by Ajay Patel
“Don’t worry, it feels ten times weirder for me,” Vijay said with a sigh. “This isn’t the kind of stuff I love to talk to about with my folks or their friends if you know what I mean.” Although television after-school specials and community service commercials always urged parents to openly talk to their children about sex and relationships, those were subjects that were taboo and rarely discussed in Indian households. It was just assumed that the children would learn how to deal with these issues by osmosis in the hopes that any awkward discussions between parents and children regarding these topics could be avoided.
“I agree that it’s all a little strange,” Rajan uncle replied, staring up at the night sky. He, although his parents’ age, appreciated more than others that what worked in India in their generation didn’t necessarily apply to people of Vijay’s generation who had been raised in America. “But let me ask you just so that I know. Do you think you’re ready to get married?”
After taking a moment before answering, not quite certain what married life meant yet, Vijay replied not all together convincingly, “I think so. I guess I’ll only really know when the right girl comes along and I have to decide.”
His answer, even though lacking in conviction, seemed to satisfy Rajan uncle. He said, “There is someone that I would like to introduce you to. She’s the daughter of a very close friend of mine.” Rajan uncle started the swing again and looked at him. “I gave your parents her bio-data and picture. If you like what you see, just call her. Who knows? If things go well, then maybe after a few months you can decide if it could work or not for the long-term.”
“A few months? So soon?” Vijay asked, alarmed at the time constraints that had been implicitly put upon him. He feared this process was not any different than the one Rohit had subjected himself to in India where lifetime decisions were made in a matter of months if not days. He thought back to his relationship with Jennifer, where going steady first involved dating, then sleeping with each other and finally living together, learning about each other’s foibles and true mannerisms as opposed to only seeing the best, albeit incomplete, side of a person. Through this arranged process where parents were involved, such conduct was unthinkable. Vijay thought this ironic given that it truly was the best way to determine if you were compatible with someone, more so than any information that might be contained in a bio-data.
“That’s not so soon,” Rajan uncle defended. “Look, you’re twenty-seven right?” He started no doubt hoping to explain why the process worked as swiftly as it did.
“Let me guess,” Vijay interrupted him grumpily, thinking he understood where he was taking the conversation and was disappointed that even Rajan uncle had fallen into his parents’ camp on this issue. “You’re going to warn me that I’ll be over the hill unless I decide quickly, right?”
Rajan uncle laughed and put his arm around Vijay’s shoulder. “Would someone who got married when they were thirty years old say that to a twenty-seven year old youngster?” This surprised Vijay. He thought everyone in his parents’ generation had gotten married very young. Evidently, however, when Rajan uncle had first moved to America as a student, he barely earned enough money washing dishes in order to pay tuition and rent let alone to fly back to India to find a wife. “It was years later after I graduated and found a job that I was able to go back and meet Leena!”
“But how did Leena auntie hold out for so long though?” Vijay asked, curious. “Her parents must have wanted her to get married before she was thirty.”
Rajan uncle agreed with a grin. “You’re right! They kept telling her she was getting too old and that there wouldn’t be anyone who’d want to marry her. But she held out, and married me when she was an ‘over the hill’ twenty-two years old!”
Vijay was surprised at the revelation, having never known that there was such a large age difference between the two of them. “So there was no problem with the families about this?” he asked, now fascinated with the story.
“No problems, but do you see the point I’m trying to make? You can always marry someone younger, so you don’t have to rush because you’re afraid you’ll be over the hill. But girls usually don’t marry guys younger than them, which means they have to look more quickly before all the older guys are taken. And if a girl needs to know quickly, that means you have to decide quickly. That is why there is a rush for you.”
Vijay could understand the rationale behind Rajan uncle’s arguments, but nonetheless was unhappy about the conclusion it drove him to. “You have to realize, although getting married after a short time may be the normal thing to do in India, it’s not how people get married here unless drinking and Las Vegas are involved.”
“But why can’t it be?” Rajan uncle insisted. “Your parents and all of your uncles and aunties decided in even less time. Everything worked out. Sometimes you can’t think too much. You just have to close your eyes and decide.”
Sitting on the swing in the quiet evening with a sky full of stars, Vijay realized that perhaps this wouldn’t be as difficult a decision to make in a short timeframe. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be. If it was up to fate, things should happen quickly and effortlessly. As Rajan uncle stood up to go inside and eat dinner, Vijay asked himself, after repeating the thought in his mind several times, who was he trying to fool.
2
First Contact
It was well after midnight and only Vijay and Shantiben remained in the kitchen accompanied by the hum of the dishwasher.
“Well, I’m off to bed,” Vijay groaned as he stretched, yawned, and headed towards his room upstairs.
