Arranged Love: An Indian Boy's Search in Amrika To Find A Suitable Girl

by Ajay Patel

  “Hello, my name is Sonal,” the next woman continued the introductions. “Sonal Patel, that is, but I guess that’s no shocker,” she joked. Ever since Sonal had sat down, Vijay’s estimation of the potential for the table had skyrocketed. She was strikingly beautiful with green eyes, a charming smile, and flawless alabaster skin. As pudgy and featureless as Dipali was, Sonal was well proportioned with every aspect of her having perfect definition. Even her hair, parted on the side, cascaded down to her shoulders in auburn waves. Sonal continued “I’m from Denver and this is actually my fifth and probably last convention.”

  “Wow! You’ve been to five of these!?” Dipali interrupted, amazed at Sonal having attended all of the conventions since they had been started.

  “I have,” Sonal admitted. “In fact, I’ve been to so many that my friends call me matrimonial convention trash!” Everyone laughed. Sonal had a sparkling personality that matched a sweet smile. She then looked to her left as a cue for the next woman to introduce herself.

  “Hey everyone, I’m Aarti,” she pronounced her name in a nasally voice so that it sounded like the letters “RD”. She had dressed up for the occasion a bit too much thought Vijay, wearing a black outfit that was hidden by a myriad of gold lammee and embroidery. When he first saw her in that outfit, he wanted to ask her if she had just come from some flashy Vegas show, but thought better of it. Her hair was big, immovable from hair spray, and filled with rust colored highlights. And as for the makeup, for some women, it can do wonders, but for others, it was just a hopeless face painting exercise. Aarti fit into the latter category. “I’m from Jersey, and well it’s my first convention, and I’m not so sure about all of this yet because I feel like I already know a lot of the people because they live in the same area and went to the same schools that I did.”

  After a brief moment of silence, Vijay looked to the guy sitting to his immediate right and to Aarti’s left. He asked him, “So, what about you?”

  Up to now, he had sat there quietly, almost as if he were replaying in his mind the speech he was going to have to give when his turn came. Now that he was in the spotlight he looked remarkably uncomfortable. He was dressed in a bright, multi-colored shirt that was tucked into tightly fitting pants. He had greasy hair, shining in the light, smelling of recently applied coconut oil. Vijay looked at him and suspected that his H-1 work visa was no doubt freshly issued. “Hello, my name is Jigar. My village is Uttersanda. I finished my CS degree and work in San Jose. I moved to America two years ago.” Evidently there was nothing else coming out of Jigar. He was painfully quiet and shy.

  “So, have you been to one of these conventions before Jigar?” Vijay asked.

  “No, this is my first one,” he offered. “My parents are still being in India, but my relatives have decided it is time for me to look for a wife because I have job and so I am coming with them. Hopefully I will find someone this weekend,” he ended without much confidence in his voice.

  Again, there was an awkward silence. Vijay felt sorry for Jigar. It seemed like he was out of his element at this social setting. Before he could think any more of it, the food arrived, providing for an appropriate break of attention away from Jigar. Everyone ate family style sharing big bowls of shaak, papad, naan, raita, and daals helping themselves to a traditional Thanksgiving Indian dinner, which meant a dinner no different than many of them ate every night while growing up.

  As they passed food around a guy walked up to Dipali and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Dipali? Hey, it is you! Remember me? Yogesh.” The guy had longish hair with bangs and silver eyeglasses. He was tall and very skinny which was further highlighted by the fact that the collar of the shirt he was wearing was much too big for the circumference of his neck.

  “Oh Yogesh, right, I remember. How’re you doing?” Dipali said vaguely, without much elation.

  “I’m fine. It’s good to know you’re here at the convention too! We should catch up later,” he said, extending his thumb and pinkie in his left hand in Hollywood agent fashion to make the shape of a phone. After a brief moment of silence, it seemed apparent that the conversation was not going anywhere and that she probably wouldn’t be catching up with him later. Sensing dead air and a feeling of awkwardness, he thankfully ended the torture by saying “Well, I’d better get back to my table” and left.

