I married your mother a year later.
A week after my wedding, Mr Shastri, along with Mrs Prasad, disappeared from the colony. They are now rumoured to be living together happily in Delhi.
I looked at my two daughters, awaiting their verdict. I had impressed myself immensely with my storytelling skills and felt like Prithviraj Chauhan in his full battle regalia, armour glinting in the sun, chest puffed up.
‘Well, what do you think?’ I asked.
Naina was the first to remark. ‘You actually cried when Mr Shastri came to meet you?’
That’s why daughters are special—a father crying is a big deal for them.
And somewhere the spirit of Prithviraj smiled.
6
Destiny Swipes Right
Rachita Ramya
Vaishnavi
Buzz!
I felt my phone vibrate on my mattress, indicating another notification from the new guy I had been speaking to for the past twenty minutes. These dating apps were the new way of connecting with people these days. I would be missing out on all these single guys if I wasn’t registered on them. My friend and roommate Sunita had warned me that most of these apps had creeps hiding behind their profiles, demanding all sorts of crazy things from girls. But Sunita was a pessimist. I mean, she accused dolphins of being emotionless sex addicts. Cute, innocent, smiling dolphins!
So it was no surprise that men as a species fared quite poorly in her eyes.
‘Not all men are bad, Sunita.’ I would roll my eyes at her, annoyed.
But men had proven me wrong—time and time again.
This was my last attempt at online dating now.
Although this new guy I was talking to did seem really nice. We hadn’t talked for that long, but I could tell he—
‘Are you busty?’
—he was just like the rest of them!
I was done. I furiously tapped my fingers on my phone and deleted the app before my dating horror story could worsen.
I was giving up. Finding your soulmate was harder than I had anticipated.
Being Indian, it was assumed that I would always have the option of arranged marriage open to me, but my parents were the last people I would trust to find me a guy. For all I knew, they would find the most convenient, accessible guy who would be willing to ‘settle’ for their daughter, and then spend the rest of their unexpended energy convincing me that he was the one.
No, thank you. Almost six years back, when I had stepped out of my hometown in Punjab and flown to Mumbai, I had sworn I would be leading my life on my terms. This was my dream life.
Having said that, being ghosted and friend-zoned by the guys in the dating world was not the dream I had anticipated. The dating scene in Mumbai was hell for someone like me. Being the nerd that I was, I hadn’t played any actual games—and now I was required to play all these manipulative dating games.
Text only after three days of meeting someone.
When interested, act like you are not interested.
Don’t mention you are looking for anything serious too early into the relationship.
These rules were harder to remember than BODMAS in math equations. Needless to say, I was a math geek trying to survive in a world where the laws of logic did not apply.
‘I am never going to find anyone, Sunita. I am going be single forever,’ I stated when I met her for coffee near our apartment.
‘Join the club!’ Sunita said exuberantly.
‘This is nothing to be happy about,’ I grumbled.
Somehow, we had exchanged roles in this conversation. Right now I was the pessimist.
‘How are things with new guy? The one whose profile you saw and mentally decided you are going to marry him before even sending him a “hi”?’
There were times I wished I could kill Sunita. Now was one of those times. But she was partially right. I was super picky about these guys on the dating apps. And, somehow, I still always picked the wrong ones.
‘He turned out just like the rest of them,’ I muttered under my breath.
‘Well, no wonder! You met him on Hickie. That’s a hook-up app. Everyone knows that!’
I gaped at her.
‘You recommended it to me!’
‘Yeah, for fooling around and letting your hair down before finding someone worthwhile. I never told you to expect to find your soulmate there,’ Sunita told me in the ‘I told you so’ tone she reserved only for me. ‘If you want a more civilized app for settling down with someone, try this new app called Beloved. People get married after meeting there.’
‘You told me two of your friends got married after meeting on Hickie.’
‘Yes . . . these were other friends . . . who got married after hooking up on Hickie.’ Sunita hesitated, trying to hide her guilt. ‘But you, with your Indian values, don’t believe in hooking up, right?’
I gave her a frustrated look.
Although it had nothing to do with Indian values, I didn’t believe in the casual dating culture that had taken over the world. I was looking for something real.
‘Anyway, let’s forget this for now and go out. It’s Saturday night!’ Sunita changed the topic just as we were about to finish our café lattes.
I nodded. I guess getting lost in a crowd of people at a club was a good way to forget your loneliness.
After we came back home to get ready, I sat in silence in my room. I hated the empty feeling of being alone in a big city like Mumbai. I wanted someone to be there for me.
I grabbed my phone and browsed Instagram for something to cheer me up.
No luck. Just happy couples going on vacays, nowhere close to mirroring my anxiety. These days Instagram was a trigger for me to feel depressed. Truth was, I was alone. And it scared me more than anything else in the world.
‘Let’s go!’ Sunita’s booming voice came from outside.
I scanned myself in the mirror. I looked underdressed for a Saturday night in the city. No make-up, simple clothes, long hair swept back in a messy ponytail. I also had my spectacles on, giving the impression of being dressed for a casual Sunday.
I don’t care, I said to myself, slamming the door behind me.
Karan
The Saturday-night scene in Mumbai was like a celebration of the epic ‘work hard, party harder’ saying. My friends had dragged me to this brand-new club that had recently opened in south Mumbai. The sparkling, shiny crowd of decked-up girls was hard to ignore, but here I was, looking at my phone for the hundredth time. The girl I had been speaking to on this app had gone AWOL. My mistake completely. I was not paying attention while typing and autocorrect decided to change my words from harmless to sexually elaborate. Even offensive.
I tried to hide my laughter. This was really a funny situation and if that girl had just waited a few minutes for me to apologize, we could have been on a date now, laughing about the incident together.
I shook my head. Girls these days.
Suddenly, my eyes stopped at this girl who had decided to come into the glamorous club dressed as . . . herself. This was refreshing to see.
She looked familiar. I wondered if we had bumped into each other before.
‘Hi,’ I smiled at her.
Her hazel-brown eyes widened. Did we know each other from somewhere?
‘The app,’ she said as if she had read my mind.
So I had already met her in the virtual world.
This was the same girl from Hickie, the one who had been offended by autocorrect on my phone.