ponnu pakardhu

“They will be there on Sunday, you and appa go meet them.” told my mom very nonchalantly.

I didn’t know how to react. I was supposed to go meet the boys parents at their relatives house. Was it not supposed to be the other way round? Shouldn’t they come and see me in the comfort and familiarity of my house? Well that s how it was then, I should go meet his parents.

You may ask who was he, let me tell you the truth, I had no clue who he was. This is ‘arranged marriage’ in India. My mom sent me his ‘profile’ (a bio data basically qualifying him as a fellow ready to tie the rope around a willing persons neck) and I checked it out. I did not look at his name. I remember he looked a little plump in the photos. But what the hell, he was the owner of a group of eye hospitals. That was enough for me to tell my ever anxious mother that I was interested to talk to him. But mind you, I was ready to talk to ‘him’ only and not to his entire family, but what to do, in India, a bride or a groom come with a package only.

So here I was all dressed up (taking care to dress up in a sleeveless salwar- come on, they have to get used to the real me) and looking bleary eyed because I had stayed up two nights in a row partying at my friends place.

I stepped into the gate of the house with my dad and my uncle and I stopped on my tracks. I thought it was just his parents I was supposed to meet, but here I found some ten people ranging roughly between 22 and 80 standing and staring at me. I felt bad for my dad and uncle; no one paid any attention to them. It was my day, I was the center of all attention (that was a great feeling mind you).

Well I stepped in and after a formal introduction I sat down (I took pains to seek out a corner, out of sight of many people sitting there. Or at least, that is what I thought). How could I forget that I was the caged monkey and everybody wanted to ogle at me? All of them sat down and in unison turned to look at me. I gave a smile in the general direction of the walls behind their heads and pretended to be checking out the ceilings of the house. Interesting how one observes everything yet nothing at the same time. After a few moments it was obvious that there was nothing more to look at and I had to turn my attention to my audience who were expecting me to say something. It was like waiting for a chicken to hatch out of the egg. Once I spoke, there was immediately a babble of voices (I had no clue what they were all telling because everyone spoke at once).

Thankfully they brought something to eat. I desperately tried to balance the plate of mixture, a cup of coffee, my purse and my keys and also managing to talk to his mother sitting near me. It was quite a feat, considering how clumsy I am.

Every time I looked up from my plate, there would be someone staring at me intently and would give me a smile which I returned immediately not knowing what else to do. This happened 4 or 5 times after which I thought it would be best to take to looking at either my father or the interesting ceiling painted in…wait a minute, was it painted? What colour was it? Oh forget it.

His grandmother was sitting to my left and was questioning me on some very complicated stuff some of which went thus “andha ponnama unnodu paati allava?” “illai, paati oda akka ponnu.” “appo baby aaru noku?” “andha vanchi maama ennodu naathanaarodu, marumagalodu anna vakum” (I had no clue who vanchi mama was in the first place so you can imagine how I replied to those questions.)

While she was going on thus, his father from across the room kept asking me “baratha pathi yedhavadhu kelu, Baratha pathi yedhavadhu kelu.” I would not have minded asking one question “who was this Barath?” somehow I deciphered that it must be ‘him’.

Somehow I managed to go through 45 mins of smiling, keenly observing the ceiling (damn I still don’t remember the colour of the ceiling), looking at the colour of my fathers shirt and balancing al that I was cradling on my lap. Finally as I was leaving I saw them take out a gift. My mind immediately turned towards God..to pray that it would be some beautiful saree or some such thing.

His mother gave it to me and I reacted thus “acho aunty, why all this for me?” (I had to say that mind you, I couldn’t say aww..i wish it had been a bigger packet. That would have been scandalous).

Finally as I was leaving I confessed to them that I didn’t expect to meet so many people and guess what they said. There had been a few more waiting to see me but had to leave because we had arrived late. Thank god for my stars that day.