Chapter
4 - Special Theory of Relativity
What is the best way to get to know if a person is
right for you?
This is one of the big pertinent questions
in life, isn’t it? It’s right up there with “what is the purpose of life?”, “does
free will exist?”, and “what’s for
dinner?”
Indian moms have answers to all their
children’s questions. So when I asked her, she told me,
‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Whatever you want. But I have made aloo-gobhi.’
‘Does free will exist?’
‘Of course. As long as you do as I tell you
to.’
‘What is the purpose of life?’
‘To get married and have children.’
‘What is the best way to get to know a
prospective life partner?’
‘Whoever I tell you to.’
My Dad is a simpler man. He had one
solution to all of life’s problems.
‘You’ll figure it out yourself if you start
waking up at 5 am.’
So I posed the question to the master of
all useless knowledge – Podrik.
‘There are many ways to get to know a girl,’
he said. ‘The best way is to of course be
in a live-in relationship with her for at least four years before figuring
things out. Apart from that you could try talking to her. Take her out for
dinner and a nice romantic movie. Maybe add a chariot ride. Watch the stars together.
Take her on a cruise. Go on a
backpacking trip together. Feel her up. Bang her. Bang her friends. Bang her
neighbors...’
I interrupted his nonsensical train of
thought, ‘how does banging her friends
and neighbors help in getting to know her?’
Podrik looked at me like a man bewildered.
‘Getting to know her? What was your
question again?’
I didn’t really find an answer. But I got
some ideas. Under the Indian arranged marriage system, you get to meet a girl a
limited number of times before deciding on whether you want to spend the rest
of your lives together. I think Yudhishtir had better odds at happiness after
he wagered his (and his brothers’) wife in a game of ancient ludo. So that’s
the question I took with me when I met Anjuli.
I had some reservations while considering Anjuli.
1. First thing, her name “Anjuli” sounded a lot like the name of my recent ex-girlfriend and I was afraid that someday I might blurt out the wrong name. As it so happens in these things, I might blurt out the wrong name at the most inappropriate time. I might end up doing it in full view of the public like Ross Geller did, which would be bad. Or I might do it in a much intimate setting, which would be considerably worse.
2.
Secondly, on the hot-crazy
scale, Anjuli didn’t really have the scope to go crazy. At all. I stayed
idealistic and thought that it wouldn’t matter in the long run. I was an idiot
back then.
3.
Thirdly, Anjuli had just
graduated from law school and didn’t exactly know where her job would take her.
I thought that we should initiate matrimonial discussions only after she had
settled into her job and knew where her career would be going. But as modern
Indian families go, we had ignored Anjuli’s career considerations entirely.
4.
Lastly, Anjuli had just
graduated from law school. And like
any sane person, I hoped I’d get to stay away from lawyers for most of my life.
Childhood experiences with two sisters and one mother had trained me for illogical
arguments with angry uncanny women. Suddenly facing a woman, a wife no less,
who is capable of arguing based on logic! I could not imagine such a thing even
existing. I clearly wasn’t ready for such a challenge.
And so after carefully listening to and
ignoring all my arguments, my mom gave me Anjuli’s number. Which I ignored. And
this went on for three weeks. Meanwhile, I got calls from my mom, my sister,
and jiju to talk to Anjuli. As it turned out, Anjuli’s (A0V7) sister’s (A1V6)
husband’s (A2V5) father’s (A3V4) sister’s (A4V3) son’s (A5V2)
wife’s (A6V1) brother shared the same
name, height, weight, personality, and consciousness as me (A7V0). And so this entire chain of well-meaning off-putting
relatives thought it well-within their rights to convince everyone in this
chain that I should get married to Anjuli so that they could all meet up for
one night to share a plate of malai kofta together.
Meanwhile, I knew that Anjuli might be
going through similar experiences from her side of the clan. And so I knew this
other person existing in the world, going through a shared experience like me,
unsure of her personal or professional future like any mid-20 year old, without
ever hearing my voice or talking to me in particular. I felt a kind of a
gravitational pull that’s only been shared between the Earth and a very famous
ancient asteroid. I thought to myself, ‘here's
an intelligent young woman, recently graduated, exploring the world, facing
family pressures, and not even particularly good-looking. Who would marry her
if not for someone benevolent like me?’ I felt bad for her. And so I dialed
the number.
We spoke for four hours that night. It was
a good conversation. We spoke about what it’s like living away from family
which entails a mix of freedom and responsibility. We spoke of what we seek in
life partners. We spoke of our exes and why we broke up. We understood that we
came from very different worlds. I was an engineer working in finance in
Mumbai. She was a new lawyer raring to take on the world. But we connected on
books we loved and movies we had seen. By the end of the call, it felt like one
of those moments when you don't want to hang up. And we had a smile as we slept
that night.
Or so I thought.
The next morning, as I walked from the
train station to my office, mom called, scolding me about something I had said
to offend Anjuli. I couldn't remember saying anything offensive, but something
had clearly gone wrong. Apparently, I had said something to Anjuli which had
offended someone and now my jiju (A5V2)
was angry at my sister (A6V1) for having
me as her brother. I should mention: my sister didn't have much say in being my
sister, and I had even less say in being her younger brother. Yet, here we
were. To make matters worse, an angry jija and an angry mom is a bad
combination. You should never have two women angry together in the family.
Upon further investigation, I discovered
that during our conversation about getting to know a person, I had suggested
that one way to do so was by taking a trip together. Now taking a trip with
another human being is a normal leisure activity normal people do. However,
Indian families have a very different concept of what “normal” and “trip” means.
In the Indian arranged marriage context, suggesting taking a trip with an unmarried
girl was the greatest sin I could commit. I could have told her that she will
have to leave her job, career, family, sanity, and country if she wanted to
marry me and I would have been perfectly justified in asking for that. But to
suggest that two people take a trip together… holy cow! But that’s just how
things work here. The patriarchy is mightier than the brain.
That Tuesday on reaching office the first
thing I did was dial Anjuli’s number. Of course my boss was very pleased. It turned out that Anjuli
was talking to her sister (A1V6) at
night about the conversation she had with me, which her jiju (A2V5) overheard (eavesdropped). That seemed to be a normal thing for him to do. And
as Anjuli told her sister that I was a perfectly normal person to talk to, her
jiju found me to be an absolute monster and started making preparations to lynch
my effigy me for telephonic molestation and virtual sexual harassment. A2V5 complained to his father (A3V4), who complained to my jiju’s
mother (A4V3), who complained to my
jiju (A5V2), who complained to my
mom (UNCREDITED). And that was the
world saying “good morning” to me on a Tuesday.
So I did what I did every morning at the office - started adding people on a conference call. Going up the chain as far as I was authorized to, and clarifying that I was not a monster.
By evening, the news had traveled across the chain and my jiju (A5V2) called me saying that his mother’s brother’s son (A2V5) had called him apologizing for the debacle. And now I could continue with my conversations with Anjuli. But advised me to record everything so that no such confusions arise in the future.
‘Of course. Would you like a video montage
of the honeymoon as well?’ I asked.
It has been years since that incident.
Facebook tells me that Anjuli is happily married now. At least I assume it is a
happy marriage. Meanwhile, I just cleared second year of law college.
