Monsoon Wedding -2001- Link

She didn't cry. She watched the raindrops race across the glass and thought: This is what it means to become a woman in a country that gives you no other choice. The car turned the corner. The music changed to something upbeat. Vikram reached for her hand and said, "We'll be in Singapore by Thursday. It's cleaner there."

Outside, the pandit was arguing with her father about the muhurat . The caterer had called to say the tent might collapse if the wind picked up. Her mother was somewhere between the kitchen and a nervous breakdown, waving a silver thali and shouting at an electrician who hadn’t shown up. And in the middle of all of it, Anjali thought of Arjun. monsoon wedding -2001-

The wedding had been arranged in six weeks. Six weeks of fabric swatches, guest lists, gold shopping, and silence. Her father had lost money in the stock market that spring; the groom’s family was wealthy, respectable, and conveniently unaware of the Kapoors’ thinning accounts. Anjali had said yes because saying no would have required a reason, and her only reason had a Canadian postal code. She didn't cry

Anjali smiled. It was a perfect, terrible, monsoon smile—wet at the edges, dry in the middle. The music changed to something upbeat

The rain came not as a relief but as a character—late, dramatic, and with something to prove. It was September 2001, and the Kapoor family had been waiting for the monsoon to break for three weeks. The wedding had been scheduled around it, as all things in Delhi are scheduled around the stubborn sky. But the clouds had held their breath, much like the bride.