A number of days passed. Oh just for the information, the suitor from U.S.A, Mr. Amit managed to freak Riya quite a bit with his classic questions and opinions. He had turned up in neat blue and white checked shirt, dressed impressively.
Riya had relaxed by the 1st half of this encounter since she knew in her mind she never wanted to see this man who seemed to be leaving his decision about Riya based on questions like …
“How do you define life?”, “How do you describe yourself in one word’? And the best ever “What could you do to make me happy if I was upset?” “Belly dancing if you like?!” Riya wanted to cut him as she felt remorseful. It wasn’t so much about the questions as much as the style of putting them across that got Riya bored to death. She felt they were worse than the “Tell me something about yourself”, “Take me through your resume (life)” , “Why should I hire you?” questions done to death at bschools and jobs Riya had applied to till now in life. Atleast there she knew she wanted to be taken in/ hired, she genuinely wanted to tell them something about herself that could possibly impress them, she was positive about coming across as the way she wanted; confident and potentially the best.
‘Why on earth or rather how on earth do I clarify the assumption that I am dying to spend my life with him’ Riya thought when she was asked “Why do you think we should marry?”!!!! And just for all the irritation and annoyance Amit had caused by frivolous questions he thought were consequential…she wanted to ask him “What’s the meaning of your name? Why is your name the most common name everrrr…?!” not so much to be mean to him as much as to make him recognise his shortcomings, helplessness with certain things about his own life and make him feel as worthless … just as he had made Riya and her world seem …in a way!
The icing on the cake was when he added “Always lived in India is it?!... You would love U.S.A … no pollution and no flouting of rules, no corruption and no noise. This place is always littered, people forever struggling and stealing, unsafe and other adjectives Riya wanted to just dump!”
Riya in turn wanted to ask “Are you well aware of Mumbai areas? Predicting a No she thought she would just take him out on the pretext of showing him around and leave him in Dharavi and disappear and he could remain there cursing her and fuss endlessly over the cleanliness and other conditions there…but he needed to realize that life existed everywhere and no matter what the living conditions, people tend to make the most of their worlds and circumstances and work hard each day to improve them. People dream in every place…also within the confines of the most dimunitive and undersized homes. What best than Dharavi; one of the biggest slums in Asia to help him come in touch with “grass root reality” … literally… this young NRI who had no perspective about his motherland!
It intrigued Riya always, the luxury items and durables people seem to own in the dingy homes here and the happiness people sought in the place. He said he had done his “Business Studies”… Riya doubted this…for he prolly had no regard for “The Bottom of the Pyramid” being vital in fuelling growth spoken a myriad times in every economics and business research paper she had ever read! Aspirations and dreams never die for anyone, no matter what the conditions… Marketing industries thrived on this…seemingly dull jobs like insurance made a living only out of selling dreams and fears!
…She debated this idea and then concluded she had nothing to do with him whatsoever so why squander away those moments proving any point to him and who knows he might still choose to remain rigid and miss Riya’s perspective altogether!
… And these arranged marriage type things operate with a lot of principles apparently…the girl never must show enhanced interest or disinterest since a lot of aunties and uncles are involved and such behavior can only fuel gossips and sway the direction of affairs in an unintended direction !
The marathon of meetings that followed periodically put Riya much at ease with the state of affairs. Weirdly, she started searching for enjoyment in the obscurity. Infact she started viewing this ‘do’ merely as a great means of entertainment and a great means of observing different facets of “human behaviour”!
After Amit, she did meet several “nice boys” … but life aint meant to be spent with merely nice human beings Riya still felt…when her friends asked her “so what did you think of him?’ …she’d say “Really Isha I wanted to be his friend and pull his cheeks, my heart went out for his sad and happy stories …but I CANT MARRY him… hehe”!!!
Riya also stopped caring about how she’d be judged and did things to please her nasty mind that was more an outcome of her frustration with the ‘unpreparedness’. She was just a little less than phobic!
To evade another person, once she ripped a scene off a Hindi movie and replicated it in front of yet another suitor who had barely introduced himself enough to her. She looked hopeless and started saying things like “Let’s make things really clear… I have had a past… I am clearly not out of it… and hey I cant cook to save my life and I have a drinking problem… though I am working at it… I have curtailed my smoking significantly…unnh and I am sure things will be ok sooner or later… I will become more responsible”… she cut a sorry picture and chuckled within when the guy looked exasperated and yet inexpressive of the terror she had created in his head. He drove her around and Riya sat relaxed for the first time with any man ever… thinking it was she who had managed to create tension in someone’s mind this time. Everytime her phone rang, she quickly answered and had relatively longer and softer conversations thinking she had fuelled some sort of anxiety pertaining to her non existent past relation..!
