by Ajay Patel
Chimes rang as he opened the door, announcing his arrival. A woman came out into the hallway to greet him. She probably was over fifty years old but she dressed as if she were thirty and looked like she had fought with valor in the battle to maintain that appearance. Unlike many women Vijay knew her age, she actually dressed in stylish American, as opposed to Indian, clothes.
“Vijay?” she asked. He nodded with a slight wave. “Hello! My name is Usha. Please, come in,” she motioned him into her office with a welcoming gesture. There was no auntie at the end of her name, reflecting even more that she might be cut from a cloth different than those of her generation.
Her office was pleasantly decorated in pastel colors with a nice cherry wood desk in the middle, a high office chair behind her desk, and two very comfortable armchairs on the other side. After sitting in one of the armchairs he crossed his legs and then uncrossed them as an afterthought and a sign of his nervousness.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Usha said, wasting no time after sitting down behind the desk. “I like to start with a little disclaimer. I’m very involved in the Indian community and like many people, I believe the culture loses something if Indians don’t marry Indians. But, I also don’t believe that it’s wrong for anyone to marry someone who isn’t Indian. The most important thing for me is that you kids be happy. I want you to remember that.” Evidently she wanted to make sure she wasn’t portrayed as one of those community members whose sole purpose was to discourage anything other than Indian marriages.
Vijay nodded his understanding, happy that Usha appeared to be much more open about these kinds of issues. “What is it exactly that MIB does to help?” Vijay asked, sitting up in the chair.
“Basically, we find out about as many Indian kids that are looking for someone and introduce them to each other, and if something works out, then it’s wonderful. But it’s up to you kids to decide if and when. ‘We just introduce, we don’t produce’,” she said with a practiced smile, no doubt having used that line on every person that had come in to use the services of MIB.
“I guess that doesn’t sound so bad,” he grinned, wanting her to feel like the MIB motto still had some punch even after years of use. It all sounded like the Indian version of the Great Expectations dating service. “What do you need from me?” Vijay asked.
“First, tell me what you’re looking for,” she had opened up a folder which contained a checklist of questions. “I know that’s the million dollar question and everyone has their two cents to put in, but I try to make the first withdrawal of information from you rather than from your parents.” She took a pen out of a drawer and was poised to record his response.
“Before we do this, I have a question. Is that why you specifically asked my parents not to come with me today?”
Usha put her pen down and leaned back into her chair. She said, “Yes. This whole arranged process needs to be something that you want to do, not something that your parents are making you do. I’ve seen so many times how parents push their kids into this when the kids are not ready to get married or maybe when their kids are going out with someone who the parents don’t like. When this is happening, my involvement is pointless. So I like to know up front whether you’re really interested in going through this and I like to know the kind of person that will make you, not your parents, happy.”
“You don’t have to worry about that one. As strange as it sounds to me to say this, my parents and I are on the same page,” said Vijay.
“That’s what I thought,” she smiled. She then explained how MIB worked. It was very simple by design. Everyone that participated gave her their photos and bio-data, and she placed them in a photo album. She maintained over six photo albums now with over eighty pages in each album with each page containing a bio-data and pictures of a matrimonial prospect. There were four albums of women and two albums of men because, as she said it, women were more receptive to whatever measures were necessary in order to find a life partner. She explained that Vijay could then go through the photo albums to see if there were any women that he was interested in meeting. If so, she would send a letter with a copy of his information and then it was up to the parties to make contact if they were interested.
After completing Vijay’s page and receiving a copy of his bio-data and pictures, Usha rose from her desk and brought the four albums of women over to him. Each album was heavy, bound in vinyl, and different in color. Usha explained that when she had first started, she thought one album for single men and one for single women would suffice. However, the demand for the service she offered and the void that she filled was great. The fact that Usha was of a personality that both parents and kids could be comfortable with was as much as a testament to her popularity as was the expanded six album set now occupying the book shelves in the corner of her office.
Vijay began to go through the pages while Usha went about other paperwork. He went through the first album very quickly, as most of the women in there were much older than him. However, in the other albums most of the women were his age or younger. As he sat there flipping through pages, marking down those who he might be interested in meeting by affixing a yellow post-it on each selected page, he thought to himself that this process was great. He was literally meeting hundreds of women through their pictures and bio-datas in less than an hour. The best thing was that they didn’t know that when he flipped by their page after a brief one second scan, that he had in some way said “no” to them. There were no bio-datas to mail back without phone calls and there was no feeling of sadness at having to come to the realization with the other person that it didn’t seem like “they” would work.
As he went through the pages he was pleasantly surprised. In addition to several familiar faces, it was full of attractive people who appeared to be very interesting. There were doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, accountants, and engineers. In fact, most of the pictures in the albums were of people that Vijay would never think needed to resort to such processes and bureaus. But then, he hoped others who came to visit Usha would say the same about him.
