Aji Sunthe Ho..

Aji sunthe ho.. how shyly the newlywed bride would call her husband. How would he come behind her wagging(exaggeration :P) his tail. I always dreamt about all this, but strongly and strangely was against the arranged marriage rules. I always felt that the guys who are willing for arranged marriage are the ones who are totally deprived of having girlfriend(s), un-handsome(am sure this word is not in dictionary, cos I discovered it!), and DUMB in a nutshell.

Every morning mom would wake me up with a new story of how Premal, Shyla, Sharda aunties are happier than her, for the only reason that their daughters are married to either COMPUTER engineers or EM-BEE-AES. She also wondered how many Tholas (gold is measured in terms of tholas) of gold they had to give in exchange with those computer engineers slash MBAs. On an average she would calculate atleast once a day how much gold we currently have and how much more to qualify to get an offer from any of these creatures belonging to that category. My reaction always was constant for about two years– a silence or a nod, until mom realized the fact that I am the only unwed girl left in the family!! And the volcano erupted!!!!! When she did not find a sign of interest towards arranged marriage in me, afraid that I will marry some guy who might not be our cast and worried about Shyla, Sharda and Prema moushi’s reaction if I marry a non whatsoever caste guy, she started shouting at me. That day I realized ‘maa’ can become ‘kaali maa’ when she is angry…. I got scared and said “software engineer or MBA jaun asska, migel pashi laamb ani handsome aska…haanv Bangalore soaN bhaihiri vachina” (He should either be and engineer or MBA-I have no clue why I set that criteria must be competition with moushis daughters, he should be taller than me and handsome too, I will not go out of Bangalore)

I could hear mom sighing, it was so loud. Guess she was holding her breathe till I finished my talk(Alas!! I should have spoken for another 15 minutes :P)

So many proposals and I liked this guys picture. He wore a black formal shirt, shades which suited him well and he had short hair with spikes on forehead.. I was glad that “some’” guy from the arranged marriage bucket is still handsome, stylish and not married to anybody else yet. (Marriage market is very risky. One always waits for a better deal and repents that he could have waited for longer for a much better deal. Only few lucky ones hit the jackpot.)

He is Samrat(sorry had to change the name for confidentiality reasons :P). The moment I saw his snap i recollected that my mind unintentionally read his name as SMART and I smiled. I saw his photo several times and imagined my daughter Samita (Samrat + Mamta) playing with us in our own Villa, with swings around, the garden, huge SUVs and sedans parked around and a personal swimming pool and the laptops monitor timed out to show me the dumb screen saver which shook me off my dream.

I was excited when he came online for very few minutes to tell me that he wanted to meet me. I wore a simple denim and t shirt just to impress him(or show off that I am also modern- I could have as well worn a salwar). I knew I didn’t dress up too much. After office I decided to meet him in “some” mall. My colleague Sreelatha found me leaving early from office and asked me the reason, I told her. She said “don’t wear jeans when u r meeting an alliance, it won’t create a good impression” her fully-loaded-Malayali- expert- advice…Kaali zabaan, I cursed her. Hoping to spend a better evening with Samrat.


I parked my scooty and called him up. I wanted to see myself in the mirror before seeing him. call got connected and I hear such a masculine voice, I blushed only imagining my dream coming true. I removed the jacket, felt it was too much for a casual meet, brushed my hair, it always is messy whenever I try hard to set it, another layer of lip gloss that he should not concentrate on my stub nose. Aah! Perfect, and I say “I just reached” only to turn back in response to a tap on my shoulder. Its him. or its HIM!! my question conveniently changed to “ WAS IT HIM IN THE PICTURE?!!!” , I don’t know what color my face turns when this kind of situation occurs. Purplish, blackish, maroon shades of faces, that Samrat only can tell. CHEATER I wanted to shout, the little girl in dream, the villa, sedans, SUVs and everything was crashing with the mute on. Now I realized what I should have read his name as – “SOME RAT”

This little guy, who had posted his close-up pic was almost my height (and I am considered short  ), he weighed approximately 15 kilos less than I did and in his oversized shirt looked like a school kid wearing his elder brothers shirt. I pulled an intensely forced smile on my face and wished him. We went inside the mall and sat in “some” restaurant. He found my pink scooty weirdly out of world and swore will never buy his sister a pink “anything”. He also said that I make crazy faces when I speak. I was/am/will be the most expressive person ever, my face turns all shades, shapes and each expression is always accompanied by my eyes, nose, lips and teeth most of the times. When I am explaining certain things my face literally expresses it. He said I look good when I smiled shyly with my lips closed. God forbid, which implies that I should not be talking??? And am sure he barely had any idea that “I” don’t shut mouth even when am asleep!! Yeah I speak even when am asleep, that’s so normal with me.

