by Ajay Patel
“Wait a minute!” Vijay interrupted, “If you’re putting my bio-data together, I want to know what it’s going to say!” He could just imagine his parents putting down every embarrassing detail about his life. “Let’s make it together,” he offered. Jayendrabhai and Shantiben agreed and told him that they were looking at other girls’ bio-datas that they had received in order to try and figure out how best to make his bio-data. With Rohit’s quick wedding in India, there had been no need for a bio-data for him.
Vijay looked up at them with sudden suspicion after seeing a number of the bio-datas strewn about on the table, and asked, “If I only told you last week I was okay with all of this, then how come you already have so many bio-datas of girls here?”
“Do not be alarmed,” his father said, sensing that Vijay was beginning to question the process. He explained that some people freely distributed bio-datas like flyers for a party, and that they had received these bio-datas over a period of months now. “None of them were worth mentioning so we never told you about them,” he explained. “But of course, we will be more selective about who we send your biodata to.”
Satisfied that his information wasn’t going to be plastered on every lamppost across America, Vijay took a closer look at the bio-datas on the table. Although the women may not have been judged suitable by his parents, the format of their bio-datas were deemed useful for purposes of creating Vijay’s bio-data. Using them as a template, they all agreed that Vijay’s bio-data should start with his name centered up top in a bigger bolded font.
“Okay, next—what address and phone number should I put down?” Vijay asked his parents, having seen all the bio-datas on the table with that information below the name, “The house number and address or my apartment number and address?”
“I think you had better put the house address and phone number,” answered his father. “This way, if a girl’s parents call, we can talk first before you have to deal with them.”
Vijay could just imagine receiving strange phone calls at all hours with other parents grilling him and agreed that it would probably be better if his parents screened the telephone calls first, even if it meant the woman might first be grilled by his parents. Better her being grilled than him he thought.
“Next, most of these bio-datas list height and weight.” Vijay read, surprised that this type of personal information was made public knowledge. “I wonder why this one doesn’t list that?” he pointed to one of the bio-datas that did not include this information.
Jayendrabhai just shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Anytime we get any of these and don’t see that information I assume bad things,” he intimated. Shantiben hit Jayendrabhai on the back with her hand, scolding him that Vijay wouldn’t meet anyone if he kept saying rude things like that.
Vijay disregarded their antics, agreeing to put this information down in his bio-data so as to not raise unnecessary suspicions that he was four feet tall and three hundred pounds, and went to the next item. “Next, all of these bio-datas have their birth dates listed.” Vijay read one of the bio-datas his parents had received and noted the date. “This girl was born in 1965!” She’s more than four years older than me!”
“I know. That is why we did not even show you this one,” his father explained. “But while we are on the subject, how old can the girl be?”
“I think you should be trying to find someone who is being three years younger than you. Girls are looking older faster than boys,” Shantiben tried to make her case.
“Let’s keep this fairly open. I don’t mind seeing anyone around my age or younger,” Vijay offered.
“And how much younger is okay?” Jayendrabhai, the master of closing the loop, asked. “Remember, you don’t want someone without their degree,” he insisted. “You’ll have to pay for her schooling. You should try to find someone who is already done with her education, has no student loans, and who has a good job.” The old routine about double incomes was about to begin.
“Next,” Vijay said in a tone that indicated he wasn’t willing to get into this subject again, “all of these bio-datas list education and occupation. Geez! One of the women even listed her salary!” Vijay was immediately turned off, thinking the woman to be materialistic, hoping to win a man by flashing a big salary.
“Do not be so hasty,” his father tried to calm him down. “It might have just been the parents who put this in without her even knowing it.”
Vijay couldn’t decide if his father was pushing the woman just because she earned $70,000 a year. Seeing the look in his eye, Jayendrabhai said laughing, “I am just trying to say that not all parents go through this with their kids, so do not automatically blame the girl.”
Vijay agreed that what his father was saying made sense. “Next, these bio-datas list family members and their occupation and education. What’s the point of that, I’m not going to be marrying them?” he asked his parents.
Shantiben explained, “It is like we have always been telling you. When you marry someone Indian, you not only are marrying the person, but their family as well.”
As Vijay sat there and thought about it, he realized the bio-data was, at some level, part TRW credit report and part balance sheet. Even the number of brothers and sisters in the family were listed because it had a financial impact. On one hand, being an only child could be a liability because of potential obligations related to caring for the parents. On the other hand, it could be an asset because of potential undivided inheritances. Either way, he was certain that his father would work out the financial scenarios for any bio-data that came his way.
“All that’s left to do now is for me to put in a description of who I am and what I’m looking for,” Vijay said out loud looking again at his precedent documents. After reading one of them more closely, he looked up at his parents and asked them, “So how come you never showed me this one? Leena Patel. She’s finishing med school and she seems interesting based on how she describes herself.”
Jayendrabhai and Shantiben looked at each other with surprise. “Which one are you talking about?” his father asked him. Vijay handed him Leena’s bio-data.
