Minkus Jhaveri, the unlikely violent offender arrested at the Santa Clara bridal expo on October 22, 2016, told the India Abroad reporter who came to visit him in jail that one of the things that most disgusted him about the modern Indian American identity was just how weak we as a people had turned out to be. “The guys I grew up around,” he said—and here the reporter rather dramatically described him as leaning forward with panther-like eyes—“they knew. They knew the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And I keep telling everyone who asks, I was right about that little fucker. He was a bad guy.”
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The convention center looked like a spaceship, its body outfitted with high white sails peacocking at you. Gaggles of desi women poured out of Hondas and Toyotas, eyes ablaze with the reflected red text of the conference center Jumbotron—dulhania bridal expo 2016: try on your future.
I parked . . . aisle C, row 32, memorize it . . . All around me were brides and their mothers and their cousins and their friends. “Mehendi, you do, I’ll talk to caterers . . .” “Why does he want a horse like some flashy-splashy Punjabi?” “Ankit did his baraat in one Rolls-Royce; these days everything is very post-horse.”
I located Prachi in the doorway. Around her neck hung a hot pink lanyard and a laminated card announcing kiss me, i’m a bride! She twirled it so I could see the back. Fat green bubble letters stacked to form the shape of a wedding cake: prizes prizes prizes! win free trip to india. win couples cruise to bahama’s.
“I can’t believe Anita works here,” my sister said.
“She doesn’t work here. She’s just doing some freelance stuff between jobs. But we should find her at some point.”
We passed through the metal detectors. A single chubby guard was half-heartedly scanning women whose jewelry, belts, shoes, and multiple electronic devices kept setting off the alarms. “Keep it moving, keep it moving,” he intoned, unconcerned.
I took out my phone, seeing that I had few bars and shoddy 4G once inside. I assumed Anita’s Wi-Fi interferers were already at work. Chidi had helped us choose and test them at our house, and once briefly as we did a lap around the future crime scene. The melee would also serve as neat cover. This place was （ironically, despite the demography of the expo） not equipped for tech support. A failure would be difficult to amend.
“I’m surprised you wanted to come, little brother.” Prachi pulled me in for a hug.
I flushed, afraid that when she released me she might see my shadow of shame. I looked away from her, over at a cluster of flat-chested prepubescent girls practicing a sangeet-ready Bollywood routine, bony hips popping. “Don’t go shimmying the booty on ‘Sheila ki Jawani,’” one scolded. “It’s on ‘I’m too sexy for you!’”
We wandered for the first thirty minutes, gazing upon the carnival, Prachi with wide eyes that were somehow moved. I recalled that she’d believed in the promise of the Miss Teen India crown, too, believed that a room full of desis fetishizing a culturally commodified India together could access some truth about what it meant to be both Indian and, like, American.
“Wouldn’t you groomsmen look wonderful in that pistachio color? Oh, yuck, look, up close it’s sort of more vomit-green . . . Neil, duck, that’s Gayathri, Renuka Auntie’s daughter, and we didn’t send them a save-the-date. . . .” Someone in full whiteface sobbed at a makeover counter. “All the foundations, they’re making me look like a freaking ghost.”
A food court on the second floor gave brides the opportunity to sample the samosas and paneer that would inevitably end up on their wedding menus. （Prachi: “Hey, do you think someone would do collard green pakoras?”） A runway show was scheduled on the third floor at noon. （Prachi: “You’re kidding me—Bubu Mirani? Manish Motilal? Monika Dongre?”） A fashion show, followed by a raffle—the raffle—at four. （Prachi, unbidden, pulling a ticket from a dispenser: “Let’s not miss that!”）
In the mix was a DJ booth manned each hour by a new spinner; notepads were extracted from purses and people listened, seeking the right mix of Pitbull and Pritam. We stopped so Prachi could swoon at one bearded artiste—DJ Jai Zee—wearing dark gas-station-quality sunglasses and beating an enormous dhol.
I was finding it hard to breathe. The smell of baby powder and rose-water perfumes mingled with something deep-frying in the food court. Above us, the sun peeked through, throwing rhomboid patches of light on an Indian flag dangling from one of the beams.