It was the cocktail party for my half-sister’s big Indian wedding. The DJ’s music was deafeningly loud as people danced on the checkerboard of pulsing neon tiles. I was dancing with my father.
The wedding itself was a multi-day affair… a hodge-podge of east and west traditions mixed in. We were on the 3rd day; the day before the actual wedding. We had congregated early morning at my father’s residence to partake in the traditional “Huldi” ceremony, Huldi meaning turmeric is a ritual in which gods & ancestors are invoked, and the bride is bathed in turmeric to prepare for her new life. We were all dressed in bright yellow clothes for the Huldi ceremony; men in long shirts & pants, women in saris, I was the exception in wearing a long yellow dress. The ceremony began two hours late — as things do in India — and was followed by another version in the afternoon staged for photographers. Even blessings, apparently, need good lighting!
The second “made for reels” Huldi ceremony was to be followed by “Mehndi” or “Heena” for the ladies – where everyone except the bride, her mother and me – her half-sister were going to get their hands painted. Our Mehndi ceremony had already taken place the day prior to Huldi; which was the day I visited my father’s home for the first time in 16 years. My sister’s untimely death to cancer in 2009 and my subsequent decision to return to my life in America had estranged my father and me; our relationship already strained by the death of my mother many years prior & the presence of my fairytale step-mother. The years had seen us moving away from each other, and my father who holds loyalty in the highest regard saw – my return to America, my refusal to revisit his apartment where my mother and sister died, my rejection of a traditional Indian wedding for me & Mark – all of it he saw as betrayal. He could never see my heartache and even though I saw some of his I couldn’t choose differently. In the dance of life, my father and I have always been out of step.
But this trip was different. This time I was visiting because my father had asked me to attend the wedding of his & my step-mother’s daughter. In a country as conservative & family-oriented as India, who shows up to a wedding is a declaration. Many of his close relatives including his brother had chosen not to attend. Too many family feuds to explain. After my father’s refusal to meet me in 2020 (my last visit to India) over an old grievance dressed up as a new one, he and his wife likely expected me to reject their invitation too. Yet I had shown up without question or complaint, and had fully immersed myself in their festivities – at 78 my father was experiencing the first & only wedding of a daughter, and so was my step-mother – the last thing I was going to do was make it about myself. When I met my step mother at their new house the day prior, seeing her after almost a decade, I surprised her with an unexpectedly warm hug and congratulated her for the big event. And in that moment, I had a distinct feeling that her aggression towards me left her body. There was no big emotional moment for us, but I think the proverbial hatchet between us was buried that day. With my father I was also processing an emotional thawing.
After Huldi and Mehndi came the cocktail party in the evening. The almost bride and groom had just cut an elaborate cake and dancing had begun on the checkerboard of pulsing neon tiles. The music was deafeningly loud. I was sitting back enjoying the party when I saw my father step on the dance floor, in a flash I was on the dance floor too, dancing in celebration of this precious family moment – knowing fully well that nothing was ever going to be really fixed – in a past as fractured as ours, in a family as fractured as ours, in a life as fractured as mine. But for that moment it didn’t matter to me, I was dancing like I belonged. And in the next moment, my feet slipped sideways, my knee twisted, and before I could process it, bang – I fell on my left knee. I vaguely remember voices speaking to me as I sat still, frozen. I knew something was very wrong and I didn’t dare move when suddenly a pair of arms bent down, swooped me up, carried me away from the dance floor, and set me down safely on the sofa. It was Mark – of course – who else.
I didn’t know it at the time but I had torn my ACL and that it would require surgery. All I knew then I had not broken any bones so with the help of much ice & a sports injury cream, I continued through the rest of the wedding and my trip on that knee holding on to Mark’s hand, standing at the side of my father, paying back my dues as a daughter & an elder sister. I returned home to America on Sunday.
I think what happened was a fitting end to this story. In a room full of relatives who have never and will never understand me, in a family system that has always destabilized me, in a country that may have birthed me but to which I have always been an immigrant, the person who claimed me & lifted me up was the one I chose myself for my life. There have been many times before in India when I fell alone but this time I didn’t have to get up alone. In the family that made me, I fell. The family I chose carried me out. And in the middle of my father’s story, I was carried back into mine.
Swati Srivastava is an immigrant and a multi award-winning writer, director, and voiceover artist. A filmmaker & storyteller, Swati turns ideas into experience. She it the Co-Chair for Braver Angels Long Island and a trained facilitator for Crossing Party Lines moderating conversations that bring people together across their political divides. Swati is also an environmentalist and lives in a Net Zero Energy home with her husband. She can be reached via Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com