Zhanna Chalabayeva - Red Indian Sun

– First, I repeated to you a million times that we won’t go to any America. Secondly, I did not ask you to tell anyone anything.

– Then I’ll kill myself.

One day he convinced me that he was really going to hang himself. A whole performance with several actors was played for me. And I believed it.

Sometimes you need to give a chance to events unfold under their own power.

When you date a man in reality, you can see all his flaws. When you meet a man on the Internet, in your imagination this man has no flaws. On the Internet, he seems to be perfect.

The Indian guy was waiting for me in India, doing repairs in the house, preparing for my arrival. On a video camera, I saw how his poor house was becoming more beautiful.

Neither my parents nor my friends knew about my plans to go to India to a virtual acquaintance. I did not know how to say this. I felt shame.

Only once did I share this story with my old friend, a professor from an American university. In the end she said: “The more you tell me about him, the more scared I am for you. There are too many red flags in this story. I’m pretty sure he’s a crook and invites you to India to rob. Please keep me posted. If you need anything in India, write to me. I know some big people there. It is better than going without warning anyone”.

I and the Indian guy met online in October 2015, and in early May 2016, I applied for a visa at the Indian visa center in Moscow and three days later I received a tourist visa. My future husband bought me a ticket at the end of May, and we planned a wedding and honeymoon trip to Shimla at the beginning of June.

I constantly felt that I was being cheated by him. Moreover, I felt in my heart that this deception was so huge, so dangerous for my life, that from the moment I received my visa I knew no peace. Obviously, he was a marriage swindler.

He broke the fates of innocent women and girls and did not consider himself guilty because he did not consider women as people; their fates for him were not the fates of people. He did not think about what would happen to their lost, deserted souls, with their deceived hearts, what would happen to their mothers and fathers who cherished their children like delicate flowers, protecting them from the slightest cold.

Two weeks before my departure to India, Tenardieu told me the following:

– Today my friend and I were in Hisar. I saw a beautiful girl and fell in love and immediately went to her father with my friend and asked for her hand. We talked with her father for almost two hours, and I have already been given consent. But my stupid friend suddenly told her father: “Thank you, but he already has a bride. She arrives soon from Moscow for the wedding.” The girl’s father was shocked, and I ran away from there without saying goodbye.

As a result, that evening I felt a huge relief and said to the young man that I would not go anywhere, and I wish him to marry the one he chose:

– It is very good. Thanks god. So many times I wanted to cancel this trip. This is the happy end. You marry that girl. I stay in Moscow. I wish you get married and live a hundred years together. Goodbye.

– No, don’t leave me! Forgive me, please come to India to me. I cannot live without you. I will never meet a girl like you, – told me Tenardieu on the phone.

– But you do not love me. You said you proposed the girl.

– I love you. I will commit suicide if you won’t come. My father will. Two people will die because of you.

– I don’t believe you. Leave me alone please.

He cried on the phone and screamed:

– My love, please, please, do not leave me. I cannot live without you, babe.

I disconnected the call. Every day he was sending me photographs of his face full of tears. It lasted one week.

And I agreed to come to India.

– What did you do all week?

– I sat alone in my room and cried all the time, – he answered in a trembling voice.

When we were reconciled, the young man asked me all the time:

– What will you bring me from Moscow?

– What shall I bring?

– Bring gifts to all my family, I need vodka, and I have a little niece, buy her a dress.

– Vodka???

– Yes.

– What kind of gifts to buy?

– For my mom jewelry, for dad leather purse or expensive watches.

In our country, a man would not say so, asking to bring alcohol is a shame, it is considered indecent. But I wrote off everything on the peculiarities of the culture of his country or family traditions and therefore I decided to buy the gifts he asked for.

I remember how, before leaving, I went shopping in the center of Moscow and bought gifts to his family, which he ordered. I chose something beautiful for all: for his niece, I ordered an Italian dress, for his father – a watch, for mother – bracelets, etc.

My future husband would not let me rest and called me every five minutes. At first, I politely replied that I was busy, then disconnected the calls, and then turned off the phone.

I told him:

– Let’s cancel everything. Please explain to your parents that I was sick and missed the flight.

– Do not be afraid of anything. If you do not come, my father will commit suicide. He said so. And bear in mind that his death will be your guilt. Just trust me and do not be afraid of anything!!! Can you believe me?

I allowed the thought that the story with dad was a hoax. But since, earlier, in the conversations with this guy, accidentally I could give him hope for more, made me feel guilty. The idea that I could cause someone’s death was so terrible for me that I decided to come. After all, what was worth some trip compared to the whole human life?

– I will come because I feel myself responsible for the situation with your father. But if you deceive me, you will regret. You don’t know who you’re messing around with.

