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

by Ajay Patel

  “So, your PPM measures didn’t do the trick?” Megha asked.

  “No. Despite all I said, she told me today that she really liked me and asked me what I thought of her,” said Vijay. “She totally put me on the spot!”

  “So you put an end to it?” Megha asked, following the progression of the conversation.

  “Yeah,” Vijay sighed. “It wasn’t as easy as I would have liked it to be. I think the reason was that Vibha really is great. But even though every guy I talk to thinks she’s awesome, for some reason I just didn’t get that kind of feeling for her.”

  Megha let out a sigh in response. “A part of me wants to empathize with you. Everyone has their own tastes so it doesn’t matter whether other guys think she’s awesome. It just matters what you think. But there’s another part of me that just thinks you could just be acting like a huge idiot!” Megha said with a rise in her voice.

  “What do you mean?” Vijay yelped, surprised at the attack. “I thought we were trying to help me, not take shots at me!”

  “The only reason I say that it is because it sounds like maybe you could have liked her. But maybe because there just wasn’t any chase you lost interest. It was too easy, wasn’t it?” Megha interrogated him. She sensed that Vijay now was a slave to the Rules.

  “I don’t know,” Vijay said, admitting confusion, but also in his tone admitting that Megha might have hit the mark on why he wasn’t as interested in Vibha.

  “If you stop and think about it, it’s a little ironic. You always complain to me how women fall for the jerks who don’t treat them nicely while the nice guys finish last. This is the female version. It’s only when a woman is a bitch, plays games, and is unavailable that a guy is most interested. Nice girls who just tell a guy that they’re interested end up finishing last too.”

  “I guess I never thought of it that way. To think, our parents all this time have been looking for nice guys and nice girls for us,” said Vijay, in a revelation.

  “When all along, they should have been looking for bitches and jerks!” Megha finished his sentence.

  To: m.patel@nyu.fashion.edu From: vpatel@mwe.com Re: Update/status

  Mona,

  Hope all is going well out there in the big city. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you recently. As you know, I’ve been busy getting introduced to women. For a while I thought I had met Ms. Right. It was only later that I realized she considered her last name to be ‘All the Time’. But I guess I could take her last name given that my first name is ‘Lonely’.

  I wanted to send you a card for the holidays but it was too late. I thought about sending you one of those e-mail holiday cards, maybe even one of those virtual bouquets, but I thought how corny is that! Needless to say, I got one of those today, so maybe that’s why it’s on my mind. It was too godawful cute for my taste.

  Vijay

  To: vpatel@mwe.com From: m.patel@nyu.fashion.edu Re: Update/status

  Virtual bouquets? So who’s the latest love struck girl you’ve been talking to? Mona

  To: m.patel@nyu.fashion.edu From: vpatel@mwe.com Re: Update/status

  Oh, this woman I met at the convention named Priya sent the virtual bouquet to me. Don’t get me wrong about whatever I might have written in my e-mail to you. She’s really great.

  Let me see. How would I describe her to you? Well, Priya is great. Did I already say that? Well, maybe I should describe her as great. Yeah.

  That’s it. She is the kind of person that makes you feel good about human-ity…the one dressed in white. Simple. Sweet. Honest. Bubbly. Any and all of the above. Parents describe her as a ray of sunshine. She seems perfect, don’t you think? But all I can think of, after getting to know her for a while, is that if she’s a ray of sunshine, I need a pair of sunglasses.

  I think a person needs to have some clouds in their life. Provide some shade. Maybe even a little turmoil and stormy weather. She’s like a laddoo. All sweet without a few nuts is too much to take.

  Vijay

  To: vpatel@mwe.com From: m.patel@nyu.fashion.edu Re: Update/status

  Vijay,

  Let me see if I understand you correctly. You don’t think you like Priya because you think she is right. It makes me wonder if you might be wrong. I hope you know what you’re looking for because I’m a little confused by your logic and I wonder if you might not be yourself. Even if she’s really sweet, you certainly appear to be nuts enough for her.

