‘Check your
dupatta and don’t let it fall off your shoulder’, Ma reminded Alka as they set
out for a blind date, to meet a prospective family they might want to extend
relations with. The Khanna’s have been looking for a groom for Alka for quite
some time now, seven months to be precise, but have not been able to meet
someone who would even closely satisfy the expectations of four members of the
immediate family and the rest forty-five of the extended one. This particular
prospect looked close enough to the ideal and, thus, everyone was interested to
know more about them.
Kudos to the
Internet and the startups mushrooming today, for they have not left any
possible thing one could think of having done not having a way out online. From
finding a groom to getting married to planning a kid to finding a lawyer –
Google has an answer to all. Internet had played a role massive enough in the
life of Alka that now she was about to meet someone she might just end up
sleeping with for the rest of her life. That was only one of the aspects of the
married life, she knew, but a grand one she just couldn’t let her thoughts off
from.
Alka had
always been an average performer throughout her life, according to her parents.
She never scored ‘excellent’ to top in the class nor she cleared any of the
famous entrance exams post high school. Therefore, her parents never expected
big out of her and, surprisingly, so did Alka. She had a different perspective
of looking at her life. Though she never topped any exams taken in school or
post that, she still held a successful career of a data analyst, thanks to her
keenness in mathematics. She was getting decently paid, not even close to what
her ‘better performing’ classmates were, but decent enough for her to spend and
save. She never attempted at the impossible but always expected great things to
happen to her despite that. All her life before this day, she had had a lot of
‘close’ friends she used to hang out with, but none of them was ‘ideal’ enough
for her parents to let her settle with. Thus, this day.
A family of
four met a clan of three, all trying to fit awkwardly in a table for six in
TGIF, Rajouri; thanks to the weekend and discounts up everywhere that
successfully pulled out even the non-shoppers to come out and shop and, also,
eat. While the families were busy in exchanging pleasantries, the two, Alka and
Nakul, were just able to exchange glances. She had studied his profile
on merishadi.com, tried to find him on every social media possible – Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, GooglePlus, LinkedIn and, even, Tinder and she believed he
would have done his part of investigations, too.
She was here
on a purpose – either to find a better person than all her past beaus or to
prove her parents wrong. She had gulped whole bunch of articles learning how to
behave on your first date, like how to impress a family on your first meeting
with them, how to drop subtle hints to the boy that there’s more to you, how to
catch the ideal fish and how do you know he’s the one. Internet, once again,
could play a massive role by being a sound informer to her. After having a
pizza with a brick-like base, topped with chicken crumbs and a lot of cheese,
it occurred to the elders that they should let the two speak to each other in
private. Thus, a long walk down the aisle leading to the staircase and back.
This time,
these moments, Alka has been waiting for this since the time they met. She
finally waited for him to break the ice. With semblance to a corporate
interview, Nakul began interrogating Alka about her life, her present and her
plans for future. She bounced the same questions back at him and found him to
be quite interesting. A few questions, some jokes and the meeting ended there.
The families
liked each other as much as they had liked the profiles about each other on
merishadi. Time flew and the two asked for more time and space to fill up with
them unfurling. Long chats, unending text conversations and frequent phone
calls had helped these two strangers know great deal about each other.
Internet, once again, was her savior as she could talk as well as see him
online for as good as free. She just loved technology and the time she was born
in, when it is blooming at an unmatched pace.
There was a
road which they were both treading on, the road which at first glance seemed
really dark, and the one which was lightening itself up with each step taken
forward. However, this road had a drawback; it lost all its sheen for every
step taken backward. Nakul was forthcoming in revealing everything about
himself, how he was not good with girls, or rather with the girls who did not
find him interesting enough unless he had started earning, about how his
relationships with these girls could never lead to any fling and how he only
dreamt about the ones he could possibly hitch with but couldn’t, thanks to his
lack of self-confidence.
In spite of
him being extroverted about his life, Alka was smart enough to always weigh
everything before she spoke. For her, the fact that their vibes matched was
pretty much enough for them to start living together. It didn’t matter to her
if he was new or a player, for she was prepared to never be judgmental on any
grounds. Nakul, on the other hand, was largely inquisitive about her past, as
he didn’t have any ‘darn happening’ thing ever happened to him and he, anyway,
held a right to be informed.
On a final
meeting before their marriage, Alka had to ventilate her thoughts out on what
she feels is right. With tone full of pragmatism, she said, ‘I see this coming
life together as a long vacation, the one which will bring us many surprises,
happiness, tears and challenges along the way but it will be happy as long as
we only tread forward. There’s a clear line of differentiation in time before I
met you and the one after it. What really happened back then would always sound
like a story to you and I’m no good a storyteller. So, the questions you’ve
deep in your mind but never put forth, about my virginity, about how I came to
know about sex, about how I ‘felt’ about my body changing and if I ever took
any stupid steps to get answers to this inquisitiveness will all be interesting
subjects for us to talk long on, but the ‘real’ answers for you to believe in
will neither be blown nor they will be shown. You’re welcome if you, too, are
willing to look forward on the path, while having interesting tête-à-tête over
bottles of beer chilling right now, somewhere in the future.’
Nakul had no
reasons why he should still be inquisitive about the ‘stories’ from the past.
