Monsoon Wedding

# Monsoon Wedding (Story) The rain began the moment Riya's flight touched down at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport. Through the scratched window of the Airbus, she watched the tarmac darken with water, the ground crew scurrying for cover, the orange windsock whipping horizontal. Her mother would call it auspicious. Riya called it typical. "Didi's here! Didi's here!" Her nephews—twins, five years old, identical in their matching kurtas—launched themselves at her legs as she emerged from the arrivals hall. Behind them stood the family delegation: her mother in a new Dhakai sari, her father trying to manage an umbrella that kept inverting in the wind, her aunt Mashi dispensing unnecessary advice, and Priya—the bride herself—hanging back with an expression Riya couldn't quite read. "You've lost weight," her mother said, which meant Riya had gained weight. "The flight was terrible," her father said, which meant he'd been worried. "We have so much to do before Friday," Mashi said, which meant Riya had committed some unknowable offense by arriving only four days before the wedding. But Priya just hugged her, tight and long, the way they used to hug as children when one of them had been hurt or frightened. "You came," Priya whi...