Free House of Cards by Sudha Murty Page A

Shankar and Lakshmi for a walk around the village. They were uncomfortable with his local Kannada. They had never heard such a version of Kannada before. Bheemanna, however, talked to them easily and kept the conversation going. Whenever Bheemanna met someone during their walk, he would say, ‘This is Mr Shankar Rao. His brother-in-law is a doctor in Bombay. They have come here for marriage negotiations.’
    Shankar found his openness very insensitive. He gathered that Bheemanna was an important man in the village. He had enough money in the bank and owned a lot of land. But Shankar did not understand why Bheemanna was giving away his beautiful daughter to a handicapped man. He became jealous. In his marriage, Shankar had only got a beautiful wife, but Sanjay was lucky enough to have found a good girl and a rich father-in-law. However, Shankar was disappointed when he saw Bheemanna’s ill-equipped house. He thought of his house in Belur that had all the modern appliances—though most of them were bought on instalments. Almost 70 per cent of Shankar’s salary was spent in repaying these loans. By the time one was paid off, Lakshmi thought of something else to buy. Her demands were never-ending. She was always competing with the members of her ladies’ club. These days, she was insisting that he take a new loan and buy a second-hand car. Shankar thought, ‘If I had money like Bheemanna, I would have bought a Mercedes-Benz and a three-storey building in Hubli.’
    He pitied Bheemanna for not enjoying life’s luxuries. But one thing was apparent—Sanjay had made quite a catch.

    Rukuma went inside the kitchen to finish the preparations for lunch. Mridula started talking to Lakshmi: ‘Can I call you “Sister”? You are older than me.’
    Lakshmi found it strange and foolish. Even after many years of marriage, she didn’t consider herself to be a part of her husband’s family. She had never called her sisters-in-law ‘Sister’. She saw them as competitors. Her mother had never advised her on what to expect from her in-laws or how to behave with them. She had suffered humiliation, encountered jealousy and shrewdness in the joint family. She had learnt how to survive through her own experiences.
    Lakshmi pitied Mridula because she had never seen the real world where you rarely come across genuine love and affection. She smartly said, ‘Sure, Mridula, you can call me Akka.’
    Then, she asked her, ‘Mridula, where did you meet Sanjay for the first time?’
    As expected, Mridula did not hide anything and told her the whole story in detail.
    By then, it was time for lunch. There were around fifty guests and hardly anyone was related to Bheemanna’s family. The only relatives were Rukuma’s brother Satyabodha, his wife and their two children. Sarla was still unemployed and Satish was a lecturer at Hubli College after having completed his master’s in mathematics. The four young cousins were around the same age and very close. Lakshmi found it most unusual that there was no competition among the cousins.
    By the time lunch ended, the shrewd couple realized that they would be given whatever they asked for. When they sat down to talk after lunch, there was no negotiation at all. Shankar was very clever in putting across his demands; Sanjay had already requested them not to talk about money. So he said, ‘We don’t need money, nor are we interested in it. But we want a grand wedding. You can give Sanjay whatever is usually given to the groom.’

    Bheemanna did not understand the words ‘whatever is usually given to the groom’. So he said, ‘Please explain. I don’t understand.’
    ‘Oh! It is our custom that the boy gets suits, silver vessels for the entire kitchen, a silver puja set, saris for all the women and shirts and trousers for all the men, a gold chain, a watch, a ring …’ Shankar’s voice trailed off.
    Bheemanna quietly said, ‘That’s not a problem.’
    Rukuma wanted to ask, ‘And what will you