  After Yogesh had walked away, Vijay said laughing, “Wow, what’s all this smoke around here? Oh, I know! It’s from Yogesh being shot down!”

  The whole table laughed and naturally wanted more details regarding the connection between the two of them. After a couple of “you don’t want to hear about thats”, Dipali sighed, finally relenting. “A couple of years ago I was set up to meet him while he was visiting relatives in town. Since he didn’t have a car, I had to go pick him up. We went to this small restaurant and we had an okay time. It wasn’t perfect or anything. Anyways, when the bill came, he took his wallet out and then only paid for half. Can you believe that!? I didn’t have enough money with me because I just expected that he was going to pay for dinner. The worst thing was that he didn’t have enough money for the dinner either and the restaurant didn’t take credit cards. I ended up having to leave him there and had to drive to a teller machine to get money. It was such a nightmare!” she whined.

  “Oh, that must have been so awful!” Sonal lamented, mentally imagining Yogesh having to wait at the restaurant, constantly reassuring the waiter that they intended to pay the bill, wondering all the while if Dipali was going to come back with the necessary cash.

  Vijay interrupted. “I have a question for the women. Do you always expect the guy to pay for everything on these set-ups?”

  “Of course,” Dipali replied immediately, no doubt having fresh in her mind her experience with Yogesh.

  “Well,” Sonal replied with a little more thought, “I’ve always offered and have no problem paying for half. But usually the guy will insist. I guess, thinking about it, I feel like it’s not a good sign if he doesn’t offer to pay for the whole thing though. After all, he is asking me out.”

  Vijay looked at her, love struck, and thought that was the least a guy could do if he had the chance to go out with someone as beautiful as her. He then snapped out of his reverie, realizing there were less attractive women at the table. “Hold on now!” He felt the guys’ interests needed adequate representation and Jigar probably would not be much assistance in that regard. “This is a set up after all. Isn’t it a mutual ask-out kinda thing?”

  “That’s true, I guess. I’m just an old fashioned girl,” Sonal tried to offer justification for her position but could only point to traditional gender roles.

  “I just feel like the guy should always pay,” Aarti agreed with Dipali. “Why? Do you think it should be any different?” she asked Vijay.

  Vijay thought for a moment as to how he wanted to prepare his defense. He then stated, “To start with, I think it’s wrong for women to expect the guy to always pay. But at the same time, I always pay and never split the bill.”

  “See. That’s what normal guys always do,” Dipali interjected.

  Vijay shook his head in disagreement to indicate that he hadn’t yet completed his thought. “But…if a woman insists on paying and if the date is going well, I just say that she can pay for coffee or dessert somewhere else. Or if anything, I just say she can pay next time. This way I’ve got my foot in the door for that second date!” he revealed with a sly grin.

  Several agreed with Vijay’s approach while others did not. But it was enough to start a spirited conversation generally focused on whether it was better to be the guy or the girl not only in the arranged marriage situation, but in life in general.

  After several rounds of comical debate, including whether a woman’s periodic waxing of her moustache was more painful than a guy having to shave his moustache every day, Dipali said laughing and with a sigh, “I have to admit, when I found out about this assigned seating thing, I wasn’t too happy about
having to sit with a bunch of strangers. But now that I’ve met you all, I realize this was a great thing. I probably would not have spoken to any of you otherwise.”

  “I know,” Sonal agreed. “The way they’ve done this first dinner night has changed a lot. I remember when I first came to one of these the parents had dinner with their kids. Needless to say, nobody was meeting anyone that night. Then a few years back they separated the kids from the parents, which helped a lot. But you still saw most of the people just sitting with their friends, not bothering to mingle. But this assigned tables thing kind of forces you to meet new people.”

