by Ajay Patel
“We have just received a telephone from Anju auntie,” his father replied having come from the family room. Anju auntie was one of his parents’ friends who lived nearby in Anaheim Hills. “She told us to come over right away because there is a family visiting them with a girl for you to see. They will be leaving soon so we need to go to say hello quickly so you can take a look at the girl.”
“What!?” Vijay exclaimed in shock, having stopped in his tracks. “You want me to meet some girl at their house right now? No way! Mom, you told me that I could at least see a picture before I met anyone!” he looked at her crossly.
“I know, but they are insisting,” she returned his look with one of helplessness. “Think this way, if you are not liking her, you do not have to spend long time. But we must go. We cannot be saying no.”
Vijay realized he could have delayed the process by hemming and hawing, but in the end the outcome would still be inevitable. It would have been rude for him not to go and would have resulted in an evening of acrimony as to whether he was taking the whole process seriously. With a sigh, he agreed to accompany them, unable to think how the day could go any worse as he prepared to visit a total stranger with his parents by his side.
They all sat in the family Honda Accord, with Jayendrabhai driving, Shantiben in the front passenger seat, and Vijay sitting in the back sulking. As they made their way, Vijay asked “So, do you guys even know anything about this girl I’m supposed to meet?”
“What are you to be needing to know? She is Patel and is coming from a good family. The rest you are knowing when you talk to her,” his mother replied.
“What does she do?” his father asked her, the fact that she was a Patel was not sufficient for him because financials were his area of primary concern.
“I am being positive that she has completed her studies,” Shantiben replied. She, however, had no answer as to what career the woman had taken. “Anju told me that she is being all ‘Bs’, beautiful, bubbly, and bright,” she offered.
“Oh brother,” Vijay rolled his eyes. “I hope that doesn’t mean she is B as in Big. Did Anju auntie even tell you what her name is?”
“I did not even ask,” Shantiben admitted.
“I just hope it’s not anybody that I know!” Vijay groaned resting his head against the window feeling an anxiety attack coming.
A few minutes later they arrived. The house was like most all other houses in Orange County. It was one of four plans arranged for a community of tract housing. The thought was that with four plans and a number of different color schemes that a whole community could be made with each house looking unique. It only really fooled those that bought homes in the tract, and that was only because they wanted to be fooled.
The three of them stepped out of the car and went to the front door. Vijay’s father rang the doorbell. Gaju uncle came to answer the door.
He looked like a Chinese Buddha because of his big belly, bald head,
and an always present smile of contentment that went from ear to ear.
“Hello, come in, come in” Gaju uncle greeted them with an echo.
Vijay took a deep breath, let it out, and followed his parents through the doorway inside. There were several people already seated in the living room waiting for their entrance.
Gaju uncle sat down on a sofa, motioning to a love seat for Shantiben and Jayendrabhai to share and a single chair that had been brought in from the dining room for Vijay to sit on. The furniture was Indian in style, made of a wooden frame and elaborately decorated cushions. On the walls were pictures of Krishna in various poses in various landscapes. Vijay felt abandoned amongst all this, sitting by himself about to face an inquisition.
In the room already sitting was another man and woman who Vijay guessed to be married to each other. They were introduced to him and his parents as Naresh uncle and Jayeshri auntie. Naresh uncle, unlike Gaju uncle, had a full head of salt pepper gray hair that was thick and almost afro-like. It was almost as if he saw Gaju uncle’s lack of hair and had taken on the mission to grow enough hair for the both of them in case of the need for an emergency hair transplant operation. Jayeshri auntie was nondescript in all manners except for her hair, which, too, had begun to show its grey. However, she was too vain to leave her hair showing gray and yet too proud to face reality by coloring it. What resulted was a compromise position whereby she had put henna in her hair under the guise that it was healthy for her scalp to do so. The other advantage in doing so, however, was that it helped to color the gray in her hair. Unfortunately, the resulting color was more of a reddish orange than a match to her otherwise dark brown hair which had given her a clownish look, if anything. Together, Vijay surmised, they comprised the mystery woman’s parents. But where was the mystery woman? Vijay looked around but did not see anyone else close to his age.
