Work Text:
The first time I realized that my parents were not as modern and contemporary as I thought they were; was when I cleared my Pre Medical test. Here I was, happy and jumpy that my perseverance has bore fruits and that I’ll be able to earn good money and help people at the same time and there my mother was, declaring to my father, “Oh! Now we will be able to find a nice, handsome ‘doctor’ groom for our doctor daughter!”
Yes... That’s when the clouds first thundered and the rain started to fall.
For my four years in medical college I was asked very frequently by my aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, their dogs, “Oooh! Did you find a nice doctor groom for yourself? We are not conservative, if you bring someone home, we have no problem.” It was not irritating, I was not struggling with a new college life, I did not have to learn how to save lives, I just went to the college to find a nice doctor boy to marry and bring home… am I being totally sarcastic. Yes... Ha!
The rain kept falling, infact it fell harder every passing year and in my internship year I realized it was a storm now.
First a bio-data was created in vigilance of the elders of the family where some things were right and some were umm… artistically manipulated, then I was dressed in a modern yet traditional sari and photographed for a photo that will be circulated in the society, my father gifted me a gym membership on my 24th birthday and my mother even decided to teach me how to cook things that were not instant pasta, instant noodles, instant pizza... basically anything without the words ‘instant’ or ‘two minutes’ on it.
Society was ready to swallow me down in the whirlpool called marriage.
Was I ready? (“Oh doesn’t matter she will be by the time we find the right boy” my aunt whispered in my mother’s ear when she put up the same doubt.)
Inquiries started pouring in.
(No, no we don’t want a engineer, our daughter is a doctor, you see.)
(So, if we pay 35000 to your marriage bureau you’ll find the right guy in 3 days. Oh! Okay we guess it’s a good way to spend hard earned money.)
(No we believe in astrology and yes we want your son’s birthday, birthplace and birth time.)
(Oh! Your son will live in the UK. So sorry but our daughter will not be comfortable with that but I can give you my nephew’s friends brother’s number their daughter works in the UK, why don’t you talk to them?)
(Our daughter is mangalik. I don’t think it’s alright if we marry your non-mangalik son to her.)
(No, their son is too poor!)
(No, their son is too rich!)
And finally one day, a perfect family was discovered. The perfect boy was a post graduate in pediatrics, his perfect father a doctor and his mother the perfect Indian housewife.
My parents and grandparents went to meet the boy and his family. My parents decided to call him ‘The-boy-who-lives-in-Gandhi-colony’ because calling him by his name would make things personal and things should not be personal until the boy meets the girl and marriage is officially fixed.
I was made to meet the boy’s father in a wedding where I got into an argument with him on whether doctors make good administrators or not. In my defense… I didn’t know he was THE boy’s father.
When the family came home from the wedding I was frowned upon for being opinionated about things, for looking THE boy’s father in the eye.
For being me.
I was convinced that my being me would have stopped the rain temporarily but low and behold the clouds were not done raining on my parade. The boy’s father liked me!
Alas...?
The only problem in the whole affair was that THE boy’s father did not demand a ransom… oh I mean ‘dowry’ but since he was a famous doctor and quite well known in the society he wanted to invite one thousand people to the wedding. I wanted to be opinionated about it but it came as a shock to me when my numerous aunts asked me to ‘shut up and go to your room’.
My simple, humble, hard working father wanted to be opinionated about it too but it came as a shock to him when both my grand fathers told him to ‘shut up and go the office’.
We both exchanged pity glances and went to the required destinations quietly getting ourselves mentally ready to be flooded by a thousand people if the wedding happened.
The boy’s father turned out to be a push back. He would always ask for more time… sometimes a week, sometimes a month, to reply or to meet and my mother who is very punctual would not like that but she couldn’t say anything because he was after all the boy’s father. Seeing my mother unhappy made me unhappy and as a result, despite my disinterest I started hoping that they would say yes.
The flood of a thousand people and the boy’s father’s deference would have annihilated my dream of a small, intimate wedding but I guess the rain god took pity on me because the boy’s father one day called to regretfully inform us that the birth charts did not match.
YES!
My mother decided to dive into ‘I’ll-marry-my-daughter-by-the-end-of-the-year’ with more energy and vigor than before.
More doctors were searched for and searched upon.
Then a doctor who was lost somewhere in the thunder of ‘the-boy-who-lives-in-gandhi-colony’ was re-discovered.
He became ‘the-boy-who-lives-in-model-town’. He was mangalik, a single child, had a government job and was of an acceptable height.
My parents went ‘BINGO’ when our birth charts matched.