He noticed my watch. “wow Tommy”… he exclaimed.. amazing! I felt he noticed something nice at least. “My first branded watch” I said, like I had many, this was the only one I had, others were from commercial street, diamond studded, gold plated, 300 bux each. He added he was also thinking of buying Tommy. “Don’t make such face, u look nice when you don’t show your teeth”, he clearly was getting irritated and I embarrassed. Like he sensed it, he jumped out of the seat, his tiny 35 kilo, hairless, brainless, denim shirt clad body (I saw his clean hands – like a girls hand, am sure he was clean all through ;-) ) sprang up like the Tiger character in Winnie the Pooh bear. It made no difference to the sofa, it only looked up to see a tiny posterior rising up and settling back down. I wonder what would the sofa say when I jump up on it like that… It would curse my 4 generations for having borne such a meaty offspring, carrying her 8-9 kilo posterior to the restaurant only to eat and further enhance the same. Nevertheless, he sprang up like the Tiger(google Tiger Winnie the pooh for visual pleasure), and said, “tell me a joke”. Wow, how did he know it was a “joke day” for me today? First joke when I saw this tiny dude while I was shown only top half in the picture, now am here hearing my “review” and then he asks me to tell a joke??!! I said I didn’t remember any, so he conveniently adjusted his bum to place it better and he looked like he is going to disclose the merriest news of his life. But all the enthusiasm was for a PJ which I didn’t even understand and he ended up explaining… I laughed.. laughed at myself, god when am I going home? “ I will tell u another joke”, this time it was even more horrible, but I didn’t want him to explain so I laughed.. “ I will tell u a non veg joke if u don’t mind” , god must be angry on me, “do u mind?” absolutely.. I never thought Jokes needed a disclaimer before told. Do we have to specify the joke genre before telling? I said its ok, am 25 yrs old. He started with a supposedly non veg joke, it was hilarious.. not the joke but this guy who thought it was NON VEG.. I waited for the bill while he continued his series of non veg jokes. Every time he sprang up on the sofa, I felt like hitting him with that electrified bat which kills mosquitoes and flies. Am sure it was enough to electrify him and put him back to the sofa. How would it sound when I hit him with that bat? Pluck! like how it sounds when a mosquito touches it? Or more? Would the tiny hair on his almost bald head get curled? “don’t u know jokes?” he was curious to know. Don’t I know jokes? But I don’t laugh when I see something funny, look at me am not laughing seeing you.. I looked around for fire exit. What If I start shouting fire fire and run towards fire exit? Will he follow me? Or can I take my bag and ask him to excuse me to use the rest room and runaway from there? Not a good idea, he can see the exit. Even better, I will tell him I have a call and save myself? “you don’t know any jokes?? My ex was so humorous, she used to tell me so many jokes”, now I know why is she your EX. She would have ran out of jokes to become ex. I didn’t want to know more. God came in the form of waiter with the bill. He really did look like lord Ganesha to me. I would have tipped him hundred bux after “Some Rat” saw the bill and handed it over to me. “we will share” he said.. good gesture, but it was only a few hundreds, one of us could have paid, “I will pay its ok, I don’t have cash, will pay by card” I said and placed the bill with card, “ok” he said.


Another two months I took to digest the “looks can be deceptive” experience. Beep Beep, exactly after 2 months my phone saw a sms from “SOME RAT”....

“If I have to tell you a fact, you know, even when I speak to my friends about a girl, I talk about moments, the humour, the fun, that I had with you and not that with my ex, BTW I bought a SONY flat screen television with a DVD player and a home theatre system…. “ I found a mosquito killer bat, only the mosquito was not around…