Tulsi Vivah Read online

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  Acknowledgments

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  By Anna Kaling

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  Tulsi Vivah

  By Anna Kaling

  The festival of Tulsi Vivah ushers in the Hindu wedding season and tears away the love of Kristopher’s life. Three years of passion and tenderness are reduced to a shameful skeleton in the closet as Arjuna submits to the marriage his parents have arranged for him. His family has never even heard Kristopher’s name.

  The festival, a ritualistic wedding between the holy basil plant, Tulsi, and her eternal lover, Vishnu, is as much of a play-act as Arjuna’s upcoming nuptials, but he believes the wedding will honor his parents and please Vishnu. So why is his Tulsi plant—whose leaves heal and bless the devout, who is Vishnu’s representative on earth—dying? Arjuna tends to her with all the care of a concerned parent, but it might take more than his devotion to save her. She might need Kris, with his clever green-fingers—and maybe a revived Tulsi can heal two hearts.

  To my mum, even though she’ll never read my work because “Too much sex and swearing.”

  Acknowledgments

  THANK YOU to Jackee, Kate, Kim, and Matthew for your help and encouragement while I was writing this. Thanks to Charlie and Pepper for sitting on me while I was writing this and for meowing loudly when I needed to concentrate.

  KRISTOPHER PACED the corridor outside his boyfriend’s flat and muttered, “Come on, come on, come on.”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot and tried to think of dry things. The Sahara. Cracked earth. His Aunt Margaret.

  It wasn’t working. His gaze drifted to a potted flamingo lily underneath the window, and he bit his lip. The soil did look a little dry….

  No. The resulting pH imbalance could be fatal, and the plant had been a gift from him to Arjuna.

  So he carried on pacing and tried to channel his desperation into telepathy. Come home… come home… open the damn door.

  He really should have answered Nature’s call before he left work, but he wanted to catch the early TrainLink. Apparently, everybody else in New South Wales had the same idea. The train, so overcrowded he could barely breathe in the humid November air, had stood still on the tracks for an hour while a fallen tree was removed from the line and Kris’s bladder expanded like an overfilled condom.

  Bad train of thought. Dust, sand, Aunt Margaret….

  “Why won’t you give me a key?” he groaned and pressed his palms on Arjuna’s door as if the wood would bend to his will like some kind of Harry Potter portal that led to a realm of bathrooms.

  Footsteps sounded from the stairs at the end of the hall. Magic was real.

  Arjuna emerged from the stairwell, wearing so many layers he looked like the Hulk after a crash diet. He had a metal tin jammed under one arm as he tried to maneuver a gloved hand into his pocket.

  Kris danced on the spot and watched Arjuna fumble, with a mixture of frustration and fondness. Australia’s weather was one of the reasons Kris had deserted England a decade ago, but Arjuna, whose parents had settled when he was a toddler, seemed to think he’d been exiled to the Arctic. “You know it’s nearly summer, right?”

  Arjuna’s head snapped up and he dropped the tin. It landed with a thump and rolled across the carpet to nudge Kris’s shoe.

  “Ghee?” Kris picked up the tin and felt his mood lift. “Does this mean you’re cooking something bad for my arteries?”

  Arjuna slapped his forehead. “I forgot you’d be waiting. I was halfway through dinner prep when I realized I’d forgotten to buy ghee, so I went out for some.”

  Kris stopped dancing and stared. “What?”

  “What what?”

  “You forgot?”

  “Yes. Stop staring. I said I forgot, not that I’d slept with your sister.”

  “You wouldn’t joke about that if you’d seen my sister.” Kris frowned. “You don’t forget things, Arjuna. I forget things. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m only human.” Arjuna retrieved his keys and moved toward the door. Under the fluorescent light, a streak of white powder glinted in his hair. Kris would’ve been worried if he hadn’t caught the faint scent of dough. No, scratch that, he was worried. Arjuna, forgetful and not pristine?

  “Something’s up.”

