Vizag walks into Mr Ali’s marriage bureau
Just some of the requirements for a perfect Brahmin wedding include a small Ganesha idol, four banana plants cut at the root with fruit still hanging from them, rice to be used as confetti, a grindstone for the bride to place her foot while the groom puts silver toe rings and, ah well, a Brahmin bride and a Brahmin groom. Farahad Zama’s debut novel steers clear of big cities, bigger people and much bigger ideas to talk about such essential and non-essential trifles of life — and a marriage bureau run by the retired clerk

Mr Ali in Visakhapatnam. And in its small-town minutiae and mundaneness, there is much relief. For, when did you last see a five o’ clock when a woman has drawn water from the well with a pail attached to a nylon rope to water plants and then open the gate and stand there, just watching the world go by? Not plan a murder or ponder on anything in particular, but just stand there in all her middle-class suburbanness and familiarity?

Mr Ali, antsy in his post-retirement days, opens Marriage Bureau for Rich People — and Vizag walks into his verandah. Mr Ramana, civil engineer, PWD, looks for a suitable boy for his daughter. Caste: Arya Vaisya, Star: Aswini, Age: 23, Height: 4’ 8”. The groom, preferably graduate, should be 5’ 10”. “I being kind to my grandchildren,” says Ramana, “If I marry my short daughter to a tall man, hopefully their children will be at least medium height.” There is fat, dark Mr Venkat looking for a girl — fair, slim, tall, educated, but not career-minded and ready with a large dowry — for his son in Singapore. And there’s Sridevi, 23, tall, slim, dark and divorced after 15 months of marriage, awkwardly twisting the end of her sari and looking for a groom at Mr Ali’s. And the valves salesman Irshad who can’t get a bride for himself.

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