Bajirao knew Gayatri was giving him her wordless approval. All she had to do was brush her fingers over her nose ring and clear her throat. How many years had it been since she first thought of this way of nudging him down the right path? And she did it now, almost imperceptibly, to indicate her excitement over the possibility of finding a groom for their daughter here, in the pages of a book at the Dhanpur Tehsil Post Office.

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This was unusual, they knew. Finding grooms for their two older daughters had been harder and had required more favors, more travel, and more money than he could ever make again in his lifetime. More money than he could ever repay to the moneylenders.

The post office wasn’t the way he remembered it. It was still stuffy and dusty, and the walls were still stained with paan spittle. But now, someone had put a marigold garland on the postmaster’s big desk and thus, between 2 and 4 p.m.…