Poles Apart

Chapter Thirty

"You promised!" Thathayya argues, two days later.

"You tricked me into it!" I argue back, dropping my fork into my dinner plate. Fucking bribe-pasta!

"A promise is a promise, Janaki," he argues. "What sort of a businesswoman would you make if you didn't honour your promises?"

I give him a tight-lipped smile. "The savvy sort?"

"Savvy businesspersons keep their promises," my father comments, forking some pasta into his mouth.

I look at him sharply. "You don't want me to say anything about that assumption of yours."

My mother sighs, putting her fork down. "No, he doesn't. Not if he wants to sleep tonight, he doesn't."

"Aren't you being extra snarky today?" Karthik asks, looking up from his phone.

Does no one feel the same way I do? They all want to pack up and live in that town and they're going to be happy about it? Well, maybe not pack up and go live there, but you get the drift, right?

Even Karthik, who hasn't had the time to sleep recently, is ready to go to Bramapuram because Thathayya asked.

"Aren't you too busy to have dinner?"

He rolls his eyes muttering, "she bites."

I am not a dog!

"You made a promise, Janaki, you must honour it." Thathayya is adamant that I go to his town.

"It's funny you should be the one to talk about honour when you tricked me into promising to do something you know I wouldn't want to."

"That is a savvy businessperson," Karthik comments appreciatively. His phone is now on his side with the screen turned to face the table.

I sigh, sinking onto myself. "I know I made a promise but I absolutely don't feel comfortable about this. I don't understand why you would want to go either. We're all here. Why would you want to go to Bramapuram?

"Aren't we family enough, Thathayya?" I ask in a desperate, final attempt to dissuade him. "Your brother or anyone from that family hadn't come to see you at the hospital where you'd been, for no less than five days."

"Exactly!" Rohan supports me. "I see no reason why we should go to Bramapuram."

"Rohan," my father says softly, admonishing him and then me, "Arvi."

"It's true!" I support my argument. "They'd been here for my engagement, they'd been there for Karthik's wedding, but not when Thathayya is in this hospital. No."

Thathayya stands up, causing his chair to scrape against the floor. "I asked that you go. I want you," he turns to my parents, "And Ramu and his wife to do the puja for the children, set a date for the wedding at the temple in Bramapuram as is custom for the family. I shall hear no more of this argument. Come if you want to, or don't. It's your choice now. I am going regardless of what you want!"

With an angry grunt, he marches back to his room in furious strides.

Ammamma runs after her husband like her knees are perfectly fine.

"It's not their town," my father says, referring to my grandfather's brother's family. "It's where all of your grandparents are from, where your parents— we, are from. It's our home as much as it is theirs."

My father wipes his mouth with the napkin before delivering his final monologue. "Your mother and I had been married in the same temple, our parents had been married in the same temple. We cannot have you marry in that temple because of your obvious dislike towards the place, but it is the village's tradition that the date for the wedding is fixed by the head priest in the temple. It's just a two or three-day trip. It shouldn't be too hard."