After introductions and a few minutes of idle chitchat, everyone had evidently run out of topics to discuss. There was a brief moment of awkwardness as the silence became incredibly apparent.
At that moment to break the silence, from upstairs came not one, but two women. One woman was taller with her hair short in a modern Winona Ryder hairstyle. She wore a turquoise crinkle tissue salvar kamez with matching satin trousers and meena gold jewelry. The other woman was shorter but had longer hair braided down to her hips and was dressed far more simply in an orange cotton salvar kamez with only a thin plain gold chain around her neck with an Om sign in the form of a pendant dangling at the lowest point of the chain.
Vijay was puzzled. They both looked to be similar in age. Which of the two was their daughter that he was supposed to meet, and who was the other woman? Vijay hoped to get a clue from the mystery woman’s parents as he turned his head to face them.
“Jayendrabhai, Shantiben, I would like to introduce you to my two daughters,” Naresh uncle said.
Vijay furrowed his brow further. They were sisters!
“This is Simple,” he pointed to the shorter one “and this is Dimple” he pointed to the taller one. Vijay had to fight the urge to laugh out loud at their names, thinking that it was good they didn’t have a third daughter because they might have named her Pimple.
A quick look by Vijay at his parents made him realize that they were just as perplexed as he was about who he was supposed to meet. The girls’ parents were doing nothing to help bring resolution to the issue. Apparently they were oblivious to any uncertainty that Vijay and his parents may have had.
“Dimple is in sales and Simple is in her last year of dental school,” Naresh uncle broke the silence that seemed to have settled over the room again.
“Sales? What do you sell?” Jayendrabhai asked.
Vijay could tell already that Dimple was out of the running as far as his father was concerned, not being in an occupation that he respected.
“Oh, I am actually a pharmacist, but I was recruited out of school to be a pharmaceutical representative,” Dimple replied. Vijay could tell that his father wasn’t impressed, she might as well have been a representative for Mary Kay Cosmetics.
“When I told daddy how much better you can do being a pharmaceutical rep than just working for a drug store he agreed that it was the thing for me to do. Besides, I want to be able to make enough money to enjoy things in life and not to want for anything.”
Cha-ching! Vijay could almost hear the cash register open in his father’s mind. Jayendrabhai did the mental calculations and did a 180 degree turn and started to warm up to Dimple.
Just as Jayendrabhai appeared to have an affinity to Dimple, Shantiben appeared to have the same affinity towards Simple. As sophisticated, worldly, and to Jayendrabhai’s delight, materialistic as Dimple was, Simple was the exact opposite. To put it simply, Simple was just plain simple. Never had a name so accurately fit the person. Simple was much more lively when she spoke, more religious, more cultural, more of a lot of things. More importantly, more of a lot of different things compared to her sister.
Vijay still hoped that there would be some clu
e that Naresh uncle would give him that would help him to narrow his field of concentration. He thought such an opportunity was coming when Naresh uncle stood up and told the grown ups, “Maybe we should leave the kids alone so that they can spend some time getting to know each other.”
Jayendrabhai and Shantiben, equally in the dark about the entire matter, couldn’t have agreed more. They stood up to leave the room with the others, leaving Vijay alone to fend for himself. Vijay expected either Simple or Dimple to stand up and walk away with the others leaving him alone with the woman he was supposed to meet, but neither woman rose to leave.
Vijay looked at them and smiled once the others had left. “I guess we’re supposed to talk now. I do have one question that I’m just dying to ask. Am I hear to meet you both?”
“You mean you didn’t know?” Dimple and Simple both laughed a similar laugh. Vijay had no doubt that either their mother or their father, or perhaps even both, had the same laugh.
