For Judy-Ann,
who once said she enjoyed
my style in writing.
Thank you and happy reading!
December 14, 2014
(Sunday, 8:35 p.m.)
Guys
have diaries too:
I don’t know what to feel!!! I think
this is frustration or whatever but I’m really sad. I have almost three days
left to find a girl whom I want to date and eventually marry but unfortunately
I haven’t found her. I love my parents and I don’t want to disappoint them
that’s why I’ve entered into this bet with them. After three days and I still
haven’t brought home a girl, they will be the one in-charge of my relationship.
I don’t want it to be that way! Rahul found her Meenama and even Barfi found
Jhilmil. So I strongly believe I’ll find my own girl at the right moment, at
the right time. Though it seems like I’m running out of time.
I even subscribed into this dating
game online just to find someone, I’m that desperate. Okay you’re right I’m not
that desperate because I’ve turned down 112 requests of ‘meet and greet’
because I didn’t trust that dating site. So why bother on putting my profile
there in the first place? Haha, don’t have any idea.
But please if only you could help
me. Just send anyone. Oh not just anyone, I mean anyone that could pass my
standards. Or at least be near my standards. What my standards are? Oh c’mon
don’t say you’re that forgetful! I’ve told you that the very first night that I
made the ‘bet’ with my parents. It’s more or less 4 weeks now. NO! I will not
repeat what I’ve already written. You just have to find out for yourself. Okay,
bye for now.
R.
Singh
Robert Singh, male, 27 years old. BS Commerce (Accounting and
Finance) graduate from the University of Mumbai. Eldest child of Mr. Raj (an
engineer) and Mrs. Simran (a nurse before, housewife now); has two younger
sisters, Priya, 23 and Anushka, 17. There’s nothing special about Robert’s life,
except for the fact that his parents’ decided to give him an English name and
revoked that very same decision and had given his siblings Indian names, until
the ‘BET’ has been made.
The BET was conceptualized more or less a month ago
when Rob’s (his nickname at school) cousin Siddhart got married at the age of
25. Rob’s uncle and aunt were so proud of their son and were bragging what a
fine young man Sid is for marrying a fine woman and for ensuring that the
family’s name will continue. And because of this incident Mr. and Mrs. Singh
were so worried about their son. Robert they say is not getting younger anymore.
He should also be married by now, he’s already 27 for crying out loud! So when
the family was home the night of the wedding, the BET began.
Rob being
the nice young man that he is accepted his parents’ challenge. They challenged
him to find a girlfriend within a month. If after a month he’s still single,
even though they really value their children’s freedom and want them to choose
for their own, they wouldn’t have any other choice but to meddle with their
only son’s lovelife. The expiration date of the bet is on December 17.
December 16, 2014
(Tuesday, 9:07 p.m.)
Guys have diaries too:
And now
I’m totally freaking ooooouuuuutttt! Time’s up, bro! Time’s up! Tomorrow is the
day and instead of celebrating tonight because I finally found ‘the girl’, I’m
stuck in my room writing about my agony and talking to my diary. I guess I
don’t have any other choice but to accept the idea that tomorrow my parents
will win the BET and I will lose.
You know I shouldn’t have been graceful to them and
accepted that bet in the first place. I could’ve just told them that this thing
is something you cannot force. This thing happens without you planning it. You
know, that’s always what it is in movies. Well, obviously not Bollywood movies
because our movies always talk about arranged marriages. But that’s not the
point here! The point here is that: why on Earth did I accept the challenge?
I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight. What if
tomorrow when I wake up, the girl that my parents chose for me is already
outside my room? What if instead of attending our office meeting tomorrow, I
will be forced to go to the temple and marry her? What if she’s not someone who
I want to spend my whole life with? What if she’s really a terrorist? Oh wait,
of course my parents wouldn’t want a terrorist for a daughter-in-law, that’s
too much. But just what if…. Oh no, the horror that comes with it! I’m again
overthinking everything! T.T
Okay, I guess instead of doing this thinking now I should
probably go to sleep. And maybe just maybe this is all one big horrible dream.