Shantiben stopped him from leaving, saying “Wait, I am to show you something. Leena is giving me Megha’s bio-data and pictures before she left. Tell me what you are thinking,” she handed him a plain white envelope from one of the kitchen drawers.
Vijay eagerly pulled out a folded bio-data from the already opened envelope. A picture had been placed within the three folds of the one page of vital statistics describing Megha. He disregarded the bio-data for the moment, concentrating on the picture. The photograph of Megha was in front of what must have been her parents’ house. The problem was, however, that it was a photograph more of the house rather than of Megha, with her being small in comparison and her features being practically indistinguishable. He turned to her bio-data, which, too, was sparse, disclosing only the necessary details. All he could tell from the information in the envelope was that Megha was a pharmacist who worked in a hospital, she was three months older than him, and she wasn’t so big that she blocked out the front of her house when the picture was being taken.
“Just give it a chance,” Shantiben requested seeing his look of disappointment. He had set in his mind such high expectations from the glowing reviews he had heard earlier in the day. These expectations, however, hadn’t exactly matched up with the limited information he held in his hands. “Rajanbhai and others who know her think she is very nice. You talk to her. Know her. And if things work well, you meet her and then you decide.”
The next day Vijay drove back to his apartment from his parent’s house after lunch. Because of the three-hour difference, he realized he would have to call fairly early that evening if he was going to talk to Megha. He pulled out the envelope with her phone number and looked at it. He picked up the phone, but no sooner had he dialed the area code that he hung up. Although he usually didn’t have problems talking to people, either on the phone or in person, this was about to be one of the more unusual phone calls that he would make and he needed to figure out how to do it properly. He began to pace back and forth in his apartment trying to script up a dialogue.
“Hi, how’s it goin’? My name is Vijay—I’m calling to find out if you and I should get married,” Vijay said to himself in an announcer voice. He then slapped himself for the stupidity of that line. Getting the phone conversation started, however, wasn’t the only problem. He didn’t know what he should talk about or ask her during the conversation. “S
o, how many kids do you want to have?” just didn’t seem to be the kind of thing to ask someone he didn’t even know yet. After forty five minutes of pacing around evaluating various approaches, considering each one more lame than the other, Vijay in a fit of anger at himself at how stupid he was being, picked up the phone and dialed Megha’s number.
“Hello?” an elder male voice answered the phone. Vijay unhappily realized he would not be so lucky as to get Megha on the line without putting anyone else on notice. “Who’s calling please?” the voice asked.
“My name is Vijay, I’m calling from California…” he had to go no further in his explanation.
“Oh, yes! Rajanbhai has told us all about you! I’m Megha’s father. Let me get her for you.”
After what felt like an eternity a second receiver picked up and a voice yelled out “Okay I got it! Hang up!” After the sound of the first receiver hanging up could be heard, a female voice said, “Hello, this is Megha.”
“Hi, my name is Vijay, and well, I got your phone number from Rajan uncle in Los Angeles, and he said I should give you a call.” Vijay grimaced to himself because his opening line was choppy and just didn’t sound as smooth as he had been rehearsing it.
Megha, however, picked up the conversation sensing that his introduction may have been as far as he had gotten in drafting dialogue. “Hi! I know, this is all kind of awkward isn’t it?” she asked the rhetorical question full of energy without any sense of awkwardness in being involved in a conversation like the one they were having. “Believe me, though, I’ve gotten used to phone calls from people I’ve never heard from in my life. At least this is much better because I knew you’d be calling so I had time to mentally prepare!” she laughed, releasing some of the tension.
Vijay immediately felt at ease with her. She was very friendly and fun to talk to. Twenty minutes later, after speaking to her about everything except the issue of marriage, Vijay said, “I have to admit, I was a little nervous about making this call. This is the first time that I’ve ever had to do this and I just wasn’t quite sure what I should talk about.”
“Believe me, this is one of the better first conversations I’ve had,” she reassured him. “Just talking about whatever comes to mind instead of following some questionnaire of marital issues is always the better way to go. Besides, I feel that you really can learn more about a person indirectly than you can with loaded direct questions.”
“It sure sounds like you’re a professional at dealing with all this,” said Vijay, declaring his amateur status. “I’m just glad you’re the first woman I’ve called this way. You help take a lot of the awkwardness out of the whole situation with your positive attitude.”
There was a brief moment of silence and then a sigh. “I’m as upbeat about all of this as the next person, but don’t let me fool you. This takes a lot out of me. It’s tough when it doesn’t work out. All I can do to pull through is to think that it just wasn’t meant to be. I guess I just believe in fate. Or at least, maybe I make myself believe in fate so that I just don’t totally get depressed.”
