After dinner, I was called to the living-room sofa. Both Amaira and Naina had worked on the setting—a dim lamp in the corner and soft Kenny G music coming from the speakers. I was nervous.
I told myself that in the story I was about to narrate, I had won—fair and square—and that I was very proud of my victory. And unlike Prithviraj Chauhan’s story with Samyukta, which was supposedly pure fiction, I had over a dozen friends and relatives who had witnessed my amazing win. On top of that, I had two wonderful daughters and a soulmate of nineteen years to show for it.
I sat down, cleared my throat and began my story:
This isn’t a tale about people living together peacefully in a small residential colony. It is not a story that has a lesson to be learnt at the end. It is a story about how I won your mother from the matchmaker.
The place where this story takes place is a peaceful neighbourhood. Back when it happened, it was a place where bureaucrats during their service years bought small plots and constructed their retirement havens. A mini kingdom for all the retired subjects of ‘babudom’. Their children stayed with them. Some of the children left for jobs or higher studies elsewhere. Some, like me, waited for their fathers to pull the right strings and press the right buttons to get jobs. It was an easy life. We were a pretty big group of eleven guys, to start with, but slowly our group grew smaller as our fathers found the right connections that made things work for us and got us jobs.
This was at a time when about five of us were waiting for one of those ‘we have a post just for you’ calls. To pass time we would play chess and carom at each other’s homes from about five in the evening to about seven. And then it was off to the local market to meet Ruchi, Rekha and Rohini.
After all, we were young men with hearts. Three of us had our soulmates identified. The other two were still searching. And, no, the three R’s were not sisters. There was talk of marriage, of undying love—all hidden from parents, of course. But we were all sensible people, who wanted good pay packets before dowries.
Then came the matchmaker.
As I have already said, people who retired came to settle in our colony. So did the matchmaker—Mr Shastri, a widower. Having retired from some obscure department somewhere deep in the state secretariat, he’d come to spend the rest of his life in our peaceful colony. At the very beginning he gave us the idea that he was there just to do some gardening and play a round of rummy every now and then. It was the rummy that started all the trouble. From the terrace of one of my friends, Anil, we would see this man in a kurta pyjama and a brown blazer walking towards Mr Sanyal’s house. Mr Sanyal was Rohini’s father. And Anil was in love with Rohini.
Mr Shastri, in one of the rummy sessions, mentioned a close friend of his in Lucknow whose son worked in Germany as an engineer. He would be the perfect match for Rohini. Would the Sanyals be interested?
The Sanyals were, of course, very interested! STD calls were made and a postcard-size colour photograph of Rohini—taken some months ago for this very purpose—was sent by speed post to Lucknow. The reply, too, came by speed post. The match was made and accepted. A month later, Rohini Mitra, née Sanyal, left for Germany.
Anil first contemplated suicide; then came Ghalib, followed by vodka. Vodka, because that was the only bottle left in his father’s liquor cabinet. But within a month he was back to his normal self. A few weeks later, he got that lucky phone call and was off to Mumbai to work for a big MNC.
Mr Shastri, who had received a lot of fame in our neighbourhood for fixing such a good match, was well rewarded—a gold wristwatch from the bride’s family and a Mont Blanc pen set from the groom’s. However, I think it was the fame that spurred him on. The kind of fame that he must have always dreamt of achieving while working for the government, but which had always eluded him. He went on to arrange more matches.
Preeti, the daughter of Mr Gupta, was married off to a chartered accountant from Chennai. The chartered accountant was the son of another of Mr Shastri’s friends. He was obviously well rewarded here as well, because a few days later we saw him on a shiny new moped. And then he turned his attention to Ruchi, Shekhar’s sweetheart. This time the match came from England. Shekhar tried to convince Ruchi to elope but she was swept off her feet by the lad from London. I enjoyed all this because I knew Rekha was devoted to me, and a job for me was not far. I knew Rekha would wait, but would your grandparents? They wanted a match for her from any country that was a member of the United Nations and carried a passport that did not have the Ashoka emblem on it.
Mr Shastri began his search; I began to prepare for war.
Rekha and I couldn’t talk to each other any more as your grandfather began to accompany her on her trips to the market. My friends told me to give up. But I struggled on. I decided to vent my frustrations on anything that reminded me of Mr Shastri. On Sunday mornings I would join Pinto, my dog, in ripping apart the matrimonial columns of the newspaper. One dark night I punctured the tyre of the moped. I threw rocks at his windowpanes. And as if to spite me, a few days later, he brought a match for Rekha—a doctor from Australia. He didn’t know about her and me. I wondered what he would have done if he had.
So now the groom’s family were to come to see your mother soon. I had a plan. I was desperate, and so the rumours started. It was in the market that I saw them both talking—Mrs Prasad and the matchmaker. I came home and set the wheels rolling. I told your dadi how I had seen them together at so many parks, cinemas and restaurants. What was happening to good old middle-class morality? It was a plain lie with not an ounce of truth to it. Mr Prasad was an alcoholic and Mrs Prasad a devoted wife. But the die had been cast. Thanks to your grandmother and her loyal maidservant, the rumour spread.
Suddenly people did not want to play rummy with the matchmaker any more. He received no more invites to any tea or dinner parties, and people began to avoid him at the market. And your mother’s parents were also not interested in this lover avatar of the matchmaker. They made it clear that they would join the matchmaker’s social boycott—but only after their daughter’s marriage.
I was in a hopeless situation. My sweetheart was about to become part of India’s beauty drain.
I was alone at home that day when the bell rang. It was the matchmaker. Over the past few weeks he seemed to have aged quite a bit. He walked in. I told him that my parents were not at home.
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘You love Rekha?’
I nodded.
‘So it was you who was behind the broken windowpanes, the deflated tyres, the obscene phone calls and, of course, the rumours.’
So he had found out, from God knows where. I remained calm. He had dark circles under his eyes. Sleep, it seemed, had eluded him for a long time. Served him right. But I was still overcome with pity. We were sitting in the drawing room. I offered him a glass of water.
‘The rumours must stop. Think about the lady, at least. That husband of hers is an alcoholic; he has started hitting her. Your prank has snowballed into something bigger—or should I say . . . revenge.’
His words hit me like arrows. If he had expected me to break down and beg for his forgiveness, he was expecting too much. But the fact is I did.
He comforted me. ‘It’s okay. Love makes people do strange things.’
I tried my best to stop those rumours. It took about eight months. Rekha’s wedding with the doctor Mr Shastri had suggested never took place. Mr Shastri told the groom’s family to make some outrageous dowry demands. The result was that your Nana (grandfather) threw them out of the house. And it was Mr Shastri who did all this for me. I think he did forgive me.