  You may need to take a step back from everything and figure out again what you’re looking for. It would be a shame if the perfect woman passed you by and you didn’t even know it.

  Mona

  21

  It Happened so Quickly

  “Have you heard the news already?” Megha asked Vijay over the phone. It was Sunday evening, several months since the convention.

  “Yes, I just did. Can you believe it? I’m still in shock,” said Vijay. Earlier Rocky had called to let him know that he had just gotten engaged to Komal during his visit to see her and her family. “He hadn’t even thought about getting a ring yet!” Vijay exclaimed, thinking about how opposed to the subject he had been when Vijay had brought it up last week for fear of jinxing things.

  “Who would have thought a few months after the convention that they would decide to tie the knot!” Megha said, also in disbelief. “Well, his parents did go with him to meet Komal’s family so something must have happened to push things.”

  Piecing their stories together, it became evident that no one, not even Rocky or Komal, had thought the weekend would have actually resulted in an engagement. Rocky’s parents and Komal’s parents had gotten along amazingly well together, and after dinner, all of them were in the same room and the question was raised as to how Rocky and Komal saw things between them. It was only then, Rocky would later recall to Vijay, that he realized how big a decision it had been to have his parents meet her family. How everything accelerated at light speed after that. It was almost as if the group collective made the decision for them. And before anyone could blink, Rocky and Komal were officially engaged.

  “Oh, and get this!” Megha offered more news, “They’re already planning to get married this summer!”

  “That’s just a few months away from now!” Vijay reacted. The whole situation just seemed so unreal. Rocky believed, just like Vijay had, about wanting to take the time to get to know someone before committing. And yet, here he was getting engaged within months and married shortly thereafter.

  “This is all just so weird! Straight out of India.” Megha exclaimed.

  “I know! Not very romantic!” Vijay concurred.

  “Even still, it somehow feels right,” Megha said wistfully.

  22

  Revisiting Old Friends

  The airplane took off into the night sky. It was nine at night on the fourth of July and Vijay, Rocky, and a number of Rocky’s relatives and family friends sat throughout the plane in assorted pairs. Their destination was Gainseville, Florida. That was where Komal’s family lived and where the wedding was being held.

  Vijay sat in the window seat with Rocky on his right. As they gained altitude Vijay was transfixed by the night sky. Below them fireworks were still exploding for miles around. Vijay was always fascinated at the big exploding blossoms of fireworks while growing up. As a child, on every 4th of July he would drag his parents to the ‘Safe and Sane’ booths set up in the supermarket parking lots in order to buy an assortment of pyrotechnics. He was always so anxious for the sun to sink below the horizon to kick off the warm summer evening, with the accompanying darkness serving a more contrasting background for the sounds and accompanying flashes of brilliance that came with setting them off. He could also recall sitting in the neighborhood park with hundreds of other people as wave after wave of fireworks would fill the sky with Neil Diamond’s “We come to America” blaring tinily on the outdoor recreation park loudspeakers. He always dragged his brother and parents to the park early so that they could stake out their 10 x 10 foot o
f blanket space closest to the fields where the fireworks would be safely launched from a distance into the sky. He always longed to be even closer.

  Now he saw the fireworks from an altogether different perspective; from up above, although seemingly from just as far away as from when he was on the ground. He wondered if the excitement and awe he held for them would dissipate by seeing them from his vantage point. As if the whole concept of fireworks was nothing more than a facade, brilliant to those below, who were intended to see them, but nothing but a false background for those who were behind the scenes. But as the panoply of flower-like explosions unfolded in inverted fashion in the sky below, Vijay’s fascination remained constant. Fireworks, both in the night sky, and in what he was looking for when he met someone, still remained something important to him, despite the doubts that crept into his mind over the past few years as to whether those kinds of fireworks would ever go off in his own life with the right person.

