Wedding Karma

It all started back in the early ’90s with Rajesh, a young man who worked in my group at Sabre when we lived in Dallas. While we were working together, Rajesh’s parents decided it was time—and perhaps even past time—for him to get married, and they did what any right-minded Indian parents would do at such a juncture: They found an appropriate young woman for him. Rajesh flew to India to meet the woman his parents picked out for him, and fell head-over-heels in love. He was quite possibly more moonstruck than any young fiancé I have ever met.

As the date of the wedding drew closer, Rajesh pulled me aside. “You are going to receive an invitation to my wedding in New Delhi,” he told me, “but you don’t have to come. It’s a formality because you are my manager. But I know you have many obligations here—a family and so on. So please understand that my family will not be the least offended if you don’t come. We really don’t expect you to.” I thanked him, both for the invitation and for letting me off the hook. At that time, Margot was in elementary school and Adam in middle school, and I was already traveling on business way too much for a mother with young children. I didn’t go.

The invitation was the most beautiful and exotic thing I had ever seen printed on paper and inserted into an envelope.

The more time passed, the more I regretted missing Rajesh’s wedding. It came to feel like something I should have done and somehow still needed to complete.