Not much Ado about Something

Today was a landmark day in the 30 year history of Mr. Ramalingam G a.k.a Vivek. Here's what happened.

I was in the midst of serious work. I was preparing for a client meeting involving very senior delegates and my mom calls me up. I answered the phone and she asked me if I had some time to talk. I said yes inspite of the fact that I was in the middle of something. I dunno why I said yes, because normally whenever I'm deep in work, I always tell mom or dad or anyone that I'll call back later. But today I said yes.

I could feel a tinge of elation in mom's tone. So here she goes about this marriage alliance which she found on some matrimony site and how the next month in the Tamil calender is not an auspicious month so she wanted to go and visit the family. I said, "Mom-I'm busy I dont think I can make it because of the client meeting coming up but nonetheless I'll give you call when I'm free to talk".

Now, fortunately or unfortunately, my work today got over early and I was free by 07:00 PM. So, being the dutiful son that I am, :-)) I called up mom and asked her where she is. She said she's on her way to meet this family and dad's also coming. She started trying to convince me also to come and tells me about how the bloody "HORRORSCOPE" has matched very well and of all the different "Yog" and blah blah blah.

I always literally close my ears whenever mom starts yapping away to oblivion about damn "HORRORSCOPES" and planets influencing peoples' behaviour and life and most irritatingly about future. I just dont believe in them. I just cannot believe how a planet billions of miles away can influence an abstract entity like the future of ones' life. Anyways I'm digressing from my post.

So she's trying to convince me and out of sheer frustration from listening to her rant, I relented to her emotional blackmail. I agreed to go and visit the family. All through my drive I was thinking about my decision. Brooding about how to conduct myself in front of a family who would be watching or probably scrutinizing each and every one of my move, every action, every response, every statement that I make. I will be "evaluated" carefully at every step to see whether I am "suitable" or not.

And frankly, I can now perfectly understand what goes through the mind of nearly every "eligible" girl in India when she is subject to such an ordeal.

I decided to approach this as a visit to a family friend. I decided to NOT think about the "real" nature of visit. Not that the visit was meant to be that, it was just a friendly casual meet between two families, but I couldnt help but think about the underlying motive which was only subtly expressed. Anyways, I decided to conduct myself in a very casual and friendly way.

Something all the more surprising is the near total lack of traffic that day and believe it or not, I completed the journey between Powai and Andheri in a span of 35 minutes. Which considering peak hour traffic and bad east-west connection roads is a phenomenal achievement.

SO I met mom and dad and then together we proceeded to meet this family. We entered their house and they were extremely friendly and completely contrary to my thinking of me being "evaluated". I soon relaxed and got introduced to the family members. The whole talk proceeded in a very casual manner.

To be very honest, there were a couple of instances when the "elders" started to talk among themselves and I felt left out, but during some of those times, the girl's mom came to the "rescue" of my silence. And I found that quite interesting. The girl's mom showed me the girls' pictures and I must admit she's definitely pretty.

Mom and dad were talking about how the HORRORSCOPES matched and times when they lived in Matunga and all typical "elders" talk, while I was talking about my educational background, my work, my career focus change from deliveries to business development, about my movie interests, about my new flat in Powai, all these things.

Anyways, at the end of it all, I guess this was an ice-breaker for me of sorts. Until now, I was pretty closed about "settling down" and I even told this other girl I met - that I'm not ready for taking the plunge yet. But somehow this visit opened me up to atleast acknowledging the idea that I might have to "settle down" eventually.

UPDATE (11/07): If anyone else is reading this please understand that whatever is mentioned here are just my thoughts and views and perceptions and mine alone and what went through my mind. Please donot misunderstand the post because it does NOT have a bearing on anyone else.

My First Marriage Proposal

Alright....Alright....Keshi and Vik, your persistence pays and I have no choice but to relent. The full story on the alliance goes like this...

One fine day somewhere in and around end of October during my regular weekly home phone call, my mom tells me about this girl they found as a match for me. I'm sure Vik and all other South-Indians especially Iyers would know the process. For everyone else here's how it goes.

