View matrimony

(And another...)

Essentially, everyone is a closet Bridget Jones. That is what someone said to me recently. By this logic, all women – though I would prefer to say ‘most’, or even ‘many’ – see the ultimate destination for themselves to be the state of holy, happy matrimony. Which means happily ever after with someone who is as close to the man of their dreams as it has been possible for them to find. Add to that a balanced family of two children, one of each kind, a supportive set of relations by blood and marriage and a stable home with no landlord demanding rent increases, a stable bank account with no EMIs demanding instant payment and a stable professional set-up with no irascible bosses demanding unreasonable satisfaction and there you have it: nirvana for the woman of this world. Isn’t that what someone like Anita, in the hotly haute fiction release Marrying Anita by Anita Jain is trying to find? Or even the far younger Arshi, in You Are Here, from blogger-author Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, who, with all that youthful adventuring and postcoital musings, seems to want?

But – and this is always a big but – there is one big fly in this particular soup, especially for the modern urban woman. Even as she longs for marital bliss (in a manner of speaking, of course), and even though she will never tell Mother, who is lifetime-guaranteed to utter her favourite phrase of ‘I told you so’, she will only settle for the man she believes to be ‘right’. Ah, and there lies the nub. With our cited population statistics and the hoo-ha about sex selection being given such importance in, unexpectedly, upmarket areas of major metropolises like Mumbai, one question never gets a satisfactory answer: Where are all the men?

Like so many Indian women, I traveled the whole route when it came to the husband-hunting scenario. Ever since I turned legally eligible, or even perhaps before that, I was trotted out to various dos to be ‘met’ and to ‘meet’ the families of young men who satisfied all the mandates of becoming one half of the to-be ‘us’. I rarely came across the men themselves, since most were away studying to become green card holders or were waiting for that significant visa change in, usually, some small town in the United States. With typical Tam-Bram snobbery, nicely blended with Mills and Boon aspirations, I wanted more and never hesitated to announce that to my own family, often with the fallout echoing loud, clear and tearfully through a locked bathroom door. As I got older, of course, I got more assertive and, mercifully, less valuable in the marriage market and I finally got the space I wanted. Before that, I had to go through a number of sessions of desperately searching for something, anything, to say to fond mothers who stared piercingly at me and tsked about my academic ambitions and vaguely uneasy fathers who smiled tentatively at me and wondered what books I read.

Those were the days I wanted to find my own man, my dreams techni-coloured by romance novels, The Princess Bride and my own parents’ story. Today, much older and rather wiser, I find that men have not changed, except to slide a little lower on the evolutionary scale. They put out their charm, which never fails to put up my defenses, and the lines that they come up with have me on the verge of giggles at a moment when I should be smiling idiotically, starlight glimmering in my carefully shadowed eyes. Or else they are paranoid about maintaining their own privacy, never even telling you if they are married, never mind that they want to invade every aspect of your own – from the colour of your undies to the last time you were sexually active – all via sms, email or some other disembodied form of modern communication. And, what is really funny is that they have no idea what your own intentions (if indeed you have any beyond mere friendship) are, with regards to them!

Seriously speaking, being single, by choice or by fate, is not a pleasant route to travel in the real world. Not in this country, not in this context, not even in this metropolis we call modern, liberated and accepting. Not even if it is what you have chosen for yourself. Apart from public opinion, which can be fairly painful if you let it bother you, there is an overwhelming feeling of sadness when you contemplate the simple – and single most important – fact that when your door closes at night, you are alone, never mind the cat who shares your pillow. As the youngest in your family, it is inescapable, inevitable, that you are the only person left as everyone else slowly gets done with their lives. And then what happens? Do you keep yourself company in the mirror like an ageing movie star long after her sell-by date? Does someone from your vast and intimate circle of friends find you dead on the floor of your apartment days after you are gone, your body slowly rotting and reeking? It is a frightening prospect. One that makes it well worth the trouble to find a man (or woman, if you prefer) that you can spend the rest of your life with, thali strung around your neck and your vows to love, cherish and belong until the death or a new love do you part forever etched in your psyche.