  No sooner had Sonal finished her sentence when two other women dressed to the same level and style as Aarti came with chairs to sit at their table. One of the women said, “You guys looked like you were having a good time so we wanted to join you.” Everyone scootched over making room for them to fit at the table.

  Aarti made the introductions, “These are my friends Manisha and Trushita. They’re from Jersey too.”

  “We were just talking about how this assigned seating is such a good thing because it makes you meet new people and breaks up cliques, and here you come busting that theory,” Vijay laughed at them after everyone had been introduced.

  “Well,” Manisha spoke, “it’s easy for you to say. I was at such a loser table. Nobody had anything to say. And then I went over to Trushita’s table, which was just a bunch of twenty year old guys with their beepers and earrings looking to get drunk and party.”

  “Maybe this assigned table thing has some kinks that need to be worked out still,” Vijay sympathized with a smile.

  “You know what they should do next year to make this better?” Dipali said. “They should first of all make sure there are an even number of guys and girls at each table.”

  “It would be nice,” agreed Sonal. “I even suggested that at an earlier convention. But the reason that doesn’t happen is because if you look around, you’ll see that there are a lot more women that are at this convention than there are guys.”

  After further discussions on how to improve seating at dinner, someone came up with the suggestion that at least people of the same age should be put at tables together.

  “But wouldn’t that be hard to do though?” Vijay asked.

  “No, not at all,” Jigar finally contributed to the conversation. “The whole spreadsheet is on Microsoft Excel and it has everyone’s numerical birth dates on it. So all they would have to do is an automated sort and then just fill the tables. Very easy.” He was in his element now. Computers. He could talk freely and comfortably. Unfortunately, dinner was over and people had started to stand up and mill around.

  Vijay, however, was actually looking forward to speaking more with Sonal on an individual basis.

  “So what do we do now?” Aarti asked Sonal, who had been anointed as the expert given her previous convention experience.

  “It’s time to go meet people. You never know, that perfect person might be out there for each of you. I know mine is,” Sonal said, pointing to a tall guy talking to three other guys at the other side of the room. “That’s Atul. We just got engaged two weeks ago.” Bombshells went off in Vijay’s head. Engaged? What was she doing here then? He for the first time noticed the ring on her finger. Although he was normally perceptive about things like that, he had not bothered to even look. After all, it was a matrimonial convention wasn’t it?

  “So why are you here?” Dipali asked the question that Vijay had burning on his mind.

  “Yeah,” Aarti added laughing, “Are you really matrimonial convention trash?”

  “Believe me, if I had my choice I wouldn’t have come!” Sonal defended herself. “But that fool Atul waited till just recently to propose. But by then we each had already booked tickets to come and they don’t allow refunds, so we thought what the heck, it would be nice to come here with no pressure to meet people.”

  “That’s great! Congratulations!” Vijay said, hiding his disappointment at the lost opportunity.

  “It’s much better coming this way. We’ve made a lot of friends at the conventions so it gives us a chance to at least see them one more time and say good bye properly,” Sonal offered another benefit to coming.

  “Kind of like a farewell tour?” Dipali asked.

  “Yes, exactly. But I’d better go and make sure my fiancée doesn’t meet someone new and change his mind!” She rose and left. Soon the other girls left as well to powder their noses and apply extra hair spray no doubt.

  Vijay stood up and said to Jigar, who was the only one left at the table. “I’ve got to go find some of my friends. I’ll see you around. I hope you meet someone nice.”

  “Yes. I must go find my family too. They said they would need to see me after dinner so that we could start meeting girls.” He was going to meet women with his family with him, thought Vijay. Surely this convention was not for the likes of someone like Jigar.

  Vijay walked away and moved in the general direction of the adjoining room where Rocky’s table should have been located. He was anxious to talk to him to find out how his visit with Tejal had turned out. As he made his way through the crowds he spotted Megha.

  “What’s going on?” he walked up along side her. “How was your dinner? Or I guess, more importantly, how was your dinner company?”

