huge mistake. He liked a woman with a personality (his first girlfriend had, in fact, had too much personality – she had even slapped him once). But he did not have a choice.

The bachelor’s mother had died last year. In the beginning, the bachelor had celebrated this by eating all his meals at fast food joints. His father had died of jaundice a decade ago and his mother would bore him to tears (with her tears) if he ever ate out. But slowly, his stomach began to rebel. A soft paunch bloomed above his belt. His skin took on an oily, unhealthy pallor. And before he knew it, the face that looked back at him from the mirror belonged to that uneasy limbo land of the middle-aged. 

The last straw had been a bout of food poisoning that had kept him at the hospital for a week. The bachelor had dreamt of yellow dragons with his father’s head that spoke to him in his mother’s voice. She urged him to get married with tears in her eyes. The bachelor would have laughed at this rather cinematic exhibition if he hadn’t been so terrified. 

He had spoken to his uncle the next day and hinted at marriage. And before he knew it, the ideal girl was before him. She was from a small town and the bachelor was thankful for that. City girls were high maintenance and the bachelor was loath to add to his already mounting bills. ( He looked forward to repaying his car loan with the money she would bring. )

The girl had asked him for permission to work after marriage (through her brother, a fellow with buck teeth) but the bachelor had said no. She was unlikely to get a half-way decent job with her pathetic BA in History and the bachelor did not cherish the thought of his wife being a clerk in some moth-eaten office. 

The practical way in which he went about his wedding made the bachelor weep. When he was younger, he had dreamt of falling in love with a blonde woman named Sasha. And now, all that throbbed in his heart was a vague sense of loss. He looked at the wall clock, counting the minutes to midnight. His last hour of independence.