Between my teaching and fudging questionnaires, life was
hectic. One evening, as I was about to go for a walk with my parents, I got a
phone call from Vasanta, the lady who gave me my test at the Bank. She wanted
me to come home and meet her brother who was in the Indian Navy and had come on
leave. Covering the mouthpiece, I asked by dad what I should tell her. He said
we could go over the next day and I relayed this to Vasanta. I must digress a
little here about dad. After the coffee planter’s proposal, there were many
more, suggested by grandmother or my aunts or my neighbors or whoever. In those
days, a girl was eligible for marriage from the day she ‘matured’. I was a very
popular candidate. Not to displease his sisters or mother, dad would agree to
take me to the boy’s house for an ‘exhibition’. This meant wearing Ma’s saree
and jewels and looking like a walking Christmas tree. The ritual was the same.
I was decked up and escorted to the ‘kill’. I had to touch the feet of the
boy’s mother and she would bless me. She would then ask questions like if I
knew how to cook and keep house and I’d lie with a ‘yes’. The boy would come out
for a look at the ‘commodity’, meaning me and after some more pleasantries,
we’d leave. The mother would say that she’d call after knowing her son’s
verdict. In every such ‘show’, dad would exchange glances with me the minute
the boy walked in and we knew he was not Mr Right. But we went through the
charade only to please grandmother. Ma went along as she had no say in the
matter anyway.
The pic that was sent to possible mate-to-be!!
When Vasanta called about her
brother, Ma was all excited. She knew the family and remembered having met the
brother. Ma knows a lot of people and can reel off every one’s family tree in a
second. She kept on praising Vasanta’s parents, especially her father who was a
close friend of her father who in turn was a favourite of his sister, who…. By
the time we left for Vasanta’s house next day, I had their family history
coming out of my ears and nose! Dad agreed to my wearing a simple cotton saree
and no jewellery. We were greeted first by Anthem, the Boxer and then by his
Master, Mr.Iyengar. Ma and he were happy to meet each other after so many years
and started off on a ‘remember’ trip of people and events. Vasanta, who was
playing cupid, had some goodies for us to eat and chatted with me while her
brother talked to dad and his mother quietly looked on. No one thought of introducing
me to the brother. I stole a look at him and well. I liked his voice. It was
cultured and soft. He later told me that the first thing he liked about me was
my long hair and voice!
We
wrote every day after he went back. We still have those letters which we hope
to read, sitting by the fireside, in our old stage. We were to be married in
March and it was still October. It is amazing how two strangers, who had met
only a few weeks ago, could mean so much to each other. Our Western friends
cannot figure out this chemistry. They perceive arranged marriages as barbaric.
I believe it has a sense of adventure…discovering another human being and
relating to that person. Since even so called love marriages go on the rocks,
it does not have anything to do with how long you know each other but what you
know.
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