Riya hoped this would end here. Very very surprisingly, the man still called her the next day… “What do you think Riya?… we should meet” . ‘Really… had I acted badly?’ Riya asked herself in the mind… Where do you want to meet?
Umm wherever…let me call you after work one of the days…maybe Friday ?
“Unnh ok!”
All of that week Riya got love, friendship, philosophy and unnecessarily funny texts from the “new boy”!! Riya was bewildered and disoriented.
At 9 p.m on Friday Riya started feeling relieved that there was no correspondence or communication as yet! …just before the happiness concluded…her phone rang… ‘Hi it’s me ... Ravi this side!” … “Who and which side?’ “Unnh Ravi Ravi…we met on Monday?”…
“Oops the alcohol again you see”! , Riya desperately wanted to add but dismissed the thought thinking it would clearly signify OVER ACTING!
‘Ohh of course’ … Riya spoke forcibly!
Riya got picked from a place decided upon mutually. “Riya …You are a nice person…thanks so much for being so honest Riya…”
Riya was whacked out by now… “Are you kidding me” … it took a lot for a shy, quiet, otherwise decent and practical girl like me to accept the movie idea in the first place and then to enact it to save my life from you... and you bother me all week with annoying messages and jokes, more tragic than funny… and to top it all also tell me I am the best woman for being truthful about all the false and evil things… who are you kidding really?!! … Riya wondered almost with teary eyes…if sanity prevailed in her life at all!!! Besides the whole world couldn’t have gone mad suddenly…maybe she was obscure herself she thought for a few seconds!
She kept quiet all of this time, only felt confused …a stark contrast to her previous behavior. Ravi himself felt like he was meeting another woman in the list his parents had drawn fearing Riya was the 36th girl and in all likelihood also one of those who might turn him down or the other way!!
Buffer is apparently a good rule to trust in Arranged marriage…Most people wed by eliminating options than choosing one just like in CAT exams…selection of an option does not signify one is in love with that option but simply that others are relatively inappropriate answers… and having a buffer ensures cushion against sudden rejections!!!
Riya kept pondering… “What the hell is the man thinking…he is under no obligation to marry me and put up with my immoral behaviour and insane habits … whats the desperation about and why such compromises …she quickly put herself in his shoes… its like telling him… “I don’t mind your ways at all… I would talk to you everyday with tear jerking statements and emotional dialogs… and you would surely give up your past memories, smokes and alcohol…I would frustrate you and remind you of your duties towards me, force you emotionally to mend your ways, talk you out of everything that’s so extreme about you and I am sure you would immediately emerge the most suitable after that…and then MINUS the wavelength, you are quite suitable anyways!!!
Amidst the drive that seemed unending, Riya strangely found herself praying in the mind at the sight of a temple “God please ensure I don’t compromise with my life like this man is willing to, put me through all this that seems nothing but funny to me…but please don’t let me lose my ability to reason and judge correctly…it’s the question of another 50 years … a long time… I hope I don’t have to enact movie scenes all my life to avoid something that just doesn’t fit into my sensibility…u made me into a woman that seeks too much logic and reasoning…Don’t make me a melodrama queen! I Dream of a Great life …I don’t know what that must be like …but this is NOT that for sure!”
…Back home, Riya managed to give her explanations about why she thought it dint fit into her mind and walked out of the issue.
The next time around, Riya met another guy, she never wanted her mind to talk… for she felt abnormal about over reacting to things!!! However, a distant relative of her family’s had sent the news after a few weeks that the boy thought Riya had a ‘very different way of thinking’… Riya was surprised for she was rejected this time simply by not talking or making adequate conversation.
Riya had seen some elderly couple in the family…only this time she would over analyse most couples and their chemistry … nothing starkly wrong at all in their relation after many years of sharing a home and having a few children…only that there was nothing special either that could assure her that the relation was beyond arrangements…yet some had been perfect for sure but again she felt it was purely out of a decision to be happy under all situations than naturally…
Yet she started being positive and kept viewing this exercise as one that gave her tremendous insight into human nature, habits and peculiarities. If not anything she found lots of interesting matter to discuss with her best friend!
Also she felt suddenly like she had handled a lot in the past few months alongside burdening work and deadlines. She just thought deserved a break…a holiday to unwind and let go off everything that she carried the burden of… she decided to take off for a shopping trip to Dubai for 5 days with her two friends.
… She just seemed to be immersed in the thought of her itinery for the week and consciously refused to welcome thoughts of the future …
I dint want to delve deeper either… I am excited at the prospect of Riya taking a holiday myself… wishful! Clarity on course of actions, happiness, decisions, anxieties, concerns sometimes just hit in more conducive and relaxed moments. Even if it doesn’t, it can wait for a bit!