“Now I understand! You and your parents had such puzzled looks on your faces when we both came down!” laughed Dimple.
“What’s the age difference between you two?” asked Vijay, surprised at the two for one special offer that their parents had offered to him.
“Simple is 25 and I’m 26 as of last month,” answered Dimple moving her chair close beside Simple’s to facilitate one answering for the both of them.
“So your parents are looking for the both of you?” Vijay knew very well how much his parents complained about having to go through the process for just him, he couldn’t imagine what it must be like with two girls. He looked at both of them and asked, “Isn’t this even more strange though—meeting the same guys like this?”
“It was at first,” admitted Simple, “But since we are so close in age and because we’re both ready, it just makes sense to look together.”
“A lot of our friends who have older or younger brothers and sisters have this whole assembly line system of doing things where you can’t look or get married until your older sister or brother is married. So everyone always concentrates on the oldest one. But it might take me a long time to find someone, and it wouldn’t be fair to Simple to not have people looking for her until I was married,” Dimple explained.
“I understand all that,” said Vijay. He knew of friends who had wanted to get married to someone that they had fallen in love with but were forced to wait until the elder siblings had been married off. “Still, it would just seem weird. If a guy only liked one of you, wouldn’t the other feel bad about that?” he asked Simple.
“I think for a while we felt like that would be a problem, but our mom told us something that made a lot of sense. The fact that a guy might pick one of us over the other doesn’t mean that the other came in second. It’s just that whoever we happened to be meeting had more in common with one over the other,” said Simple.
“So, basically,” Dimple continued, “when we’ve had these joint meetings in the past, Simple sometimes is more attracted to a guy and I’m not, and vice versa. And the same thing for the guy. But it’s more of a compatibility thing, not a competition. It’s kind of like we’re two different pieces of a puzzle. Just because someone fits better with one, doesn’t mean that the other piece is not any less of a desirable piece of the puzzle.”
Vijay sighed in agreement. Evidently this whole puzzle concept was something that they had, like he had with Jennifer, learned to understand and appreciate when it came to finding a soul mate.
For the next half hour, Vijay, Dimple and Simple talked and learned more about each other and the three of them came to the conclusion that no two pieces of the puzzle would fit that day. Vijay, in attempting to try and describe characteristics he thought he was looking for, found some of them in Simple and some of them in Dimple.
Vijay laughed saying “it’s too bad I can’t marry both of you. Together, you would be the perfect woman for me!”
“Well, I’m sure our dad would love it, he could save on wedding expenses by just having to pay for one!” Simple laughed.
It was all pleasant, albeit, strange to Vijay. They were very open about the idea of exploring the potential for marriage. The more that they spoke with each other that afternoon the more it became evident that Vijay would not be marrying either sister. But that was okay. There were no hurt feelings nor any dashed expectations.
His parents and the others came back in, evidently feeling that enough time had elapsed for them to have come to a decision. Vijay again was amazed at how they expected this whole process to operate quickly and efficiently. It was almost as if they believed each of them had encoded their likes and dislikes on a multiple choice answer form, and that all that was necessary in order to find a suitable spouse was to compare each other’s test results during their prescribed half hour meeting, although they had given Vijay forty-five minutes this time because there were three test papers to compare, not the standard two.
Although there was some more small talk, the parents discussed no further the outcome of the meeting between Vijay, Simple and Dimple. It wasn’t that anyone could tell from looking at their faces. Rather, it just wasn’t done that way. The two sides were to retreat to their own home camps and then, if anything was to be done based on the information uncovered pursuant to individual interrogations, it would be handled via telephone in a timely manner. This time, however, as they drove home, the debriefing was brief.
“What’d you think of Dimple?” his father asked.
“No. Not everything that I’m looking for.”
“What’d you think of Simple?” his mother asked.
