THE NORTH INDIAN

When a piece of paper, ’the biodata’ turns into a sole contender for your identity, realise you’ve hit rock bottom. It can’t get worse! When it comes to arranged marriage, both you and your family will come under tight scrutiny — only on the basis of ones perception about the ‘data’ on your ‘bio’. You will also be a victim of societal judgements stemming from cliches and preconceived notions, after which a checklist will decide whether or not you make the cut.

Recently, I was summoned by my mom and ‘buaji’ (paternal aunt) to go visit the ‘Rishta Aunty’ (matchmaker). Following were the prerequisites of the upcoming meeting: creation of my ‘biodata’ (a sheet of paper that holds details of my birth, education, career, family, including what each one of them do, look like and their nature is and obviously my ‘janam patrika’/horoscope) and my photographs. They too had to be a fair mix of a close up, a full figure, my skin (proof of shade mainly), in traditional and western attire, with make up and in natural look. The real task was to incorporate all this in two or maximum three pictures.

Having completed the process of being enrolled, I receive more emails from her assistant than from ‘Naukri.com’ (a job portal). My frequency of meeting boys now, is higher than that of my car going for a wash. They came from various cities and backgrounds including, defence forces, techie start-up, cleanliness freak, Romeo (I will talk about him at length another time), a boy from my own school batch, but the most interesting of them all was‘The North Indian’ — I think he’s gonna be my friend forever, never met anyone funnier. For now lets believe his name is ‘Hardy’ (FYI, in Punjabis Hardy, Sunny, Bunny, Ricky, Sandy, Garry, etc are the most happening names).

So anyway, it was date night and I was early for a change so I seated myself on a table. While being deeply absorbed into my Snapchat, I was startled by a voice, “Hi, myself Hardy this side!” (This side — which side? Like what the hell are you talking about? I swear I’d never heard anything like that before. I was dying to ask him, but I contained myself). However, I went ahead and introduced myself after which we sank in the comfy couches.

The night proceeded pretty well, Hardy was quite chatty, he told me a lot about himself. I asked him if he had taken any recent trips, since he said he loved travelling. “Oh yes! I just got back last month, was on a backpacking trip with the boys in ‘Yourope’. We visited ‘Amesterdam’, Berlin and ‘Parag’. Got so ‘bhaand’ (passed out) on the space cakes, sahi tha!” (OMG! I fell in love with his accent, it was hilarious but for some random reason I found it totes adorbs. Incase you don’t have a cuteness reader, he was talking about Europe, Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague).

While talking about another trip, he said, “An year (in the North, they think the word ‘year’ starts with a vowel — hence they make use of ‘an’) ago, when we were at Yellow Stone National Park, we drove around for hours looking for ‘beers’, but luck was not on our side.” At that point I couldn’t help but react as to why did they go all the way there — to do something as insignificant as DRINK BEER? Only later did I realise that he was talking about looking for ‘Bears’ (As per his expression, this question proved me to be completely idiotic — like sure, why not!)

Some of my conversations with him made me realise that people within our country were so culturally diverse. The way we talk, think and live are barely harmonised. I asked him what he’s looking for in a marriage. On hearing his response, I fell in complete love with his naiveness — everything he said was like the script of a Bollywood movie, he was so much fun. “Our family needs a girl that can be dominated, someone who blends-in easily and doesn’t voice her opinion. My mother should approve of her, she should look pretty, should attend ‘couples kitty’ with me, take mom to Passific (he means the Pacific Mall) to shop. My wedding must have ‘swag’, I must have Yo Yo (Honey Singh) perform on the sangeet evening and Chivas should be flowing — except I don’t wanna spoil my ‘Guchi’ shoes, LAUL!” (Hahahahhahahahahaaha…. Then he dropped the mic)

The food was served, he was having a chicken ‘Burgur’ (According to him, vegetarian is stuff you eat along with your food). Ready to dive into his meal, he was interrupted by a phone call, to which he excused himself. On answering it he said “Oye veere! Ki haal chaal? Bas kuch ni yaar Roti khaan aaya si” (Hi bro, how are you? I was just out to eat some flour flatbread!) (HOW can he compare a burger to chapatis???? I really began to feel I was watching a mindless comedy movie under the influence of Marijuana).

As he chomped on the burger, I saw his expression go from delight to disappointment and it looked like trouble. He requested for the chef to be called, I was petrified. “Is this how you serve ‘burgurs’ at this restaurant? It is the most disgusting looking thing I’ve ever seen, you should be ashamed for serving it.” (He’s North Indian, he thinks his father owns everything). I just wanted to hide my face somewhere, afraid he’d start a riot.

The incident was alarming enough to realise it was time for us to leave. Its hard to believe I was suggested to meet Hardy, we come from such different universes. Mind you, he was a ‘Harvard’ graduate with a very successful career. I definitely don’t envision us being happily married but I surely don’t want to lose him as a friend. I had never had a better night..

Laters,

Miss Man Hunter.

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