Topic started by Saketh on Sun Feb 6 14:34:19 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
First Look
I was a picture of diseased enthusiasm. Diseased because I was toying with my future. 'Appa, this fellow was the Rock at Kanyakumari' mother said. I never knew any rock in Kanyakumari though I can assure you that I knew her sense of humour to be pathetic. Father was probably better off. This ceremony of seeing the girl before marriage could only be termed as the Face of the Fate. I hear the sharp reader that my sense of humour too needs attention.
We were closer to Fate now. I mean we were closer to the house. I have never appreciated the idea of cross-country marriages, I mean a hard-core Tamilian marrying a soft-bred Telugu girl from Hyderabad. I heard she was a B.A. but I never saw her photo, mother said she was some golden egg of Virtue. I came to Hyderabad two days ago, on a train that consumed a full night to ride us to our destiny. I was just 4 hours late. But I should not complain. Time is probably consumed the fastest in any man-made circumstance, but India seems to hurry things a lot. I mean a day flies faster in India than in other places, or, that is what people tell me. Another lasting impression of Hyderabad is probably its autorickshaws. The drivers are so different from their counterparts in Chennai, they are more sincere. Yes, Hyderabad is more Hindi-prone than Chennai and for me it was a good surprise. My uncle told me that Hyderabad was a place of riot. I attach no poetic connotation to the word 'riot'. I mean serious riots, Hindu-Muslim and other combinations of religions and castes. I should say that Charminar reminds of some lift-off from a Pakistani movie.
Father came alive at the bride's house. He said 'right foot, sir'. I nodded half-lost between the comment and my pre-occupation with the girl. My uncle let a good howl come our way, he emits them whenever he feels that the object of attention needs a brush. I granted him that. A few hairs came alive on the forearm and once the echo of the laugh subsided they came back. The father of the bride did not take much notice of the howl as much as my fur did. Anyway, we cannot complain about deaf people. My mother dragged me along with a motherly pat here and there and it was not much time before we were sipping Telugu coffee. Regionalists might say that I am biased towards Telugu. I took my first coffee in Hyderabad two days back. It was at the railway station and I have no complaints. In fact I must admire the railway people in Hyderabad for their supply of water in spite of acute shortage in Hyderabad. My aunt gave me the next one. It was good in the true sense of the word. She had warned me on the basis of her close association with the bride's family that their brand of coffee was distasteful - a word of caution for me from the engineer of the marriage. After the kind warning had come, I made up my mind to avoid beverages of all sorts from 'her'. But decency demanded that I sip at least a few quick ones. After a good deal of thought I decided to go for it.
I must admit that my mother knows my taste more than anybody else does. The girl was beautiful.
'Take the coffee' my father interrupted.
Girls are an integral part of my work place. But my vision tells me that my eyeing of the female in question was probably the most poetic of all. My first transaction with a Telugu girl was in the shop and I can tell you there was no poem in it. She was doing what staunch businessmen call constructive criticism. I drank the coffee not with the slightest of jerk. Frankly, I do not recollect its taste. My mother was in the midst of a heated debate with my aunt. My father was poised. The bride was nowhere to be seen. Her mother chewed the poor betel leaves with a torrent of arrogant Telugu.
For a guy brought up in the fast-westernizing society, I knew that I wanted to have a talk with the girl. I put the idea to my father. He did not seem to demur it. In two minutes time I was back to my hyper-tension mode in front of her. Not a word seemed to crawl out from my diseased tongue. Finally, ladies first. She asked me how Hyderabad was. I told her about the coffee I had at the railway station. All about that and about the jaggery sweet I had at my aunt's place.
'Stupid', was my father's comment.
'I was better off' said my cousin.
It was not a pleasant day in my life. Not the poem, not the face, came to me. I was worried about what she felt. If only she knew that this fellow could speak on Philosophy, Science and so many other things, I knew that I needed a fair chance. But how ? If you want to know how humiliating it is for anyone who has had pure red ink dropped on his unmistakable outlook, ask me. Well what do you do when the mouth betrays the soul, and the gait betrays thought ? I needed advice. I needed a break.
In fifteen days, my conscience washed the stain of the incident. I was just brooding how, over the last fifteen days Time had healed the wound, when my father called up. The poem was off the air. The betel-chewing American loving mother clinched the marriage of the first song in my life with an Indian-born American-bred NRI. I had the break I wanted!
Sakethraman Mahalingam
Feb 6 2000
Tell your friend about this topic