She probably didn’t fantasize anymore, didn’t even dream about a husband and family anymore. She had sat through many ceremonies during which the prospective groom and his family visited my grandparents’ house to see the prospective bride. Earlier, Sowmya had kept count, but now, almost ten years since the whole drama had begun, she had stopped. My mother, however, hadn’t.

“Sixty-four matches and not one worked out,” she told me during my current visit.

In the beginning, Thatha had refused to budge from his goal of getting a good-looking doctor or engineer for Sowmya. Even when it became evident that the matches he was finding were not going to pan out, he continued. It was when Sowmya turned twenty-five that Thatha started to realize he may have been aiming too high. He started looking at bank managers and the like, but again nothing worked out because he wanted a young man for Sowmya, but men who were twenty-seven years old were looking at girls who were twenty-one, not twenty-five. Now Thatha was looking at lecturers and older men. While Thatha looked for a suitable boy, Sowmya sat through bride-seeing ceremonies and rejections.

“God knows when she will get married,” Ma complained bitterly. “An unmarried daughter, Priya, is like a noose around the neck that is slowly tightening with every passing day.”

I sometimes imagined how it would be to live with my parents and be constantly reminded of how lacking I was. I would slit my wrists in no time and I was amazed that Sowmya hadn’t. She was still the same person I had grown up with; the bitterness that no one would blame her for having seemed to have never touched her.

“Maybe you shouldn’t say things like that,” I said to Lata, wanting to defend my nonconfrontational aunt against the harsh dowry remark. “It isn’t fair to turn this on Sowmya because she likes Anand’s wife.”

Lata quirked an eyebrow. “You are back, what, half an hour, and already you are taking sides?”