“Hmm,” Jayendrabhai said with growing interest as he looked over the bio-data. It was almost as if the paper he held in his hands was a lottery ticket with the winning numbers which, by accident, had been left in a drawer waiting to be found. “Shanti, get the pictures out of the drawer!” he commanded excitedly to his mother.
Vijay’s ears perked up. “Pictures? You never mentioned pictures!”
“Of course you are needing pictures to see who you are talking to,” his mother said as if Vijay was talking nonsense. She then handed an envelope from one of the kitchen drawers to Jayendrabhai. He began to take them out, trying to match them up to the names on each of the bio-datas on the table. After finding Leena’s picture, he handed it over to Vijay.
Vijay received the picture face down with Leena’s name written on the back. When he turned it around he understood why his parents hadn’t shown it to him. Leena was a rather plain looking girl with really thick eyeglasses that gave her a bug-eye appearance. She looked very studious with very thick hair. Vijay could tell she was not his type.
He slid the picture across the kitchen table back to his father, asking him, “What do you do with these pictures if we’re not interested?”
“We’ll send them back soon,” he explained. Evidently, Shantiben thought they shouldn’t return them immediately for fear of making it look like they only had spent a second before deciding against the match, although that effectively is what had happened.
Vijay began to see the organization and structure involved in the entire arranged process. The whole point was to try and exchange as much information as was possible about each other before even saying a word to the other person. If a person’s bio-data and picture were returned, it was a polite way of saying “thanks, but no thanks” without having to personally become entangled. Evidently, this was all part of the arranged process.
3
Mind, Body and Soul
Later that week Vijay met Rocky for lunch at a local Mexican food restaurant known more for cheap rather then good food. Ever since Amit’s wedding, Rocky and Vijay had become closer friends. This was true even more so now when Vijay heard from Amit that Rocky, too, was going through the same process that he had committed himself to with his parents. In fact, Rocky was two years older than Vijay and had been doing this for over three years now. Rocky was a veteran in these matters and a good source of guidance from a perspective that his parents couldn’t be.
“My parents want to use these pictures of me in a tuxedo from Amit’s wedding to go with my bio-data but I kinda feel weird about using them,” said Vijay as he showed Rocky the three pictures his father had taken of him after they had placed their order with the waiter.
Rocky grimaced, “You don’t want pictures of you so dressed up, especially in a tuxedo! It’s almost like a message to women that you really aren’t much to look at, which is why you put on a tux to give you every advantage you possibly could get. This is kinda like the male version of the Glamour Shot pictures theory.”
“What’s that?” asked Vijay, having never heard of such a theory.
“You know,” he said, “Glamour Shots. It’s that place where a woman goes in and they put all of this make-up on her and take pictures. It’s amazing how beautiful they can make anyone look!” Rocky let out. “But it’s also a little weird because you barely recognize the woman sometimes because they make her look so different!”
“Isn’t that a good thing though?” Vijay rationalized. “Bottom line, if a guy sees a picture of a woman who looks awesome, they’re more likely to call her. I know I would,” he admitted.
“That’s true,” Rocky agreed. “But you might end up talking to some woman you think is beautiful, only to find out, once you meet her in person, that you’re not at all attracted to her,” Rocky explained. “It’s like I tell everyone. If you see that little logo for Glamour Shots on the bottom of the picture, it’s a message like the one you see in car side view mirrors—‘Objects in this picture appear more attractive than they may be in person’.”
Vijay laughed, “All right, I won’t make the same mistake by putting on a tux. But tell me something though,” he asked seriously, “If these pictures we look at are so important, isn’t it all a little superficial? I never thought I would end up with a woman just based on how pretty she looked in a picture,” said Vijay.
“But that’s not what you’re doing! The pictures are just the first criteria to decide whether the woman is someone you want to even talk to,” Rocky explained. “Even if she was gorgeous, if you talk to her and have nothing in common, you probably won’t marry her.”
“I guess you’re right,” Vijay admitted. “But it’s still superficial, no matter how you try to rationalize it. When all is said and done, you really only end up talking to women who’s pictures you like!” Vijay persisted.
“But why is that so bad?” Rocky asked Vijay. “Someone once said that when you fall in love with someone, you love them for their mind, body and soul. They’re all equally important, including the body part. In fact, that’s what gets me angry when people complain about others who judge based on looks.” Rocky was getting very animated as he tried to prove his point. “Take some guy, for example, who finds an incredibly beautiful girl who really likes him, but he turns her down because he doesn’t feel that she’s very interesting or very smart. People will say this guy has substance, because he’s not looking for a trophy wife. But take another guy who meets someone with the greatest personality and who’s really smart, and he turns her down because the guy doesn’t think she’s got a good enough body. This guy will catch hell for being superficial. What I don’t understand is what has one guy done differently from the other guy? They’ve both decided not to go out with a woman based on a certain characteristic that they didn’t feel was appealing.”
“But a person can’t really change how they look,” Vijay tried to rationalize the differential in treatment.
“No more than a person can change how intelligent they are or how good a personality they have,” Rocky rebutted.
