Wedding Muhurat: Vivah

Both sets of birth details went into one place, which had not happened before, because Kochi held mine and Singapore held his and neither side would send theirs to the other. The report matched them and printed what it had matched them on. My father read the reasoning in a Toa Payoh coffee shop on a Saturday, put the phone down and said, fine, book it.

My husband was in Sharjah and the wedding date had to be fixed here, by me, which is how most things in this house work. It was in Hindi so I read it myself. The refused days were on their own page. I did not have to wait for a ten o'clock phone call to know what I was agreeing to.

For my own wedding I did not want to be told, I wanted to see the working, and that habit has cost me two friendships and one very long evening with my mother. Both charts went in, what came back named the dates that were out and the verse that ruled each one out, and I stopped arguing that week.

I had borrowed for the shop and got married the same year. So every date was also a money decision. With eight wedding dates in hand I could take the one the barat ghar was cheap on.