After Vijay had turned every page in each of the four albums, Usha auntie joined him and he reviewed with her the pages with yellow post-its signaling potential interests. She knew each and every person in the albums and offered further insight as to whether she thought it was someone worth pursuing or not. Together, they formed a list of fifteen women, most of whom lived out of state and whom Vijay might never have had an opportunity to meet but for Usha.
“I’ll go ahead and send out letters with your bio-data to these girls, and I’m sure you’ll get some responses,” she said, waving goodbye. Vijay felt vindicated in having taken the plunge in meeting her. He was walking away with potentials to meet again. It had been a while since the last time that he had been able to say that.
12
The One That Got Away
After his meeting with Usha, Vijay’s social calendar picked up again. Of the fifteen women Vijay had shown interest in and to whom Usha had sent letters, five responded wanting to talk to Vijay more. The numbers weren’t as bad as it might have seemed. This was because out of the fifteen, four women were already “talking to someone” and three others were already married. Upon hearing of the married ones, Usha shook her head and took their information out of the photo albums, complaining that she was always the last to find out when there was good news.
Of the five women who had responded, Vijay talked to all of them by phone, and even met a few in person flying to various cities or having them visit him like Megha had so long ago. Although all were very nice, Vijay saw no fireworks with the first four. With the fifth one, however, the story was dramatically different.
Her name was Sonia, she was a twenty-three year old physical therapist from Chicago, and without even realizing how, he inexplicably felt immediately comfortable talking to her. Their conversation was no different than other conversations he had been a part of through this process and it wasn’t as though Sonia possesse
d characteristics that he hadn’t found in many of the other women he had been introduced to in the past. But yet he still inexplicably felt different about her. He likened it all to some kind of secret recipe. Although all the women he had been introduced to fundamentally had the same “ingredients”, that alone was never enough. It was the recipe that brought all these ingredients together that determined whether the person was someone truly compatible. Vijay surmised that it was that way with Sonia. Vijay could tell just from a few phone calls. He really liked her, even though he had not yet met her in person, and it excited him.
Two weeks and six telephone conversations later they decided to meet. As it turned out, it was more of an opportunity to do so presenting itself rather than a planned decision. Vijay had to travel back east for work and he was able to arrange to have his flight come back through Chicago for a one day stopover.
Vijay’s plane arrived on time at nine in the morning on Saturday. As the plane taxied to the terminal he kept imagining Sonia to be someone not particularly amazing. In fact, he tried to imagine her as someone not at all his type. He did all of this in an attempt to bring his hopes down, to be in the proper frame of reference when he walked out. But then what happened was a first for him.
As he walked through the gate and into the airport, he spotted her, waiting for him at the end of the gate, and his heart stopped. For all the times he had been introduced to women who were described to him as extraordinary only to find they were disappointingly ordinary, this time the exact opposite proved to be true. She looked even more captivating and attractive than her picture could have ever suggested.
She wore a knee-length floral print skirt with a plain white top that appeared to be straight off the rack of a Banana Republic store. She was dressed very simply and practically—no-nonsense, but soft and beautiful nonetheless. To Vijay it wouldn’t have mattered. All he could see were the fireworks going off the first second he laid eyes on her.
As they walked out of the airport after greeting each other she asked him “I hope you’re okay to do some moving around.” She approached a Saab convertible and opened the trunk so that he could put his bag inside. “After all, you asked me to show you the town, and with the little time we have, I thought I would do just that.”
“That actually sounds great! What’s the plan?” he asked, getting into the car after she had reached over from the driver’s seat and unlocked his door.
“I minored in art history while an undergrad and never get to visit the Art Institute anymore because of school. I was hoping we could go there this afternoon if that’s okay with you, I know how boring museums can be to most people,” she asked hesitantly, no doubt uncertain as to how he would react to such a plan.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day. I’d love to see the Monet collection they have,” Vijay said with a smile, putting on his seat belt, already interested and familiar with what the Art Institute had to offer.
She looked at him again. “There aren’t many people that would agree to go to a museum with me.” She looked at him with a smile on her face. “This will be fun.”
They drove to the Art Institute with the thought that after seeing the current exhibit and the Monet collection they could walk around the city. The both of them, however, were so content talking, getting to know each other, and roaming through the numerous rooms catching fragments of conversations from the meandering docent tours that they only realized that they had spent the entire afternoon inside when the guards announced that the museum was closing. They both looked at their watches amazed that five hours had passed by so quickly.
As they walked down the front steps of the Art Institute, Vijay could see an El train making its way over the city streets. After it had passed with a clattering, Vijay said to Sonia, “Thanks for thinking of this. This has been a great day!” he said, looking at her.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she smiled again at him. “But there’s more. I have something planned for us outdoors tonight before your flight home.”
