October 1913

Nimble fingers pressed her scalp, parting waves of oiled hair.

Sarso and neem boiled in an iron pot was a homemade specialty, passed down by generations of women before her mother. It was the combination responsible for Maya's waist length hair her Amma was busy braiding. A single plait was a rarity, it made her feel older than her twelve years. Maya never wore her hair like that but today she was being presented as a young maiden, not a child with ribbon-tied pigtails.

No one married a girl with two braids.

Amma removed her chunky silver bracelets, slipping delicate bangles in their place. Two thin gold bangles sandwiched four green glass ones on each wrist. Maya held her hand palm up, watching them slide, clinking as they stacked over each other, soothing like the small temple bells of her village's Hanuman shrine. Similar chimes sounded from silver payals draped over her ankles when she twirled for her mother, yellow lehenga flaring around her. Amma smudged some kajal from her own eye on her ring finger, applying a black dot behind Maya's ear before adjusting her plait again.

Thin lips kissed the spot above her bindi and Maya saw her eyes were glistening.

"I won't leave right away Amma," Maya said, reassuring herself more than her mother. "Pitaji promised I won't leave unless Ashok passes his matric exam."

"Your leaving is not in your father's hands, Bade Babu would decide that." Amma grabbed her chin, jerking her head up. "And don't utter your husband's name."

"He's not my husband yet."

"Still, don't take his name in front of Savitri. Or ever."

"But he's Ashok!" While she had been preparing all her life for this, Maya found it hard to suddenly start seeing her big brother's sidekick with any respect, let alone spousal reverence.

She had grown up seeing Ashok trailing her brother. He partnered with Manoj Bhaiya in their early days at the Akhara despite being pathetic at wrestling. After her brother moved to more competent matches, Ashok continued hovering around, pinching bottles of milk from his own house for Bhaiya, shaving and repairing his wooden maces, marking makeshift rings in their courtyard for Bhaiya to practice.

Even outside wrestling, Maya always saw Ashok doing her brother's unspoken bidding. Washing his slate when they were in primary and Maya almost three, carrying his books when they were in secondary and Maya in primary, arranging his timetable when they sat for their first matric attempt and Maya's father pulled her out of school.

She did not know how her brother managed all alone. They were supposed to go to university together, but Ashok was held back after failing to clear the matric. And then again, and again. Seeing him wander around the village without her brother was an odd sight, and even after two years Maya hadn't gotten used to it.

"Hush now!" her mother snapped, shaking her shoulders. "I raised you better than this."

Swallowing her protest, Maya nodded. Frown lines on her mother's forehead smoothed, her lips twitching in a tender smile. "Good. Now wait here till I come and get you. Savitri said she'll arrive straight from the temple, after the evening aarti is over."

As if on cue, voices floated in from the veranda. Pitaji greeted the guests calmly. Manoj Bhaiya, home for the holidays, imitated their father in his deep, gruff mumble. Maya flinched when she heard an unfamiliar laugh—loud and domineering—sucking all air from their house. It was the laugh of a man who had never found cause to cry in his life, who was angry when not laughing. Maya supposed it was a good sign he was laughing.

"Bade Babu," Amma muttered, her skin a bit paler than before, frown lines appearing again. "Savitri didn't say he was coming too. Stay here." Pulling her pallu over her eyes, her mother ducked out of the room, stepping into their small veranda.

The curtain swayed behind her mother after she left. Through the slit, Maya saw the whisp of white and gold of her brother's new kurta, his voice explaining his schedule at university. Bhaiya faltered at the same time a flash of orange from her mother's sari blocked him from Maya's line of sight. Amma's greeting was too soft to reach Maya.

She hadn't heard Ashok and wondered if he had accompanied his parents. Probably not. Bade Babu would never allow the groom to step inside her house, even if said groom had practically grown up in her backyard.

Maya itched to get closer to the door, to push aside the curtain and peek out at the crowded veranda. But she knew better than inviting the wrath of her mother, or worse, Bade Babu. He hated insolent women, and it wasn't proper to show her face to her father in-law before marriage.

That fear was enough to keep her planted on her brother's thin, single bed. His room was the farthest from the veranda, so her mother had deemed it appropriate to hide Maya in while the elders made decisions. Maya was supposed to wait until her mother called for her.

Or at least that was the plan until Bade Babu decided to accompany Savitri Mausi. His zamindari position made him the entire village's patriarch, and the employer of a good chuck of villagers, including Maya's father who was their accountant. He was rarely seen with Savitri Mausi out in public since he married her, a year before Maya was born.

