The Wedding Wallah, like my previous books, is based around a marriage bureau in South India. The bureau is run by Mr Ali, a retired Muslim civil servant, in the verandah of his house. He is a pragmatic man, who can quote the Qur’an and philosophy, while not being above the odd subterfuge to arrange matches among the sons and daughters of his clients. For unlike a dating agency in the Western world, the people who come to Mr Ali are not the young people themselves, but their parents and families. Meanwhile, his wife keeps a watchful eye on him from behind the scenes and makes sure that everything is running ship-shape.
Since my first book, The Marriage Bureau For Rich People, was published, many have asked me whether the bureau is fact or a figment of my imagination. Some have assumed that it could not be true – that Hindus would not patronize a marriage bureau run by a Muslim and that the vision of tolerance and amity among the different communities that I depict in my books is a rose-tinted fiction seen through the spectacles of homesickness and nostalgia (I am an expat Indian, based in London for the last twenty years). A few have even accused me of doing India a disservice by hiding the grim reality of communal tensions in modern India.
My marriage bureau is real, dear reader. It is run by a retired Muslim man in the verandah of his house and his clients include Hindus, Muslims and Christians. I know how the bureau works in great detail because the man is my father.
The last time I was there, just a month ago, the assistant turned up late two days in a row. My father, typically, wouldn’t say anything to her and it was my mother who tackled the situation. ‘You are not married,’ my mother said. ‘You don’t have a husband to cook for or children to get ready for school. What excuse can you have for not coming to work on time?’
The assistant mumbled an apology and was punctual from the next day. Crisis averted.
One afternoon I was in the front yard, feeding grain to my father’s pet rooster (a new addition, otherwise it would have been in the book!), when a young man with a paunch and high-soled leather shoes walked into the marriage bureau. He had a carrying voice that’s so annoying in open-plan offices and railway carriages. I could hear him easily over the noise of the traffic on the road outside. ‘I am 5’6” tall,’ he said. ‘But in your list you’ve put me down as 5’5”. I want you to correct it immediately and call up these people – he had a list – to tell them my correct height.’
My father agreed immediately, but the client repeated the sentence another three times before he was satisfied.
The next day I was introduced to a client – the ex-principal of a well-known college in town. Let’s call him Mr Krishna. My father’s letters appear regularly in all the newspapers in town and Mr Krishna always called my father to congratulate him whenever a letter was published. He had thus gone from being a mere client to a friend. He was a well-read and cultured man and also rich. He had one daughter and my father had found a match for her. The talks had gone well and both parties liked each other and then came a snag. His daughter was adopted and the groom’s family wanted to know who the natural parents of the girl were and which caste they belonged to.
Mr Krishna refused. She is my daughter, he said, and that should be enough for anybody.
A marriage bureau is a great place to study human nature – and base a book, or three, in. Farahad Zama’s The Wedding Wallah is published today.
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