  Arjuna turned as Kris ruffled the flour out of his hair, and a fine mist floated past his deep brown eyes.

  Kris leaned in for a kiss, but then a lock clicked in the background, and suddenly he was kissing the air, and Arjuna was backing away like Kris was a Venus flytrap. Kris stumbled across the hall as Arjuna’s neighbor opened her door. He grabbed the frame to stop himself lurching into her flat and shouted, “Shit!”

  Two small children inside the flat gaped at him in wide-eyed horror. Their mother threw out an arm and pushed them behind her.

  “Sorry.” Kris shot a glare at Arjuna, but those brown eyes were round in a deer-in-the-headlights sort of way. How could Kris be angry with a deer? He gritted his teeth and turned back to the neighbor. “Don’t be scared. I’m not trying to break in. Just, uh, had too much to drink.”

  She made a point of looking at a clock mounted on the wall and pressed her lips together.

  “As you were.” Kris stepped out of the doorway and gestured for her to continue on her way. When the children left the flat, she planted herself between them and Kris, as if he might attack at any moment. The children snuck glances at him over their shoulders, then gasped and looked away when he made eye contact.

  Arjuna avoided his eyes too.

  “Mummy, what’s wrong with that man?” said a high-pitched voice, as the family’s footsteps retreated down the stairs. The reply wasn’t audible.

  Kris raised his eyebrows at Arjuna. “Well. I’ll be forever known as the child-snatching alcoholic of eastern Australia, but at least the neighbors still think you’re a good little straight boy, eh?”

  Arjuna grimaced and fumbled for his keys. “I’m making palak paneer and sultani dal,” he offered.

  Kris’s stomach urged him to grant complete and final forgiveness. “Not fair. You deserve me being angry with you for at least five minutes.”

  “And chapathis. With ghee.”

  “You know I’ve been out here over twenty minutes because you’re too paranoid to give me a key, and I really, really need to pee?” Now that he’d acknowledged it, his bladder suddenly felt like a watermelon. “Seriously. Hurry.”

  The door opened, and Kris darted for the bathroom.

  He tried to release his humiliation and frustration along with everything else. It wasn’t Arjuna’s fault that he’d had a crappy day. Okay, it was Arjuna’s fault he’d had to sneak around for years and pretend to the neighbors he was some kind of really persistent Jehovah’s Witness, but he’d known that would be the deal from the start. Arjuna had never lied to him or made false promises, and Kris had accepted the deal. Nobody else was to blame for the decisions he’d made.

  Not that he had chosen to fall in love any more than he chose to miss a breath when Arjuna kissed the hollow of his shoulder.

  Plus, he really did love palak paneer.

  Arjuna’s shout drifted into the bathroom. “There are gulab jamuns for dessert. With extra golden syrup.”

  Kris swallowed several times and yelled back, “I had the day from hell at work, and then my boyfriend rejected me.”

  He turned off the tap and opened the door.

  Arjuna stood in front of the coatrack, eyes reproachful. “I did not. I delayed your gratification.” He put his arms around Kris’s neck and kissed him, stroking the stubborn stubble on his jaw a
nd letting his fingers drift into the hollow of his collarbone.

  The scent of chickpea flour drifted into Kris’s nose, and he was home.

  Kris leaned his forehead on Arjuna’s. “Apology accepted.”

  “Dinner will be ready in fifteen. Take off your shoes or you don’t get fed.”

  “Yes, Mum.” Kris hadn’t understood the whole feet-are-dirty-and-shoes-are-unspeakable thing when he first met Arjuna, but he had to admit it felt weird wearing shoes inside now. He’d had to invest in much nicer socks, but he didn’t have to clean his floors as often, so overall it was a win.

  The sweet smell of ghee led to the kitchen, where Arjuna was rolling dough into perfect spheres with the casual, efficient movements born from years of mastery.

  Kris put a hand on Arjuna’s back, sniffed at the assortment of pans on the stove, then ran his hand down to Arjuna’s butt—partly because it looked inviting in the black trousers with their ironed pleats, but mostly because it would make him smile when Arjuna batted him away and told him sternly that the dal would overboil.