That evening a phenomenon that occurred for a period of two months every twenty-seven years was taking place. A meteor’s orbit was coming close to Earth and loose debris from its tail was streaking through the atmosphere creating an impressive meteor shower display. As it so happened, the meteor shower was particularly visible in the northern part of the United States immediately after dusk. This was why Sonia had planned for them to go to the Chicago Planetarium. Vijay could think of nothing more perfect.
The night was perfect. The normally humid Chicago summer made for a delightfully warm and comfortable evening. Sonia was a consummate planner, having brought a large comfortable blanket and pillows on which to lie and watch the night sky as it darkened from an orange-blue to black. Vijay was accustomed to L.A.’s artificially enhanced sunsets full of purples, reds, and blues. He had never anticipated being impressed with sunsets anywhere else. But as he lay there, on the blanket, on a grass hill, next to the Planetarium, waiting for signs of a meteor shower, he could not remember a sunset, a light to dusk to dark movement, that he enjoyed more. He believed, probably very correctly, that Sonia lying next to him staring at the sky added to the beauty of the night.
Sitting there, relaxed, he thought back to how Valerie had realized in New York that the perfect person could have slipped by her while she was busy going out, for the sake of going out, with guys who she knew weren’t right for her. Vijay had learned that lesson much earlier than that. But it was because of this that he had recently been worried. Although there had been opportunities to date women, even through this process, he held off not wanting to jeopardize his chances of finding the “right” woman. As a result, he hadn’t gone out with anyone for what seemed like an interminable number of years all in the name of keeping his options open. The problem lately, Vijay had realized, was that the “right” woman had not yet come. It made him wonder if he was holding out for something that didn’t exist. All those doubts and fears washed away as he looked at Sonia. He felt like she was what he had been waiting for all these years.
Sonia turned to him and asked, “So what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this was a great idea. It’s like we’re waiting for the fireworks on the 4th of July. I’m a big fan of fireworks,” Vijay explained with a smile of contentment, personally referring not only to the ones that exploded in the sky, but also the ones he kept seeing whenever he looked at Sonia.
“Oh look, there’s one!” She let out abruptly changing the topic, sensing the serious love struck way he must have been looking at her. It was almost as if she realized how much Vijay’s feelings for her had soared uncontrollably and she wanted to bring him back to the ground. Vijay, too blind to notice, only saw an arm, her arm, intrude on his vision of the night sky, pointing to a brief flare that he caught through the corner of his eye. It seemed as though as least one person from each of the groups lying on the ground was pointing it out to the others as the field around the Planetarium, previously quiet amid the quiet buzz of individual conversations, was lit afire by excitement of the show to come.
They spent another hour star gazing while Sonia steered the conversation to more standard, non-relationship topics, telling him about her school, her family, and how she loved her life in Chicago. She then took him to the airport. She opened the trunk and he took his garment bag out.
“Thanks again for a wonderful time Sonia.”
“I had a great time too,” she replied.
They just stood there for a bit, his longing stare holding them fixed in place. Vijay broke out of his trance. “Well, I’d better go. Good bye,” he gave her a long hug and a quick peck on the cheek and quickly walked away into the airport like an awkward teenager at his first dance, not certain what else to do.
As the plane took off and rushed to meet the night sky, Vijay stared out his window, smiling, looking for more meteorites. He wasn’t coming home alone this time. He was coming home with hope and the thought of Sonia on h
is mind.
The next morning he spoke with his parents because they had called early, as usual, waking him up. Vijay was guarded, however, in his conversation with them saying only that his visit went “okay”, that he and Sonia were going to “maybe see how things go”, and that there was “nothing to be excited about”. He really wanted to talk to Rocky so that he could express his true excitement without it triggering wedding plans and the accompanying travel arrangements to Chicago to meet Sonia’s parents. Rocky, however, was not at home, leaving Vijay in an excited state of mind as he replayed his visit to Chicago over and over again.
He took a shower to fully wake up, but could not wash away his memories of Sonia. He felt such a strong urge to call her that he didn’t even bother to comb his hair before he dialed. The phone rang three times and her answering machine picked up. Vijay realized that given the time difference, she had probably woken up and left hours ago to study. After her message played he said “Hello. It’s me. Just wanted to let you know that I made it back to L.A. in one piece and I miss you already. Call me back when you can. Bye.” He put the receiver down “And I miss you already?” he said to himself in disbelief. Had he really said that? Sonia must really have been having an effect on him.
The next day he went out to lunch with Valerie and spoke excitedly to her about Sonia.
“I’m telling you, I think I could be in love!” He had picked a table out in the sun in the plaza at the foot of their office building. Those were not words he had said in a long time.