Riya needs to have fun and relive some old times with her friends… we shall let her LOSEN UP FOR NOW!
Riya had relaxed by the 1st half of this encounter since she knew in her mind she never wanted to see this man who seemed to be leaving his decision about Riya based on questions like …
“How do you define life?”, “How do you describe yourself in one word’? And the best ever “What could you do to make me happy if I was upset?” “Belly dancing if you like?!” Riya wanted to cut him as she felt remorseful. It wasn’t so much about the questions as much as the style of putting them across that got Riya bored to death. She felt they were worse than the “Tell me something about yourself”, “Take me through your resume (life)” , “Why should I hire you?” questions done to death at bschools and jobs Riya had applied to till now in life. Atleast there she knew she wanted to be taken in/ hired, she genuinely wanted to tell them something about herself that could possibly impress them, she was positive about coming across as the way she wanted; confident and potentially the best.
‘Why on earth or rather how on earth do I clarify the assumption that I am dying to spend my life with him’ Riya thought when she was asked “Why do you think we should marry?”!!!! And just for all the irritation and annoyance Amit had caused by frivolous questions he thought were consequential…she wanted to ask him “What’s the meaning of your name? Why is your name the most common name everrrr…?!” not so much to be mean to him as much as to make him recognise his shortcomings, helplessness with certain things about his own life and make him feel as worthless … just as he had made Riya and her world seem …in a way!
The icing on the cake was when he added “Always lived in India is it?!... You would love U.S.A … no pollution and no flouting of rules, no corruption and no noise. This place is always littered, people forever struggling and stealing, unsafe and other adjectives Riya wanted to just dump!”
Riya in turn wanted to ask “Are you well aware of Mumbai areas? Predicting a No she thought she would just take him out on the pretext of showing him around and leave him in Dharavi and disappear and he could remain there cursing her and fuss endlessly over the cleanliness and other conditions there…but he needed to realize that life existed everywhere and no matter what the living conditions, people tend to make the most of their worlds and circumstances and work hard each day to improve them. People dream in every place…also within the confines of the most dimunitive and undersized homes. What best than Dharavi; one of the biggest slums in Asia to help him come in touch with “grass root reality” … literally… this young NRI who had no perspective about his motherland!
It intrigued Riya always, the luxury items and durables people seem to own in the dingy homes here and the happiness people sought in the place. He said he had done his “Business Studies”… Riya doubted this…for he prolly had no regard for “The Bottom of the Pyramid” being vital in fuelling growth spoken a myriad times in every economics and business research paper she had ever read! Aspirations and dreams never die for anyone, no matter what the conditions… Marketing industries thrived on this…seemingly dull jobs like insurance made a living only out of selling dreams and fears!
…She debated this idea and then concluded she had nothing to do with him whatsoever so why squander away those moments proving any point to him and who knows he might still choose to remain rigid and miss Riya’s perspective altogether!
… And these arranged marriage type things operate with a lot of principles apparently…the girl never must show enhanced interest or disinterest since a lot of aunties and uncles are involved and such behavior can only fuel gossips and sway the direction of affairs in an unintended direction !
The marathon of meetings that followed periodically put Riya much at ease with the state of affairs. Weirdly, she started searching for enjoyment in the obscurity. Infact she started viewing this ‘do’ merely as a great means of entertainment and a great means of observing different facets of “human behaviour”!
After Amit, she did meet several “nice boys” … but life aint meant to be spent with merely nice human beings Riya still felt…when her friends asked her “so what did you think of him?’ …she’d say “Really Isha I wanted to be his friend and pull his cheeks, my heart went out for his sad and happy stories …but I CANT MARRY him… hehe”!!!
Riya also stopped caring about how she’d be judged and did things to please her nasty mind that was more an outcome of her frustration with the ‘unpreparedness’. She was just a little less than phobic!
To evade another person, once she ripped a scene off a Hindi movie and replicated it in front of yet another suitor who had barely introduced himself enough to her. She looked hopeless and started saying things like “Let’s make things really clear… I have had a past… I am clearly not out of it… and hey I cant cook to save my life and I have a drinking problem… though I am working at it… I have curtailed my smoking significantly…unnh and I am sure things will be ok sooner or later… I will become more responsible”… she cut a sorry picture and chuckled within when the guy looked exasperated and yet inexpressive of the terror she had created in his head. He drove her around and Riya sat relaxed for the first time with any man ever… thinking it was she who had managed to create tension in someone’s mind this time. Everytime her phone rang, she quickly answered and had relatively longer and softer conversations thinking she had fuelled some sort of anxiety pertaining to her non existent past relation..!
Riya hoped this would end here. Very very surprisingly, the man still called her the next day… “What do you think Riya?… we should meet” . ‘Really… had I acted badly?’ Riya asked herself in the mind… Where do you want to meet?