“So we’re right back where we started,” Vijay said with a sigh. “I should try to get pictures of me that are as good as possible so that women find me attractive and will at least call me.”
“That’s right. And you’ll probably only call women who look great in the pictures you get. And it might all be superficial, but that’s okay,” Rocky said.
“Mind, body and soul,” Vijay repeated. “I’ll have to keep that in mind when I go through the pictures. Thanks for the advice,” Vijay said gratefully.
“Not a problem. I understand what you’re going through. But remember, this is only the beginning,” he said, intimating a long journey lay ahead.
Vijay certainly hoped Rocky was wrong.
A RANGE OF OPTIONS
1
An Introduction to Introductions
Less than a month had passed when the first arranged opportunity was presented to Vijay. He came home on a Saturday afternoon because his parents were throwing a dinner party that evening and his presence as part of the host family was expected. He found his mother frantically cooking with two of her closest friends and Vaishali helping her in the kitchen. Shantiben was a very good cook which was something he hadn’t appreciated while growing up, preferring pizzas and burritos over her Indian meals of roti, shaak, baath, and daal. Now, living away from home with very poor cooking skills and more Pizza Hut and Taco Bell meals than he cared to admit, he appreciated coming back to her home cooking.
Vijay immediately went to the stove for taste testing opportunities. The wall behind the stove glistened from the roll of aluminum foil that had been placed over it like wallpaper to keep the sprays of oil from damaging the paint. Leena auntie looked at him from across the kitchen and said with a smile, “So, I hear you are on the girl market now!” She, along with her husband, Rajan uncle, had been friends of the family for as long as Vijay could remember. Although not related, Vijay, as did most Indian children when referring to their parents’ friends, added an uncle or auntie to the end of their name. He would no sooner call them by only their first name than he would to his parents.
He turned to face his mother with a half-eaten samosa in his hand soaked in mint green chutney and groaned, “Mom, do you have to tell everyone I’m doing this?”
Shantiben quickly put the lid on the pot Vijay had taken a taste from partly to keep what was inside warm and partly to keep him from finishing it before it was dinner time, answering his question with an annoyed tone, “Of course we are needing to tell everyone! That is the point! Everyone must be helping you find someone so everyone is needing to know!”
Leena auntie laughed interrupting their playful bickering while motioning for Vijay to come to her. He walked across the kitchen to where she was making puris, using a rolling pin to shape the dough into small pancake sized medallions that would then be fried and used as bread with dinner. “When your mom told me that you were going to start looking for a wife, Rajan uncle and I immediately thought of someone for you. Her name is Megha.”
“Oh, do you mean Megha Desai?” he asked tentatively, recalling a woman he had met at one of the parties that Amit had thrown at his apartment what seemed like years ago. He seemed to remember a woman with earrings and piercings in more places than Vijay thought desirable. “I think I already know her. She went to USC, right?” Vijay mentally began to think of escape plans. Did he think of her like a sister? Did one of his friends go out with her which made things complicated? He didn’t quite know which excuse he would have to pull out to avoid being set up with her as a part of the arranged process.
“No. This is a different Megha,” she replied. “This Megha is very smart and very pretty.” Vijay temporarily put a halt to his escape plans. Leena auntie went on to explain that when Rajan uncle had first come to America t
o get his masters degree, he had shared an apartment with Megha’s father and they had since become good friends. His family, including Megha, currently lived in North Carolina. “We both think you will really like her. Talk to Rajan uncle tonight. He can tell you more.”
Vijay was both excited and intrigued. It sounded like he would be introduced to a wonderful woman who he would never have met had he not agreed to submit to the process. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Car after car parked along the curb near their house as guests began to arrive.
“Hello Vijay, it’s been a long time!” Suhas uncle, one of the few Indian friends of his parents who was taller than Vijay, shook his hand vigorously as he entered into the house. Vijay was answering the door while his mother and father were attending to the guests who had already arrived.
Manju auntie, Suhas uncle’s wife, came behind through the doorway. “Have you found a nice girl and settled down yet?” she asked the follow-up question. Their only child had just been married off, allowing them to now focus their efforts on “assisting” Vijay’s and other parents with single children in their search for suitable matches.
Vijay could only reply back with a polite smile, realizing their questions would probably only be the beginning. After all of the guests had arrived and were being fed and entertained by his parents, Vijay escaped to the back yard to get away from having to explain why he had not yet gotten married. He sat down on the swing and took a deep breath to collect himself.
“There was a swing just like this one in the house your dad grew up in when he lived in India. We would sit on it, staring up at the night sky during power blackouts, talking about girls,” said Rajan uncle with a smile, as he opened and closed the screen door, coming through in between the two motions. Rajan uncle was close to Vijay’s father’s age, although he was taller and broader with white hair. Jayendrabhai and Rajan uncle had grown up in the same neighborhood in Nadiad, a small village in central Gujarat. “And now I find myself talking about girls again with his son thirty years later!” he laughed at the strangeness of it all as he joined Vijay on the swing. He no doubt saw this as an opportunity to talk to him about Megha.
