Conversations at a breakfast table, my impending doom.

As I handed over breakfast to my father yesterday morning, he looked at me and said, "You're getting married at 29." I stared at him and then began railing. It was a rant of denial, my friends, and although I'm not too sure I remember, I might have sounded something like this -

"Twenty-nine? So soon? Are you sure? Who told you?
That's like, three years away. So soon? I haven't had enough relationships yet.
So soon? Who told you, Baba, who told you?
I should really speed up my moves now. If my marriage is three years away, I need to have as many affairs as possible before that. So many men, so little time!"

So then my pater brings out this yellowed scroll that is my first horoscope, made at the time I was born, and showed me that the stars indeed had predicted a late marriage for me. The chances of me tying the knot (or noose, if you please) are very high when I am twenty nine. Only now, the late marriage does not look so *late* anymore.

Oh, and to think that of all the guys I know already, not ONE is marriage material ...yeah, that knowledge helps a lot. So it should basically be someone who is going to materialize out of nowhere in the next three years, fit the *husband* bill as I see it, and make me fall in love with him (because arranged marriage remains a no-no), like me back in equal measure, AND be ready for commitment and marriage.

Hah! Like Charles Dickens said, "Great Expectations!"

Anyways, I will be off tomorrow for the land of Robbie T (Rabindranath Tagore for the uninitiated) - Shantiniketan, where I shall listen to the songs of the bauls - the traveling bards, and watch the dark tribal girls sway to the rhythm of mohua, the local liquor made from fermented dates.

It's as much Hedonism that I can work up at short notice. If I am indeed to be married within the next three years, I'm making sure I live the high life before I fall to my grave.

~RS
July 2004
Used With Permission