The Matrimonial Murder: A Drama In The Middle Of An Arranged Marriage Scene

A Matrimonial Murder takes us back to the bustling Temple Hill neighbourhood of Mumbai where fat-cat businessmen conduct high-powered deals while their pampered wives toil behind the scenes, leveraging gossip and innuendo.

An Excerpt

‘You know that show, the one about matchmaking?’

Sarla made a sour face. ‘Yeah, the one with that judgy aunty. Gave all of us matchmakers a bad name.’

‘Well, it was hugely successful and generated a lot of curiosity in the West about arranged marriages, matchmakers and Indian matrimonial bureaus. People were keen to know more, and my agent thought I could do a collection of essays on why and how the system works, a sort of behind-the-scenes look into the different facets of matchmaking. I’ll be doing an in-depth piece on you — what motivates you, some of the challenges you face, how you got started, that sort of thing. I’ll also be speaking to other matrimonial bureaus and people connected to the industry like wedding planners, designers who put together wedding trousseaus, etc.’

Sarla nodded thoughtfully. ‘Hmm . . . this could be good publicity for us as well. We’re hoping to achieve a milestone this year — we are at nine hundred and ninety-four right now and by the end of December we hope to make that a thousand matches. If you like, you can talk to a few of our clients, as well.’

‘That’d be great, actually!’ said Radhi.

‘Wait, let me jot down a few names. Then Juhi can help you set up a meeting with them,’ said Sarla shuffling a stack of mail on her desk while looking for a notepad. Suddenly, her hands stopped moving, her face crumpled and a strangled ‘oh’ escaped her mouth.

‘What is it, Aunty?’ Radhi quickly scanned the desk to see what had caused such a reaction.

Sarla didn’t answer. Her hands shaking, she picked up a red envelope that was lying face down on her desk. She opened it and then dropped it as if she had been burned.

Radhi picked up the fallen envelope, and when Sarla didn’t protest, she peered inside and removed a cobalt card from it. It showed a dark figure holding a sickle, sitting atop a pale horse. There were people lying on the ground, around the horse’s legs. At the bottom of the card was a single word: ‘DEATH’.

‘What is this, Aunty?’ asked Radhi, alarmed. She turned the envelope over and checked it for a name or address. It had neither. She turned the card over. It had a fine geometrical pattern across the back in gold. She dropped the card on the table and checked inside the envelope again. A thin strip of white paper was stuck to its side. Radhi removed it and read the typed words out loud: ‘All good things come to an end.’

Sarla, who had been sitting with one hand clutching her head, took the note from Radhi and read it before crumpling it and letting it fall to the desk. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said, more to herself than to Radhi. ‘Who’s doing this?’ She picked up the phone. ‘Juhi, can you ask Hansa to come see me.’

Then, in response to Juhi’s reply, ‘I see . . . okay, ask her by when she’ll be in office.’

She hung up the phone and turned her attention back to the card. ‘This is the fourth one so far,’ she told Radhi. ‘The other three were equally terrible.’

‘They seem like they are part of a deck. Do you have the other three here?’

Sarla nodded. ‘They are tarot cards.’ She rifled within her drawer and brought out three similar red envelopes.

Radhi removed the cards and notes from the envelopes. One card showed a tall tower on fire. It had been struck by lightning and people were jumping out of the windows to save themselves. The accompanying note read: ‘The higher you climb, the harder you fall.’ The second card had a blindfolded woman clad in white sitting on a beach with her back to the sea. In her hands she held two heavy swords crossed against each other. The note read: ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’ The third card depicted a swollen red heart pierced with three swords against a stormy background of grey clouds and needle-like rain. Radhi looked in the envelope for the note but couldn’t find one.

‘That was the first one. I didn’t think to keep the note then.’ Sarla looked distressed. ‘It said something like “Every action has a reaction”. I can’t remember perfectly, but that was the gist.’

Radhi studied the cards briefly before handing them back to Sarla. ‘When did these come?’

‘Well, the first one arrived more than two months ago. Then the second one came two weeks after that. And the third and fourth have followed since.’

‘What happened two months ago? Can you think of anything significant?’

‘No! Nothing. I have racked my head about it!’ ‘But who in the world do you think it could be?’

Excerpted from The Matrimonial Murder, written by Meeti Shroff-Shah; published by Bloomsbury Publishing.