Umm wherever…let me call you after work one of the days…maybe Friday ?
“Unnh ok!”
All of that week Riya got love, friendship, philosophy and unnecessarily funny texts from the “new boy”!! Riya was bewildered and disoriented.
At 9 p.m on Friday Riya started feeling relieved that there was no correspondence or communication as yet! …just before the happiness concluded…her phone rang… ‘Hi it’s me ... Ravi this side!” … “Who and which side?’ “Unnh Ravi Ravi…we met on Monday?”…
“Oops the alcohol again you see”! , Riya desperately wanted to add but dismissed the thought thinking it would clearly signify OVER ACTING!
‘Ohh of course’ … Riya spoke forcibly!
Riya got picked from a place decided upon mutually. “Riya …You are a nice person…thanks so much for being so honest Riya…”
Riya was whacked out by now… “Are you kidding me” … it took a lot for a shy, quiet, otherwise decent and practical girl like me to accept the movie idea in the first place and then to enact it to save my life from you... and you bother me all week with annoying messages and jokes, more tragic than funny… and to top it all also tell me I am the best woman for being truthful about all the false and evil things… who are you kidding really?!! … Riya wondered almost with teary eyes…if sanity prevailed in her life at all!!! Besides the whole world couldn’t have gone mad suddenly…maybe she was obscure herself she thought for a few seconds!
She kept quiet all of this time, only felt confused …a stark contrast to her previous behavior. Ravi himself felt like he was meeting another woman in the list his parents had drawn fearing Riya was the 36th girl and in all likelihood also one of those who might turn him down or the other way!!
Buffer is apparently a good rule to trust in Arranged marriage…Most people wed by eliminating options than choosing one just like in CAT exams…selection of an option does not signify one is in love with that option but simply that others are relatively inappropriate answers… and having a buffer ensures cushion against sudden rejections!!!
Riya kept pondering… “What the hell is the man thinking…he is under no obligation to marry me and put up with my immoral behaviour and insane habits … whats the desperation about and why such compromises …she quickly put herself in his shoes… its like telling him… “I don’t mind your ways at all… I would talk to you everyday with tear jerking statements and emotional dialogs… and you would surely give up your past memories, smokes and alcohol…I would frustrate you and remind you of your duties towards me, force you emotionally to mend your ways, talk you out of everything that’s so extreme about you and I am sure you would immediately emerge the most suitable after that…and then MINUS the wavelength, you are quite suitable anyways!!!
Amidst the drive that seemed unending, Riya strangely found herself praying in the mind at the sight of a temple “God please ensure I don’t compromise with my life like this man is willing to, put me through all this that seems nothing but funny to me…but please don’t let me lose my ability to reason and judge correctly…it’s the question of another 50 years … a long time… I hope I don’t have to enact movie scenes all my life to avoid something that just doesn’t fit into my sensibility…u made me into a woman that seeks too much logic and reasoning…Don’t make me a melodrama queen! I Dream of a Great life …I don’t know what that must be like …but this is NOT that for sure!”
…Back home, Riya managed to give her explanations about why she thought it dint fit into her mind and walked out of the issue.
The next time around, Riya met another guy, she never wanted her mind to talk… for she felt abnormal about over reacting to things!!! However, a distant relative of her family’s had sent the news after a few weeks that the boy thought Riya had a ‘very different way of thinking’… Riya was surprised for she was rejected this time simply by not talking or making adequate conversation.
Riya had seen some elderly couple in the family…only this time she would over analyse most couples and their chemistry … nothing starkly wrong at all in their relation after many years of sharing a home and having a few children…only that there was nothing special either that could assure her that the relation was beyond arrangements…yet some had been perfect for sure but again she felt it was purely out of a decision to be happy under all situations than naturally…
Yet she started being positive and kept viewing this exercise as one that gave her tremendous insight into human nature, habits and peculiarities. If not anything she found lots of interesting matter to discuss with her best friend!
Also she felt suddenly like she had handled a lot in the past few months alongside burdening work and deadlines. She just thought deserved a break…a holiday to unwind and let go off everything that she carried the burden of… she decided to take off for a shopping trip to Dubai for 5 days with her two friends.
… She just seemed to be immersed in the thought of her itinery for the week and consciously refused to welcome thoughts of the future …
I dint want to delve deeper either… I am excited at the prospect of Riya taking a holiday myself… wishful! Clarity on course of actions, happiness, decisions, anxieties, concerns sometimes just hit in more conducive and relaxed moments. Even if it doesn’t, it can wait for a bit!
Riya needs to have fun and relive some old times with her friends… we shall let her LOSEN UP FOR NOW!