  The look on her face was indication enough. Evidently, her table consisted of a guy who was available, but who wasn’t eligible. Vijay told her his table was the exact opposite, with a woman who was very eligible, but unfortunately no longer available.

  “Maybe Komal had better luck. Where is she?” Vijay asked.

  “I don’t know. She was supposed to be at table 88, wherever that is.”

  “Oh hey! That’s Rocky’s table. Let’s go to the next room and see what they’re up to. I bet at least the two of them are having some fun,” said Vijay. They continued walking through the crowds and had gotten no farther than the center of the room when they ran into Komal.

  “There you are!” Komal said at the sight of Megha. She, too, evidently had been looking for them after dinner. Megha explained how her and Vijay’s tables lacked potential.

  “My dinner was a total dud, too,” Komal commiserated. It was just me and three other women. The girls were nice and we’ll probably be friends and everything now, but hello? I’m not a lesbian so that ratio does nothing for me!”

  “I don’t understand,” Vijay said, perplexed. “My friend was at table

  88. I wonder why he wasn’t at least there.” “Was his name Rakshit?” Komal asked. “Yeah. Rocky. Did you talk to him?” “No. I never met him. By the time I got there, the girls were telling

  me that the one guy at the table left after only a few minutes. They

  were wondering if they were doing something to scare off men.”

  “Hmm. I wonder where he went off to?” Vijay thought to himself.

  Just then, a volunteer’s voice rang out through the room. “Please

  everyone. Once you have finished dinner, go outside for the party tonight. There will be a music disco program in the Hunter Room at ten o’clock. Bring your badge and identification that shows you are over 21 years old. We will not be letting you in if you don’t have this proper identification.”

  The three of them walked outside and sat down on a comfortable green couch in the main reception area for the hotel. After a while people started to pore out and began to head to the other room where the party was beginning.

  “We should probably get up,” Vijay groaned, although he had gotten very comfortable. “After all, our families would be greatly disappointed if we didn’t at least try to make progress.”

  “It’s funny, because my parents have kinda cooled off for the moment.” Megha replied. After seeing the looks of surprise on Vijay’s and Komal’s faces, she explained, “A few months back there was a pan-dit from India visiting who was trying to raise money for some temple or something. He supposedly could tell your future by readi
ng the lines in the palms of your hand. So, of course, my mom made me go one afternoon to visit.”

  “So what’s the news?” Komal asked in anticipation.

  “He said that my marriage line was very weak,” Megha replied.

  “Oh no! Does that mean you’re not going to find your dream man and get married?” Vijay asked in mock horror.

  “No,” Megha grinned. “Actually, what the pandit said was kind of interesting. He said that lines change. So when he was talking about my weak marriage line he was saying that even if I had met someone, the marriage or engagement would have not gone through. But he did say that it was getting strong now and that by next year my marriage line had ‘power’, especially between March and August.”

  “Wow! He even gave you a pretty narrow window as to when this is going to happen!” Vijay exclaimed.

  “Yeah. So it’s great because whenever my parents pressure me about this stuff, I just tell them that there’s no need to bother. After all, this pandit said nothing was going to happen until later next year anyways.”

  “Well, even though your marriage line is weak, mine might be in its prime right now!” Vijay said as two very attractive women in slinky black outfits passed by. Vijay looked at them discretely, not only because he didn’t want to catch their attention with his looks, but also because he felt guilty doing so with Komal and Megha by his side. At some level, scoping out the babes with them was like trying to watch a rated “R” movie with his parents. It just didn’t feel right. He realized he should be with Rocky if he was going to be meeting those and other women. But where was Rocky?

  Vijay left Komal and Megha behind on the couch with a promise to meet up with them inside. After a check of identification and a pat down search, he was let into the Hunter Room. The room was half the size of the Hoover Room and almost completely dark. A deejay played music up on stage and the temperature in the room was already hot from the crowd.