Matrimonial meetings
Matrimonial Meetings: Section II. Section I provoked expected results among the readers. With subsequent motivation, I have written Section II. All earlier warnings are applicable here too. Please use the notes in Section I for reference, as the writer shall refrain from repeating them again. Thank you.Section II: Hyderabadi Biryani.On the eve of the meeting, which is to take place in the city of Hyderabad, my mother has innumerable telephonic discussions with the "boy's" (only in matrimonial columns can 28 year olds classify as "boys") family about the venue of the meeting. I roll my eyes through the whole rigmarole and plod along. The D-day arrives, and I am woken up unceremoniously at an unsuitable hour. I sigh in despair at my mother's heightened energy levels, as I see that they are going to remain similar until the great meeting is over. I make a note to practise deep breathing exercises throughout the day to keep myself in control. (Note to readers: They proved surprisingly effective.) We fly down to Hyderabad, exchange the usual pleasantries with my maternal uncle. (it is surprising how elderly members of the family suddenly have free time to escort you on familial dates). The appointed hour arrives. The Hyderabad summit begins. We reach the place which had been decided and I half expect a convoy of family members to be there, ready to pounce at me. Instead, what greets me is the pleasant spectacle of 3 people (only??!!), the youngest of whom appears to be the prospective groom. This is somewhat different from the earlier meeting. There are no unabashed braggings about the groom-to-be. All the braggings are about the sister of the groom-to-be. Which is entirely irrelevant to the context of the meeting since the prospective bride, in all hopefulness (I dont know whether this word exists), wants to marry the brother and not the sister.
The groom takes a nervous apprisal of my groomed self . Much to my mother's chagrin, I have declined to look like a sun TV Sari advertisement, and I am drastically unadorned by south indian standards. According to me, by combing my hair for a man, I have knighted him by all standards. I take a confident apprisal, and I do not despise what I see. Tangible prosperity and maturity (read bulging paunch) are in check, unlike the earlier Mumbai nightmare. The face has a perpetual smile, and all in all, its a rather agreeable nice man (by parental standards) I am looking at. But the maximum response it can evoke, sadly, is non-despicability; no other pleasant rumbling (in the stomach or elsewhere) can be identified by my ever alert mind. Discussions centre around mundane things like weekend timepass and cooking abilities. I shock and raise quite a few eyebrows by asking the prospective groom about his dexterity in kitchen activities. The tension is dissipated by a bout of nervous laughter from his gentle mother. I answer all my questions precisely, like a person who is trained to speak to media. My answers elicit an opinion that I am probably trained in public speaking...(I was trained all right, to give the correct answers...what went drastically wrong was the substance of the answers.) Eyebrows disappear inside hairlines when I delineate my preferences in music and other sundry matters. (rock music, I say nonchalantly, as the groom-to-be talks about carnatic) I also display a special interest in body piercing and the art of tattooing. The groom-to-be has by now classified me into a should-be-but-isnt- Hippie.(Note to readers: It is a form of a chronic and infectious disease which is affecting large populations of expatriate south indians) .This confirms the earlier diagnosis of me being a hippie, (the symptoms have worsened into a debilitating disorder with no cure) and thereby also announces the unsung death of his (the boy's, I never had any to begin with) matrimonial intentions. After about 2 hours of entirely unentertaining conversation and insipid food, we part thankfully.
I am inclined to say that good food improves the tolerability of otherwise intolerable conversations. I think I need to choose better restaurants, which serve no onions and no garlic.
Dear readers, thank you for bearing with my writing. As Jug Suraiya has rightly put in one of his columns,to read what one has written is a torture reserved for perpetrators of most heinous crimes. Thanks for saving me from that fate.
posted by Anupama. @ 10:25 pm
0 Comments