Basically, whenever a child is born the family consults the family-astrologer (yes! almost akin to family-doctor). The astrologer, based on the date, time and (maybe even) location of birth, prepares a diagram which symbolically represents the position of the entities of the solar system. Thats what everyone calls the horoscope. I like to call it HORROR-SCOPE!! LOL. Also, based on the position of the sun, the child's birth star and birth constellation is decided. The part I like about all this is that the ancients - at a time when there were no telescopes and spacecrafts - were also able to "calculate" the position of earth/sun with respect to the star formations known during that time. Thats so fascinating.

Anyways, this HORROR-SCOPE is mainly used for two things, predicting the future and finding a match for marriage. My mom and dad also made one such HORROR-SCOPE for me and now its performing its duty. :-)))

Sorry for the digression, so coming back to what I was saying earlier, mom and dad had registered my profile with a couple of matrimony sites and this match came through one of those sites. Apparently, my folks had uploaded a couple of my pictures and also my HORROR-SCOPE in the site. The girl's parents had looked up my pictures and my profile and downloaded the HORROR-SCOPE for a match. They consulted with their astrologer and then contacted my parents.

Then my parents got her HORROR-SCOPE and consulted our astrologer. Mom told me that this "match" is an 80% HORROR-SCOPE match which - in astrological terms - is considered exceptional. She also said that the girl fulfilled criteria which I had put down. When my mom and dad started to look for a match, I had told them that I did not want anyone from my field of work, I wanted someone who is very educated, who is not more than 4 years younger than me and who has been brought up in a city environment. This girl is a doctor and she is from a town called Vapi just north of Mumbai and has studied in Mangalore.

During the call mom and dad told me that they intended to go ahead with the "proposal" of course subject to my approval. I told them I needed some time to think over it. A couple of days later, mom and dad sent me three pictures of the girl. The girl was quite good-looking. She was doing her post-doctoral internship and she had (allegedly) liked my pictures in the matrimonial site. My parents told me that if you give the go-ahead, we can go and have a look at the girl and then if everything goes fine we can have the marriage by May-2008.

Whoa! now things were moving too fast. Way too fast. I told my folks that I can take a decision only and only after I come back to India and this will not happen before February-2008. My mom is the greatest person in the world and I admire her the most. I am very open with her. I explained to her that its very important for me to meet the girl face to face and talk to her and only then I can come to a conclusion. She understood my predicament perfectly and told me that she completely supported me.

With mom by my side, I talked to my dad and told him about my decision. I told him to tell the girl's parents that they would have to wait until my return to India. Meanwhile, my mom and dad gave me the girl's email address and asked me to send an introductory email to her.

Honestly, I am very shy at these things. I told my mom that I'll do it. Weeks passed and I didnt send the email. The girl's parents started to ask my parents nearly every week whether I had sent the email. My parents would in turn ask me and I would tell them that I'm busy with work and hence I didnt get the time. After about 2-3 weeks I could not avoid it anymore and I sent an email. I just apologized to the girl for the delay in sending the mail and I just re-iterated to her that any decision on the proposal would be taken only after me meeting her.

I told my folks that I sent the email and asked them to confirm with the girl and her parents. A couple of days later, I got the message that the girl had not received my email yet. I told my parents to check with the girl to see if my mail accidentally went to the spam folder or something like that. They confirmed and said that she had never received my mail. I then re-read my email and thought that my first email sort of indicated my negativity in the proposal more then I intended it to. I felt that the tone of the email sounded more professional than personal.

So, I recomposed it. This time making it a more personal email than the first one, but still conveying the same intention as the first (i.e. to meet her face to face and then arrive at a decision). My parents had given me another one of her email addresses so this time I sent the mail to both her email addresses. About a week later when I asked my parents to check with her once again, I got the same response. She hadnt received the mail.

So now things had come to a complete standstill. I had sent her a couple of emails but she claimed that she had not received any of them and I sensed that this "proposal" is on its way down. Its not going to go through. And it happened just the way I thought. A couple of weeks later my Mom told me that the girl's parents have finalized her marriage with somebody else.

So thats the story on that "alliance". And I'm still here. Still single. My parents still looking. And more importantly - STILL HAPPY. Hehehehehe.