  As the plane leveled off and the fireworks disappeared in the distance, Vijay turned away from the window and looked at Rocky. Rocky had been talking to one of his aunts who was sitting in the aisle seat two rows in front of them. From a row behind them, but in the middle section of seats in the plane, Vijay could also hear Rocky’s parents talking excitedly to other relatives about whether everything had been packed and brought and how everything was to be handled once they landed.

  “Man!” Vijay grinned at Rocky. “Is this a charter flight? I bet between all of your family we have half the seats on this plane!”

  Rocky agreed, rising up in his seat slightly, peering over the head of the passenger in front of him, looking forward and backwards, confirming in his mind what Vijay had just said. “I’ve got a big family and I guess this is what you’ve gotta do when you find someone to marry clear across the country.”

  “Yeah. But because it was on the other side of the country, think how much you lucked out! You didn’t have to do much to help with the wedding. I remember when Amit got married. He had to spend every weekend for six months meeting photographers, seeing wedding sites, smelling flowers. But you! You just get to fly in and take the bride away. Not really a bad way of doing it after all.” Vijay theorized.

  “That is one advantage,” Rocky agreed, “but when it’s far away like this, it’s tougher getting a lot of your friends to come. Although a lot of my family is going to be there, not very many friends will. That’s why I really appreciate your making the trip with me.”

  Vijay shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Well, you gotta have your best man there. Besides, I practically introduced you to your wife to be. I had to see the happy ending!”

  Rocky sighed. “I miss the old days when you, Amit and I would hang out. I’m really bummed that he couldn’t make it,” he said wistfully.

  In fact those days did seem like the good old days. It had been a long time since they had done something together, just the guys. “He wanted to. But it’s Sonia’s parents’ 25th anniversary and they had planned a big surprise party months ago. There was no way he was going to be able to pull it off,” explained Vijay as Amit had explained to him. The excuses came often. They were always good excuses, neither of them ever doubted Amit’s desire to do more things with them, but it didn’t make missing him any easier. “Things change, especially when you get married. If not your desires on what you want to do, then at least your obligations on what you have to do,” said Vijay thoughtfully.

  “Well not for me,” Rocky promised with conviction.

  “Please! Komal doesn’t even live in Southern California and I already do fewer things with you,” Vijay pointed out that the change that had affected Amit had already begun to take effect on Rocky.

  Rocky closed his eyes for a few moments. He then opened them and said, “You probably are right. I guess when you get married, you tend to do different things. Married couple things. Maybe once we’re all coupled up, we can start doing more things together like we did in the past. They may be different things, but at least we’ll do them together.”

  “Great,” Vijay sighed. “You, Komal, Amit, and Sonia get to have all the fun in the marriage club and I’ll just wait outside.”

  “Oh stop being so melodramatic! You’re going to find someone soon and then it’ll be just like the good old days again. Think about it! The wives will all go shopping and we’ll all go play ball and work out. It’ll be the best of the single and married life.”

  “You’re assuming of course Komal, Sonia, and whoever I end up with like each other. Not always the case, you know,” Vijay continued to make it sound like a bad situation for him.

  “Then you’d better make sure you’re future wife at least gets along with Komal!” Rocky admonished Vijay.

  “Just what I need!” groaned Vijay. “I already have to find someone who not only meets my approval, but my family’s too. Now I’ve got to find someone that my friends’ wives like as well? I don’t think they’ve made the woman that can live up to all those requirements!”

  “That’s not true. In fact, I know of someone who meets all those requirements and then some,” Rocky said with a sly grin.

  “Well lay it on me. Who is this mystery woman?” Vijay was interested in hearing who Rocky had in mind.

  “It’s so obvious sometimes that we all want to punch you for not realizing it,” Rocky complained. “Megha!” he said in a “duhhh” tone.

  Vijay’s reaction was automatic, “Megha? Please! We’re just good friends, nothing more.”

  “So what?” Rocky was not one to be turned away too easily. “You’re friends. That doesn’t mean something can’t still come out of it if it’s right.”

