My Marriage Proposals

December, 2007. Pune, Maharastra.

I was 27 going on 28, “single” and “available”. It is a truth universally known that a single woman in possession a good fortune, must be in want of a husband. As dutiful and duly concerned parents, they set about to find one for me. Mother promptly signed up with a paid subscription of Shaadi.com, coloured photographs and all. Dad’s entire office came to know that Mr. Dasgupta has a fair, smart girl, working with an MNC, educated, well-to-do-family, religion, caste no-bar.

And the wait began…

Initiation of the hunt for “groom right” was disconcerting. The first few contacts refused to believe that the photographs were real. They demanded that there were of a model! If only…I simple don’t have the height (5.1”), weight (78 kg), figure or proportions. No matter how vain I might be about my looks, I am humble enough to limit myself to fairly good looking.

The next few were “really” good offers. They got my parents so excited that they were about to marry me off in the next week if they had got reservations in hotels for my very large extended family. I got emails from “interested grooms” saying that they were very impressed with my mother, couldn’t wait to make my acquaintance. I had the ugly task of breaking the news to my mother that I couldn’t possibly top her.

Then, came an even better proposal. “Interested groom” works in IBM, been with it for nearly 5 years, very humble, soft spoken. Mother very impressed with the initial talk. On the second call mother found that “interested groom” works in IBM Daksh, Pune. Talks coincidences! Third conversation, “interested groom” worked in my process and turned out to be my boss. Forget awkward, talk humongous disaster!

Embolden with proposals from MNCs, mother decided to consider international offers. The next proposal- “interested mother-in-law” convinced mother that USA was next door to India followed by an “interested father-in-law” who said Nigeria was a better place to settle for newlyweds than India. Mother in turn tried to convince me that I take a two year sabbatical from work and move to either one of the countries. I weighed my options and asked mother to convince “interested groom” to try the sabbatical route. Mother never told me what the ending was.

Just as mother was about to slow down her pace my dad got into the action. I got a very delicate call from him telling me that he classmate from collage has an equally eligible, fair, smart boy, working with an MNC, educated, well-to-do-family, religion, caste no-bar. And the icing on the cake, they share the same surname. Talk about less hassle after marriage to change all legal documents. His only flaw, he is 6.2”. I had to politely refuse stating that once I had enough funds to get leg extensions to match his height, I will get back to them.

Father hasn’t tried again after that irrespective of the temptations.

Mother still had enough courage to continue. Next “interested groom” was an IIT graduate with his own automobile design centre in Pune and looking for an equally ambitious wife. With no dearth of ambition, I had very long conversations over the mobile that too at my expense. I got equally ambitious to finally meet him. I told my “interested groom” I want to buy a Tavera with an inbuilt bar, he told me his ambition was to buy a Tata truck as it has good pick up. McDonald’s at Inox is a great place but unfortunately doesn’t have too many exits to facilitate the “interested runaway bride”.

This was followed by the next “interested father-in-law” arriving unannounced and unexpected at mother’s doorstep. Mother in turn threw him out, which was followed by him threatening dire consequences. Dad had to intervene with the matter of the police to settle things.

After a brief reconsideration of strategy, the next “interested groom” was a mother’s delight, especially mine. He was obedient, dutiful, polite and a software engineer…in short became mother’s best friend. On her visit to Pune he was at mother’s beck and call, fulfilling even her whimsical wishes which exasperated me. I flatly refused to let him come anywhere within a 10 kilometer radius of my house. They are still best friends.

All this brings us to the current hiatus mother has taken in her continuing endeavour to find “groom right”. I will duly keep you all updated of the latest events in the hunt. Till then, I thought a rerun of “Honeymoon Travels” is not a bad idea.