And then came the day specified in the airline ticket “Aeroflot”. I sat at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport and waited for the invitation to board the plane. Tenardieu called me endlessly while demanding to show me the airport on the camera. But since I was sitting in a crowded room, I did not do this but only took a picture of myself against the background of signs and shops at the airport. Eventually, he did not believe me that I was really at the airport, and decided that I was deceiving him.

From the plane, I did not see where the border between the ordinary world and India lay.

India, magic India gave me a lot of unforgettable pleasant impressions, a lot of a good many interesting meetings, and in the most dangerous moments of life, good people came to help me from nowhere, and absolutely strange saving circumstances arose.

The person who invited me to his country brought me a lot of misery and suffering while I lived there. He alone in the whole country made me shed rivers of tears. The rest of the population of India brought only good and happiness. Therefore, in my memory, this magical country remained bright and good.

Maybe I will never be able to visit India again, but this is not so important, because India remained in my heart as something living, rational and magical.

Like an invisible friend who saved me from an evil demon, India led me through the darkness to light.

Once, as a little girl, I looked at the fairy tale “Aladdin’s Magic Lamp” together with my parents, after which they began to call me a princess.

In India, I felt like a princess from the fairy tale, when my illiterate mother-in-law taught me to milk a cow, cook roti flatbreads and forced me to wear a dupatta.

All seven hours, when I flew to him on the plane, he sat at home in his village and checked my messenger in the hope of seeing me online. What would be proof that I did not leave Moscow for India. I do not know why he always suspected me to cheat or lie. So that day he decided not to pick me up at the airport.

On the plane with me sat a married couple from India. My seat was near the illuminator, I looked out and imagined that maybe he was waiting for me at the airport.

In the meantime, my future husband was sitting in his village and was not even going to go anywhere, staring at the Facebook messenger, waiting for me to come online. He wanted to make sure that I stayed in Moscow. And he would say: “Well, I told you, she is still in Moscow.”

I do not know why, but he thought of me as a dishonorable person. It is true that a person sees only his own reflection in those around him.

His parents said to him: “Go to the airport, what if she flies to India?” His father was angry, he actually planned to leave for airport several hours before my arrival, but the person who invited me to his home country said that no need – it’s not necessary to arrive on time. For some reason, he decided that I was a deceiver and probably would not go to him after so many of his mean tricks, prank with the second bride in Hisar and new online girlfriends.

At some point, the plane began to swing from side to side, and suddenly we began to fall! Oh, God, I didn’t say anything to my relatives, I didn’t even say goodbye to any of them. I was very scared and lonely, I could not even talk to anyone, we just all prayed and shouted. I experienced such a fear that I simply could not calm myself down. But soon everything returned to normal, and the air passengers calmed down, including me.

What was most memorable when we landed in Delhi – the flight attendant reported that the weather in Delhi was good. Only +30°C.

So, India met me with good weather. The temperature was plus thirty degrees of heat, according to the Vaishnava calendar was the month of Trivikram. Around there were people in turbans, colorful sarees. Wet warm air smelled with sweet rot. In the eyes of people, I saw peace and happiness of the child, beloved by the mother.

In all the contrast with Moscow was felt. In Delhi – absolutely everything different from Moscow.

A sweet-rotten smell hung in the air, beat right on the nose. It seemed to me that I got into the fourth dimension. Here everything looked unreal. Have you ever had to look at someone through the hot air near the fire? That was exactly what Delhi Airport and its inhabitants looked like when I went out with a suitcase to the reception hall.

Taxi drivers, tourist agents, and locals stood in a semicircle at the glass sensory doors.

Since I was a little late, I went out to the hall after other passengers. But I could not see my future husband. Everyone from my flight has already gone home and in hotels, and I was sitting on a bench with my suitcase and bag.

Indian men began to approach me with questions. I did not know what to answer. In a deaf whisper, despair and fear twisted my neck and began to choke me from both sides. The hall was empty. Out of sadness, I settled down more comfortably on the bench, put my legs on the suitcase and angrily sang a song.

Then an Indian man approached me and said:

– If such a girl came to me, I would be at the airport five days before her arrival and would not keep her waiting. Do you have this idiot’s phone number? Allow me to call him and say something unpleasant on behalf of whole India?

At the same moment, I saw my future husband, who was slowly walking along the airport without flowers, shuffling along the floor with blue sports sneakers, not even hurrying anywhere.

The guy who wanted to help me saw my future husband and made a grimace with the words: “Oh my god! This one? What did you see in him?” I, too, made a face, laughed, and nodded my head. But I did not have time to answer. I looked around for a place where I could run away from him, but it was too late.