He was asked difficult questions when my family went to nay check him and when they gave a thumbs up his family was cordially invited to my house to nay check me.
A Wednesday was decided when they’d visit. Preparations started from Sunday, what was to be served was written on a big yellow notepad, colorful bottles of sherbet were ordered along with dry fruits, the house was cleaned to a hospital-level-cleanliness, a beauty parlor was fixed for me along with a nor-black-neither-white sari and some gold jewelry.
I will not lie and pretend to be a victim because after all I am a girl and it’s always been exciting to dress up and wear jewelry, I was excited too but no one told me how nerve wrecking it would be for a biology geek like me to talk to a boy.
Tuesday night at eleven my father called me in his study and asked me what I’d plan on asking the boy, I told him I had not thought about it. He kept nudging me so I asked him if it was okay to ask the boy if he was interested in Harry Potter because I sure as hell am and that earned me some furious eye staring from my father. He told me that this was a big decision and I cannot ruin my family’s name by being childish.
That day I realized that my days of judging people by asking them whether they loved Harry Potter or not were over. I didn’t want those days to be over because that way of judging people was fail-proof! But my father came to my rescue and gave me some choices of questions, “Ask him about his future plans, talk to him about medicine, talk in English and show him how intelligent you are.”
All I wanted to do was get up and shout, “How am I suppose to live all my life with a man who was not into Harry Potter, will I not suffocate?” but that would have been highly inappropriate and my parents worked so hard cozying up to the boy’s family and to see their hard work going to waste would have resulted in a heart break of an epic proportion so I, a meager muggle decided to shut up.
Wednesday came, ‘the-boy-who-lives-in-model-town’ came, I was expected to wear, walk, look graceful and touch the boy’s parents’ feet in a sari.
‘The-boy-who-lives-in-model-town’ and I were asked to go to my room and my mother gestured to me that we’ll have 10 minutes.
I was supposed to make him fall for me and I was supposed to fall for him in 10 minutes.
No one fell.
There was awkward silence, there was awkward questioning, there was awkward answering, tea was brought and then there was awkward sipping.
They left and asked my father for a little time.
I don’t think he was into Harry Potter, I don’t think he was into me, I don’t think I was into him.
But I wanted them to say yes to me, I didn’t want to go through that Wednesday again so I wanted them to say yes.
They never said anything.
My family called, his family procrastinated, my family called again, his family didn’t pick up. My family called his family one last time, his family told my family that the boy was not ready for marriage, maybe if we talked to them in eight to nine months they’ll be able to say something.
For the first time in my life I cried over a boy. Well, it was not exactly over a boy it was mainly because for the first time I saw my family unhappy and I could not shake the feeling that I was somewhere responsible for that.
I wanted to ask them that if their precious boy was not ready to get married then why did he come to my house, why did his father laughed with my father, why did his mother asked us to stand together and see whether we looked compatible. Why?
I was always taught to be independent and self reliant by my parents but then why did their happiness depend on the boy’s family’s answer. I, the girl who did not want to get married just yet, now wanted to get married not because I was in love with the idea of a man coming on a horse and taking me away to make me his princess but because I wanted my parents to be care-free. I was not their little girl any more I was their duty now.
Even before the whole ‘model-town’ fiasco was over, the thunderstorm of marriage decided to drench me again. A-boy-who-lives-Delhi was discovered and was failed because his family did not forbid alcohol.
Then again, A-boy-who-lives-in-Jaipur was discovered and was failed because they wanted me to be a homemaker.
Then again, A-boy-who-lives-in-Pune was discovered and was failed because he lived too far.
Then, came ‘The-boy-who-lives-in-Kota’. My mother found him in the matrimonial section of a newspaper and asked my father to contact his father. Biodatas were exchanged online. Photos were exchanged too.
The birth charts were taken to the family priest and studied extensively.
A good career. Check.
Well to do family. Check.
Background. Check.
Height. Check.
Weight. Check.
Party habits or rather lack of them. Check.
My father reminding me not to ask the ridiculous Harry Potter question. Check.
Me weeping the whole day previous to their visit. Check.
Everything was taken care of just like the previous time; house, crockery, food, sari, jewelry, manners etc.
This time they came on a Sunday instead of a Wednesday. It felt like a Wednesday though. My mother fussed over me, my father didn’t.
After both the families settled down, it was decided it was the time of those ten minutes, where the requisite falling was to be done. We were suppose to leave the common room and go to my room.
I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight, seven..." he didn’t look like a guy who would be into Harry Potter, “five, four…” he looked nervous, do I look nervous too, “three, two, one…”
Will he like me?
Will I like him?
Will it matter?
Something tells me it’ll not.
**