  Vijay unbuckled his seat belt and turned to face Rocky more directly. “Let me explain something to you. When you meet someone, you can take one of two paths. The friends path or the romance path. Megha and I have been down the friend’s path for some time now. And the one thing I’ve learned is that once you go down one path, you can’t go back on to the other one. They’re two different paths and to try to cross over only gets you lost.” Hearing it out loud only confirmed again in Vijay’s mind the truth to the statement. His friendship with Megha had grown to be important to him over time and he didn’t want to weird up that relationship by trying to take it somewhere that it didn’t seem like it should or could go.

  Rocky listened with his eyes closed. He thought about what Vijay had said for a few minutes thoughtfully. Just before he drifted to sleep, he replied, “Just keep in mind that we always say we want our wives to be our best friends. Why can’t we have our best friends be our wives?” And with those prophetic words he fell asleep.

  Vijay looked at him and thought about what Rocky said for a second. In the back of his mind he wondered if he had just experienced some sort of epiphany. But before he could marshal more attention and effort to figure it out, sleep overcame him. Tomorrow would be a big day, and in the dark plane racing through the night sky, two friends, one soon to be married, the other hoping to find someone to marry, continued down the various paths that they had chosen. One certain in his path, the other never more lost.

  They landed in Florida at four in the morning. In a caravan of three rented Dodge Caravans, one of which Vijay had been designated to drive, they tailgated and finally reached the motel where Komal’s parents had rented out a number of rooms for them. They all fell asleep before anything was even unpacked.

  Waking up late the next morning, a brunch was waiting for the jaan, otherwise known as Rocky’s wedding party. Other relatives of Rocky’s who had taken different flights or who had driven from nearby locations were also staying at the motel, increasing the number of people there to close to eighty. For the guests, nothing remained to be done until the evening. It was more a time for relatives to catch up with each other. It hadn’t been since a wedding of a cousin of Rocky’s three years ago that the whole family had come together. Rocky’s lengthy search had resulted in a number of stories that had been stockpiled, waiting to b
e told when all were assembled again. For Rocky, it was part of the package of getting married. Stories of his childhood were retold by relatives who had raised him, proud now to see him on the verge of entering into a new phase in life.

  As evening approached, everyone returned to their rooms to get ready. Vijay had his own room and put on his jubbo lango outfit after taking a long shower. He turned around from the bathroom door and looked at himself in the mirror. He then sighed, as he stared at his reflection. A feeling of deja vu overcame him. He recalled staring in front of a mirror just before Amit’s garba raas wearing the same outfit. He then thought of Jennifer. It all seemed so long ago. And as he stared in the mirror, he thought to himself that he felt old. It felt as if a lifetime had passed him by. He closed his eyes for a second, wishing and hoping that when he opened his eyes, the woman he had been seeking so long would be standing beside him, with her reflection next to his. He opened his eyes. It was only his reflection looking back. Alone.

  Vijay pulled the van into the parking lot of one of the better Holiday Inns that Vijay had seen. Rocky felt vindicated, saying “I told you it was nice” to the others in the van. Evidently there had been a running joke by his relatives when they had heard the garba raas program was at a Holiday Inn that Rocky was going to be married in a tiny motel with dinner and drinks coming out of the vending machines.

  The parking lot was only half full and so they did not have far to walk into the main lobby. As they entered through the doors, Vijay recognized many of Rocky’s relatives waiting by the front reception area. Just like the other weddings Vijay had attended, none of them were entering into the room where the garba raas program was being held until Rocky and everyone else from the family had arrived. A grand entrance was to be made by all of them.

  Once they had all congregated, Rocky, with his parents, led the group in. News of their arrival had long reached those inside as they had already gathered near the entrance waiting for them. Komal greeted Rocky with a smile with her parents behind her beaming proudly as well. Despite his feelings of loneliness and of self-pity, Vijay couldn’t help but suppress a smile as he could sense the overwhelming warmth and happiness they were all sharing at that moment. It was as if up to that time, none of them truly believed the wedding would actually happen. But now that it was, a heavy burden was being lifted and their lives could be fun again.