Fate. Vijay had heard this concept several times now. He always believed fate to be nothing more than a matter of cognitive dissonance, a means to characterize bad outcomes into good ones as a process for the mind to heal itself from the wounds of failure. That if it didn’t work out with one person, it was okay, because there was someone better waiting, somewhere down the road. For some, that road might be a short one. For others, it might be a long and wearisome journey. The only point was to reach the final destination. As he sat there talking to Megha, he hoped that she would be both the start and end to that journey.
3
Progressing to Progress
Two weeks had passed by since Vijay had first spoken to Megha. During that time, Vijay had spoken to her on four occasions while his parents and Rajan uncle had spoken to him about her on six occasions. They kept calling, asking him about the progress that he and Megha were making.
“What exactly do they mean when they’re asking if we’re making progress?” Vijay asked at night during one of their telephone conversations. “Do they mean are we setting wedding dates or naming our kids?”
Megha laughed. “No, I think that everyone is just curious to know what we think and whether we like each other,” she explained.
“Well, let me ask you then. What do we think of each other?” he asked. Up to now, their conversations were enjoyable, but they had danced around the entire purpose of the phone calls. His question was the first overt push towards determining the progress issue.
Megha took a moment to compose her answer, realizing that she wouldn’t be able to avoid responding having been put on the spot. “It does seem like we have a good time over the phone, well, at least I can say that I do…” she trailed off full of intent and meaning.
“I feel that way too,” Vijay safely agreed, relieved because she seemed interested in going further. After further reflection Vijay spoke up again, although he thought he knew the answer before asking the question, “So what do we need to do to make progress?”
After another brief lapse, she answered “We meet.” Letting a moment pass so that those two words could sink in, she followed softly with a “That would be progress.”
“Meet in person.” Vijay repeated out loud to hear how it sounded coming from him. It sounded like it made sense. He silently took a deep breath and in the name of progress asked, “So, when can you come over to visit?”
“Why should I come there?” she immediately asked back in a laughing yet defiant tone.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a ‘because I’m the guy’ thing. I just thought since Rajan uncle and Leena auntie are here, you’d have a place to stay,” he explained. “After all, I don’t know anyone in North Carolina to stay with. I’ll plan a really fun weekend for us if you come visit,” Vijay offered sincerely.
“Okay,” she conceded, “I guess I could come over if it’s in the name of progress.”
With that, they said good-bye and Vijay hung up the phone. A sense of excitement and panic set in. Megha was coming for a visit.
4
She Could be a One in a Hundred
Although Vijay and Megha had decided to make progress by meeting in person, it had taken over a month and many more phone calls to coordinate their work schedules and plane tickets.
It was dark and all the lights were out. Vijay lay in bed, ready to go to sleep himself. He was on the phone with Megha. This was their third phone call of the day. At first, Vijay had wondered if he talked to Megha for a while, whether their conversations would become more difficult to maintain. He worried that once he had run out of his funny anecdotes and stories of the past, there would be nothing left to talk about. But to his pleasant surprise, their conversations, if anything, became easier and more interesting over time. Based on the knowledge of each other’s past and present lives and experiences, the seeds for future conversations were constantly being planted.
“Are you at all nervous about meeting in person?” she asked through the darkness. Her flight to Los Angeles would leave in the afternoon tomorrow.
“Are you kidding me?” he replied, “I’ll be lucky to get any sleep for the next two nights! At least you’ve gone through this before!”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think you can ever stop that anxious feeling. At first, you feel nervous just because you never know what to expect from all of this. Then later on, you’re still nervous because it’s been a while that you’ve done this, and you’re expecting that each next time will finally be that right time. It’s as if you have a one in hundred chance of finding the right person, and so after ninety-nine times, you expect to be due. But the truth is even on the one hundredth person you meet, you’re odds are no better than the first time. They’re still a disappointing one in a hundred,” her voice trailed off into uncertainty.
“Here’s hoping that the odds are in our favor this time around,” Vijay said. After wishing her a goodni
ght and a safe flight, he fumbled in the darkness to hang up the phone. It must have fallen on the floor from the bed during their conversation. He flipped on the light switch, blinking his eyes as they got used to the brightness again.
After putting the phone back in its place, he went to his desk, fumbling through several stacks of papers until he found what he was looking for. He held it up to the light. It was the picture of Megha that he had received just two months ago. He was hoping that after having spoken to her for so many times, the image in the picture would have come into focus; larger and more clear. He lay back down in bed, turning off the light. Megha’s voice kept ringing in his head with her soft yet pleasant laughter echoing from one side to the other.
He drew a mental picture of her based on the photograph he held, trying to fill in the gaps with details he had come to know about her by telephone. In his mind came the picture of a beautiful woman, both caring and full of life. This could be the one, he thought. His expectations and hopes rose, despite the logical side in him warning him of the consequences. He quietly whispered to himself as he put Megha’s picture on a close by nightstand, “Here’s hoping that we’re each other’s one in a hundred.” He slowly fell asleep.
