(Discalimer :Parental Alert- you have to be 18
years and above to read the contents of this post. All Characters/names and
incidents are purely imaginative and a work of fiction. Read at your own Risk)
Madras where I live has a very brief rainy season- it lasts
at the most a couple of weeks. And hence when the rains finally turn up- we
have learnt to enjoy it to the full. One of the greatest pleasures of a damp
and rainy day is to curl up in bed with a spine-chilling horror novel- one of
the old classics would do fine. If you really have to go out on a rainy
day....I prefer to travel in the car with all windows closed. Thats because the
rains have a peculiar effect on me- they make me very horny- especially when I
am commuting in the city and on all the roads, wherever I look, there are happy
couples going about on motorbikes, the girls sitting behind with wet clothes
and draped on the guys like a close fitting garment- suggesting all sorts of
things to my fertile imagination....HA! the travails of being a Single
Male......
My dad, on the other hand has certain peculiar ideas of how
to spend time on a rainy sunday morning- regardless of my protestations at
being denied my usual sunday-sleep-a-thon. He wanted me to go see a girl- the
usual girl-seeing ceremony- early on a sunday morning. This was the first I had
heard about it- and when I asked him for details- he replied curtly (in his
usual way)- the horoscopes had matched and if I wanted to see the girl- I had
to get ready and come in person, 'cause they werent handing out any photographs
of the girl, they were very traditional.
And so we went, all three of us (plus the driver)....my mom
jabbering at how I always seemed to choose the worst possible dress to wear to
girl-seeing- out of my entire wardrobe. I gradually tuned out my mother’s
droning and looked out the window -just as a sleek and slim female body slid by
my slow moving car in a flash; accelerating smoothly past, on a Honda Activa
bike, raising my lust quotient up by a hundredfold in an instant and just as I
glared hard in her direction she had melted into the rain-fed distance leaving
me with an instant hard-on, which I had to get rid of, as soon as possible.
For, just think of the questions on the brides family’s mind if the groom
turned up for the girl-seeing ceremony with a humongous erection clearly
visible in his all-too tight pants; as my mom insisted that I always wear the
smallest sized pants I had- to minimize the size of my waist which to put it
mildly - was a sign of my growing prosperity and professional success…I shook
my head to clear that girl on the bike but couldn’t get rid of her. If the
world was coming to an end by 2012 as the climate change people kept screaming,
that was the kind of female body I wanted to spend the end of days with..
Anyway,
we finally reached Tiruvanmiyur and alighted at the girls house, with the
confirmation being a plaque reading "Dr.V******, Prof (retd) Veternary
college, Chennai". They were waiting out at the door- the parents of the
girl. The girl's father seemed a decent sort, a short, skinny guy - but totally
mismatched by his wife...she was tall, fair and an absolutely well-preserved
lady in her early forties. If aunty was any indication- the girl must be a
stunner, I thought, my hopes soaring with every second. And then we were
invited inside and seated on a low comfortable sofa in the drawing room by the
girls mother. As the elders exchanged pleasantries on nothing, I leant back and
waited with bated breath -for the ordeal to start. And then like a breath of
fresh air- a tall, slim, sexy, beautiful girl in a simple salwar, with minimal
jewellery and absolutely no make-up, wafted in with a plate of eatables and
went about distributing it to everyone in the room.
So,
this divinity was who I had to come to see? I felt a thump in my heart as I
stared star-struck at her and she handed over to me a plate of sweets and
savouries. My hand shook as I reached out to accept the plate from her and as I
accidentally touched a finger of hers, an electric current shot through me. And
as she handed it over she glanced at me and gave me a smile. It wasn’t a coy,
half-smile, it was a full-on beaming grin. Maybe she was just amused at my
reaction on seeing her – the way I was salivating in her presence. But of
course, I couldn’t help it, she was that beautiful. As she finished serving
everyone and moved on into the house I leant back with a shame-faced grin on my
face. This, this, was the moment I had been looking for. This was my ideal
match for marriage. That sweet smile playing on her lips as she handed my
plate, that meaningful look in her doe-like eyes, that, oh so, innocently
contrived touching of feathers, everything indicated her approval of me. I was
in heaven. If I had a mangalsutra in my hands right then, I was ready to tie it
on her neck at that very instant.
And then tragedy struck- by the un-looked for entrance of
yet another girl, who came and sat in the chair right opposite us. I made the
connection immediately- this was the original piece, the girl I had come to
see, the other must have been a servant maid. Tall and well built ( a bit too
much) this girl was clad in the proper dress- the traditional Kanchevaram silk
Saree, heavily draped with jewels, and had a thick coating of make-up which
just coudnt hide the fact that she was a little (to put it mildly) mature and
manly, with a forbidding expression on her face- as if she hated the very
thought of this ceremony.
My head was all in a whirl. I felt like I had been double
punched by Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield in tandem. And I could feel the
Titanic of my Love slowly sinking beneath the cold waters of the Atlantic,
after having crashed on this ice-berg sitting opposite me. And then my mother
had her usual "oops" moment. My mom had been busy in a discussion
with aunty, who was sitting on the other side of her. And now she turned around
to the girl in front and asked "Is this your elder daughter? how many kids
does she have and what does her husband do?" ....... The silence which
followed this question must have lasted for mere seconds but felt like eons as
I sat there cringing at my mothers statement. She had made the fundamental but
unpardonable mistake of confusing the two girls, but all I could hear - were
the sound of those airliners crashing into the Twin towers of my life.
And then the girl's father started protesting volubly
“No, no this is Subashini the girl you have come to see, she is working at Sify
Communications as a networking engineer....The other one who came first is my
younger daughter Sushmitha, she is very young, she is just doing her final year
engineering in Rajalakshmi engineering college”. My mother immediately realized
her mistake but nevertheless ploughed on blustering bravely “Sorry, I didn’t
see the photo- you didn’t send us the photos- so we couldn’t recognize the
girl" . All perfectly true, but made no iota of difference to the major
blunder she had made.
I
thought, I had maybe one chance to put things right- I could ask to speak to
the girl in private and apologize profusely for my mother’s mistake (everything
except falling at her feet if necessary). But the girl had gone in by then and
her father turned down my request saying they were a very traditional family
and their blasted traditions did not allow it. So we escaped out of there- with
our tails between our legs- and as we travelled back- the entire car was filled
with a gloomy atmosphere. My mom couldn’t bear the silence and finally blurted
out in a defensively belligerent tone “What? She looked so mature didn’t she?
Like a woman who had already borne children and not like an unmarried
girl...." After a minute I said "Mom" in an exasperated tone
"That was un-called for" She thought it over and then said
"Ok, we will go home and then call them up and apologize" My
dad said at that juncture "Better to leave it alone for a couple of days
and then we can call....the wound will have time to heal". So we all
agreed to that.
Meanwhile
i thought to myself that I would have to lie low for the next couple of weeks,
change my route and so on- to avoid the contract -killers that girl was sure to
hire to get me......
The
things my parents do......and the problems they get me into....