  Instead, Arjuna turned to lean his head on Kris’s shoulder and wrapped him in a hug. His mouth burrowed into the dip of Kris’s collarbone, but along with the warm fuzzies, Kris felt another pang of anxiety.

  “Everything’s okay at work, isn’t it?”

  “What? Yes.” Arjuna stayed there a moment, then nudged Kris away and turned back to the stove.

  “Your….” Kris shut his mouth, but it was too late now. “Your mum?”

  Arjuna stiffened, and his hand froze on the wooden spoon, then gripped it hard and continued stirring.

  “The chemo hasn’t worked.” There was no expression in Arjuna’s voice. “Her consultant is looking at other options.”

  Shit. Kris sank into a teak chair at the kitchen table and cursed his mouth. “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. Tell me what was so bad about your day. Did that guy come in and ‘water’ the peace lilies again?”

  “Nope. I swapped them for a display of cacti, and I think he got the message.”

  “So what, then?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me.”

  Kris scrambled for a lie, something plausible that wouldn’t make Arjuna feel even worse. But they had promised, long ago, that they would always be honest with each other, even if they had to lie to the outside world.

  “The Christmas party invites went out,” he said finally. “We’re having a Hawaiian luau on the beach, and it’s all anyone could talk about all day. I’m the only one going without a partner, except for Geoff. You know, the one with halitosis that could kill a rhino at fifty paces.”

  Arjuna rolled out a ball of chapathi dough into a perfect disk and didn’t answer.

  “Can’t we go?” said Kris, trying to sound casual.

  “Kris.”

  “Come on. What’s the risk? None of them know you. We can be a normal couple, just for one evening. Just a few hours. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “It’s not all you’re asking.”

  “But—”

  “Stop. We agreed to stop talking about this.”

  “Don’t make it sound like I had any say in the decision.”

  Arjuna didn’t reply, and Kris let his head fall back against the wall. There was no point rehashing the same old argument, especially when Arjuna was upset about other things.

  So he watched Arjuna cook, breathed in the scents of cumin and curry leaves, and told himself the party would be crap anyway. Drunk people getting sand in every orifice and eating barbecued food raw on the inside and burned on the outside. Merry Christmas.

  Fifteen minutes later the last chapathi came off the tava, and the air sizzled as Arjuna poured hot, spiced oil into the dal. He spooned portions into small metal bowls and arranged them on a tray with an artful sprinkling of coriander.

  “I’m hungry,” Kris said, following the tray with his eyes as Arjuna picked it up.

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “So feed me.”

  That earned him a glare. “You can wait. Tulsi eats first.”

  Kris slumped in his chair. “Sometimes I think you love her more than me.”

  The tea towel slipped from Arjuna’s fingers, and he bent to pick it up.

  Kris watched through the kitchen door as Arjuna carried the fragrant tray past Kris’s nose and into the living room, where he placed it on a table in front of Tulsi—a potted perennial with oval leaves and small, purple flowers on long racemes. Behind the plant was a painting of a goddess in a sari, smiling benevolently and holding a lotus flower.

  Kris ignored the plant, and the goddess, and watched Arjuna. Each movement was so familiar and practiced that it was like a dance, graceful and beautiful even if Kris hated what it stood for.

  Arjuna took a copper pot from a shelf and sprinkled water from it onto a grass mat, then onto his hand. He sipped and repeated.

  After standing on the mat, he bowed to the plant with his hands clasped and began to sing.

  After hearing the prayer hundreds of times, Kris knew the rhythm but only a few of the words, like a childhood nursery rhyme half-forgotten. Tulasi he knew, because it was another name for the plant, or the goddess the plant represented… or something. Krishna, because that was what Arjuna called Kris sometimes when things were peaceful, usually on sleepy weekend mornings when they knew they didn’t have to leave the house—or the bed—all day. The rest was a rolling stream of syllables, lilting and hypnotizing in Arjuna’s tenor.

