Marriage and All That : Part 2

"How about I get married?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yea"

"No really. If you are serious, I can start looking for one"

"Uhh....Nah. I was just kidding"

After a while, she stopped asking me if I were serious. Instead, she would laugh it off every time I suggested it, which was the original intention of my question. For me it was just comic relief, this idea of marriage that parents back in India would pester their children with once they reached just about where I was right now; young, working with a steady income and of totally no use at home.

Though when she did ask me if I was serious, I do remember feeling a palpitation in my heart, the kind one gets when having to make a yuge decision (#trump2016 #makeamericagreatagain), knowing very well that she, along with an army of aunts, waited for my green light to start searching for a bride for the most promising of their nephews. A NRI (non residential Indian used to refer to the plethora of skinny Indians slogging overseas) with a job in an American MNC with an income of lakhs of rupees a month, not too dark, decent looking (maybe a tad thin but we can fatten him up with the bride's fantastic cooking skills), of a very good family with two sisters, both in Medicine, and father with property in Kochi and Kozhikode etc etc. The resume would give the impression that all the years up to that point was meant to prepare me for one thing and one thing only; marriage. My role would be reversed. After years hoping to be the choice, now I would be the one making the choice.

With such certainty, I had delayed the decision until I did my Masters overseas (where I would not be burdened by the presence of a shy Indian woman tagging along with me everywhere) and which could give me some time to find my feet in the adult world. Or that was the reassurance I gave her and my aunts, to buy me some time. For who would want to give up this security of staying with one's parents, of coming home after work with great food all made by one's mother, of having to undertake minimum responsibility within the household, of having to just worry about oneself, of being able to avoid the conflict and struggle that is marriage.

Not me.