Savitri Mausi was Ashok's stepmother and almost two decades younger than Bade Babu, around Amma's age of thirty-five. While she didn't have any kids of her own, she had settled comfortably in her role of being the village's matriarch—planning annual festivities, leading bhajan singing in the temple every Tuesday, and inviting all married women over to her big haveli every Teej. Maya had never really spoken to Savitri Mausi, only glanced shyly at her from behind her mother's sari whenever she visited their home. Amma, on the other hand, held her in such high esteem it bordered on veneration.

Now she didn't know whether she'd even have to present herself. Perhaps not. The thought should not have made her more anxious. Everyone told her she was old enough to be married, yet no one told her what exactly she needed to do while getting married, or even after.

The curtain flicked aside as her Amma reentered the room, followed closely by Savitri Mausi. Maya stood up, her gaze immediately sticking to the woman's feet. They were beautiful feet, sandaled and uncracked, flaunting clean, shiny silver toe-rings on every toe except the thumb and pinky. Deep red aalta stained her soles, a luxury Amma couldn't afford anymore. In contrast to her pretty feet, her mother's bare ones—dark, unstained and scarred—with only a single pair of rusted rings on each long toe, looked pitiful.

She dared a glance at her future mother-in-law and almost gasped. Her face was even more beautiful than her feet. Dusky and sharp-featured, with shapely eyebrows, hooded dark eyes, and a big regal forehead adorned with a long bindi, her face didn't carry any of the frown lines her mother had. Maya remembered overhearing Amma tell Pitaji that Savitri Mausi bathed in milk twice a week, which is why she always shone.

Maya knew she had to impress this woman if she never wanted to look like her mother.

Long, thin fingers grabbed her jaw in the same way Amma had before. Nails dug into her chin cleft as Savitri Mausi's eyes roved over her face. "She has nice features, proportionate, and I can't see any squint. The last girl we saw had a squint."

There had been no last girl. Maya knew that for sure. Bade Babu had promised Ashok's hand to her father years ago. Yet the mention of any other match terrified her. This was the only purpose of her life, and Maya couldn't afford to fail.

"No, no! My Maya was born with big, light brown eyes. They were almost green when she was a baby, I remember, and always so observant. She was the wisest baby I'd ever seen. Now they've darkened a lot."

Maya wasn't sure if that was true. Her mother had never mentioned Maya having green eyes as a baby. For as long as she remembered, her reflection always showed dark brown, almost black irises.

"Thin shoulders though," Mausi said, continuing the examination. "Can they carry the weight of a child? It's hard for thin-shouldered women, my own sister struggled a lot with her pregnancies."

"I'm sure they will develop with time—"

"Have you started yet?" Savitri Mausi asked, directly addressing Maya for the first time.

"Started? Started what?"

"So, no?" She pursed her plump lips. "That's odd, you're almost thirteen. I started at ten, my sister at eleven."

"It just runs late in our family, and Maya turned twelve only last week. I'm sure she'll start in a few months. I had my first one at fourteen too! It didn't pose any problems, Manoj was born two years later and I didn't struggle at all while carrying him..."

Her mother was blabbering, and Maya didn't understand a word of it. What were they talking about? What was she supposed to start? She had started cooking—she knew how to make rice and all kinds of dishes, though rotis were still a struggle. Maybe she needed to start making round rotis to feed herself while pregnant. Maybe that was a nourishment skill mothers needed to have. She opened her mouth to assure them she'll start learning soon when Savitri Mausi spoke again, releasing her chin as she took a step back.

"Well, I hope you're right, for Maya's sake. I wouldn't wish otherwise upon any woman." Her eyes dimmed, voice catching slightly before she cleared her throat. "Until she starts, you can work on her height. Drink two glasses of milk everyday Maya, okay? I'll send it from tomorrow. Although you are already quite tall."

That she was. She was taller than her mother and just an inch shorter than Savitri Mausi. A little over five four, she remembered from the faded scale drawn on her school's wall. Though she had last noted her height two years ago, when she still attended school.

"We get milk in our house," her mother said, in a tone betraying dented pride. "Manoj needs it for training and Maya does drink milk twice a day."

This time, Maya was sure her mother was lying. She only drank milk when Manoj Bhaiya offered her half of his share. And ever since he had left for university, those treats had stopped too.

"Still, I will feel much better if I send over some, along with some fruits. Just to build her strength a little hmm?" Savitri Mausi tilted her head, and Maya feared she had caught onto her mother's lie too. "Consider it the first gift from her in-laws." She grasped Amma's hands in both her own. "Your daughter is lovely. I've always wanted a girl like her, and I can't wait to take Maya home."

~.~

a/n 

I'm tired all the time and am addicted to the new (for me, I've not published anything since this feature came up) feature of Wattpad of scheduling chapters to go up. Also, this book may be similar to Bhabra in terms of vibes and aesthetics but the core of the story and themes are different.