  He repeated the prayer twice, then sat on the sofa and fixed his eyes into the distance as if he planned to be there a while as the food got cold.

  Kris tried to make himself look weak. “Please let’s eat before I pass out.”

  “Tulsi has to eat. Would you like it if I offered you food and then snatched it away a second later?”

  “I’d like to see you try. I’d eat you.”

  “Later.”

  Kris grinned. “Promise?”

  Arjuna’s smile faded quickly, and he resumed staring into space.

  Kris would have to get him to talk, even if any discussion of Arjuna’s family was a minefield. Now wasn’t the right time, but later he would open up. For now, his mother’s illness was yet another subject they had to avoid talking about.

  “Got any plans for the weekend?” Kris asked.

  “No.” Arjuna got up and began rearranging items on a shelf, even though they were already arranged in their usual spots. His hands shook, and Kris frowned.

  “Do you want me to go home after dinner?”

  “What?” Arjuna spun around, knocking a golden bell onto the floor. He didn’t pick it up, even though Kris was pretty sure it was sacred or something. “No, don’t go home. Please.”

  “Okay.” Kris held up his hands. “You don’t need to convince me. I just thought you might want to be alone. Has the plant eaten yet?”

  Arjuna looked at her for a long moment. “It’s Tulsi Vivah next month, you know.”

  “Of course. Highlight of my calendar.” Kris paused. “What is it?”

  “A festival for Tulsi.”

  “Oh, lucky her. Does she get a fancy new pot or something?”

  “She gets married to Vishnu. It’s like a wedding ceremony. After Tulsi Vivah, the wedding season begins.”

  “Must be a pain getting a wedding dress to fit her.”

  Arjuna gave him a look.

  “Sorry, sorry. Seriously, though, she looks full. Can you see the way she just loosened her soil and splayed out her roots?”

  That earned him a smile. Only a small one, but at least it was something.

  Arjuna clasped his hands again, muttered a prayer, and removed the tray.

  Dinner was delicious.

  “How come you made these with ghee?” Kris asked, waving a chapathi in the air before dunking it in the creamy dal. “I thought you banned that when my cholesterol was 0.1 over ideal parameters?”

  “
I did, but I wanted to spoil you tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” Arjuna tore a chapathi in half and turned it around in his fingers. “Are you looking forward to Christmas?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve spent the last month calling every supplier we know, and I still don’t have enough Christmas trees on order. Winter was too mild in Canada, and it’s like trying to buy a thousand golden unicorns called Nigel. I can already hear the abuse I’m going to get when we’ve sold out, customers screaming that I’ve ruined the magic of Christmas for their little darlings and I’m going to rot in hell. Can’t wait for the season of love and understanding.”

  Arjuna put down his spoon, even though his plate was still full. “You know, I don’t see why Tulsi is so hard for you to understand. You bring a tree into your house for Christmas, decorate it, sing songs about it, and give it gifts.”

  “Yeah, but it’s just a tree. Not a person. We don’t talk to it, or worship it.”

  “No, you worship into the air and hope the right god hears you.”

  “Well, not me. I’m going to hell, remember?”

  “No. Not you.” Arjuna folded the chapathi like an origami puzzle.

  “Are you going to eat that?”

  He met Kris’s eyes and silently pushed his uneaten dinner across the table.

  KRIS DIDN’T moan about Arjuna’s evening worship of Tulsi, though it took even longer than feeding her dinner. He needed the time to digest his double portions—okay, triple of the paneer—and he loved watching Arjuna with his face so serious, so focused and devoted to that damn plant.

  He couldn’t pretend to like the plant, not when she stood for everything that was so wrong in their relationship. The only thing that was wrong with their relationship. But the leafy witch made Arjuna happy, so he really needed to try harder not to be an asshat about her.

  When the ceremony was over, Arjuna stood with his head bowed and eyes closed for longer than usual before stepping off the grass mat. Hopefully the prayers helped him feel better about his mother. Watching the ritual always calmed Kris.