“No. Again, not everything I’m looking for. But put them together, and maybe we can talk!” Vijay said, as they all laughed driving back home.
11
Great Expectations Indian Style
Although only a year had passed by since Vijay had started his search for a wife, the search had initially hit the ground running at full speed. Family and friends had been immediately notified and a widespread net had been cast to find the right woman for Vijay.
Many of their family and friends knew of potential matches. Although Vijay was only given brief descriptions about each one, they all sounded alike. Adjectives like “fair”, “very beautiful”, and “sweet personality” were frequently used. Just as Rocky had told Vijay not to be fooled by a beautiful picture because the woman might not look nearly as good in person, his parents, relatives and family friends said the exact opposite—don’t be fooled by a bad picture because the woman might look much better in person. Because of this, Vijay felt obligated to meet almost everyone. Unfortunately, most of the women he had met did not live up to their descriptions but rather lived down to their pictures.
The process so far had taken a considerable amount of time and effort. Once Vijay complained to a non Indian friend about how he was being introduced to so many women that he had no time to be alone. His friend looked at him with envy and said that most guys would love to be in his shoes with a different woman to meet each week. Vijay stopped to think about it and realized that the whole concept of marriage seemed to have taken the fun out of what could otherwise have been an exciting experience.
And then, after a big flurry of activity for over a year, it had come to a standstill. The referrals from family and family friends came to a stop.
It seemed like there was no one left to meet. Although Vijay finally got his respite, he still had not found a wife.
“So, did anybody call? Any new pictures?” Vijay asked anxiously as he came through the front door of his parents’ house on a Saturday morning. It had felt strange to have no one to evaluate after spending months talking to and meeting so many women and shifting through countless pictures.
“Nothing this week,” said his father, sitting on a couch in the living room reading the newspaper. It was the third weekend in a row that Vijay had come through the door wondering if any woman was left in the world who was still single and willing to meet him. “We’ve a
sked everyone we know. But don’t worry, we have a plan,” his father put the newspaper aside. “Next week you have an appointment with Ushaben.”
Vijay sat down in one of the facing armchairs. “What’s going on? Who is she and why do I have to meet her?” he asked with suspicion
“Ushaben has started an organization called the ‘Marriage for Indians Bureau’. She can help us introduce you to girls that we would otherwise not know. We made an appointment for you on Saturday,” explained his father.
Vijay began to feel a wave of embarrassment after hearing about his parents’ plan. He groaned, “It was bad enough that our whole family and all of our friends are looking, but now you want me to go to a stranger for help finding a wife? It just makes me feel so…desperate!” he whined.
“Just go! What does it matter who makes the introduction? Isn’t the important thing for you to find someone that you like?” his father interrupted Vijay’s whining with practical parental logic.
“I guess so,” Vijay sighed and relented, realizing that what his father said was true. A year ago Vijay would have fought much more to avoid having to be subjected to such embarrassing measures. But a year had passed without success, and this began to worry him. During this time and because of his concerns, he had taken a new approach and had a new attitude about his search. He realized that he had already waded halfway into the arranged marriage pool a year ago. The only way for him to get out of the pool now was to find that right woman so that he could end his search. His best chances of doing that, however, involved diving in all the way and doing all that he could. Walking backwards to the shallow end of the arranged marriage pool didn’t solve anything. So he took a deep breath and agreed to go farther. He agreed to meet Ushaben next Saturday.
The address his father had given him wasn’t a house, but rather an office building built in the 30s with ornate architecture on a major thoroughfare sandwiched in between a new Chevrolet dealership and a small strip mall still under construction. It was as if this small building was symbolic of the old ways interwoven amongst new ways. On the front was a hand painted sign marked “MIB” with “Marriage for Indians Bureau” in smaller block letters directly underneath explaining what the initials stood for. Jayendrabhai and Shantiben were not with him because Ushaben has specifically requested that they not come. This request made Vijay even more nervous than curious.