So in order to wake up from the dream I should go to sleep. That’s right,
right? Here we go, sweet dreams.
R. Singh
And Robert woke up the next morning to
the sound of a door knock. He overslept, so much for having sweet dreams, this
is what happened next:
“Good
morning son,” both Mr. and Mrs. Singh are on the door.
“Oh,
good morning Mom, Dad,” Rob yawned after saying it.
“So
I guess you have an idea on what day today is, right?” inquired Mr. Raj.
“What?
What’s the date today? It’s the 17th right?” Rob pretended he forgot
about the whole betting thing.
“Robert
Singh, do not pretend you don’t have any idea what will happen today!” Ooops,
Mrs. Simran read his son’s camouflage.
“I’m
sorry Mom, Dad.” Rob answered.
“It’s
okay, I just don’t want you ignoring the BET we had exactly one month ago now.
So come home early tonight, your father and I found you a decent woman. She’s
having dinner with us.” Mrs Simran informed Rob.
“You
already found someone? Oh my, that was quick!” Rob was shocked by this
revelation. It feels like from the very start his parents already chose a woman
for him. Is he really that pathetic that his parents didn’t believe he’ll find
someone within a month?
“Well,
it’s not really what you think. To be honest it was really hard to find a
decent girl for you. She’s a friend’s daughter, so we’re very lucky. And she
just came home from London so the arrangements were made two days ago. Come
home early tonight, okay? And please, be presentable. C’mon we’ll have
breakfast now.” Mr. Raj said.
And
that’s how my day started. Could you believe it? My parents already found a
girl for me. And she’s from London, yay (L)! Arrrgggh, I
don’t really care if she’s from the UK or the US or even if she’s from Mars! I
don’t know her that’s the point. And whether I like it or not, I have to meet
her tonight. Yes, tonight! Now I’m going to work, later I’ll attend a meeting
and tonight…. I don’t even want to talk about it.
But
you know what? I could actually not come home tonight, I could pretend to be
sick and go to a nearby hospital. Maybe I’ll bribe a doctor there and ask if I
can be confined for a night. Or I could pay some random jobless people on the
street to kidnap me and return me the next day. Seems like a good and stupid
plan! What am I thinking? What will happen to my parents if I didn’t show up
tonight? It’s their friend’s daughter after all. Okay, I give up. I will come
home tonight.
As I was about to come around the corner of the street of
our office building I saw her. A beautiful young woman in a blue sundress. Her
hair is black and flowing across her face. She has a leather sling bag that she
just carries in her hand. She’s walking and sometimes jumping in her trot. I
don’t know what caught my attention, is it her dress? Or the way she’s walking?
Or is it perhaps the sling bag that she keeps on swaying along the way? Ooops
and she did a turn. Wow, what a weird way of walking. If you can call it
walking that is!
And just like that I decided to follow her. Oh forget
about work! I don’t care if I have a scheduled meeting today all I want now is
to follow this lady. But the irony of it can you see? Why meet her now when
tonight…. Okay I don’t want to talk about it. Just please allow me to follow
her now. I just want to observe, I couldn’t help it.
That started the journey of following the mysterious
lady. She went to a temple and prayed there for I think an hour. I just waited
outside. Of course I’ve maintained my distance because I don’t want her to
freak out that someone is spying on her. But I’ve chosen a spot where I could
see her from the outside. She closed her eyes while praying. I didn’t notice it
earlier but she really have beautiful eyes. Big, black eyes. Ooooh, that didn’t
sound appealing! Forgive me because I’m not really good at describing people,
okay? Well let’s just say she has eyes like Bollywood actress Deepika, I just
wish she has Deepika’s dimples too. But nevertheless she’s still beautiful in
my eyes.
Hey please don’t judge me. I’m keeping my distance,
promise. It’s not like I want to kidnap her or something. No, I’ve high respect
for women. Remember I have a mother and two sisters, as much as I want to
protect them I can’t help it when people admire them. Well as long as people
will keep their distance just as I am doing now, I’m okay with that.
On
the other hand, I could you know, go inside the temple and introduce myself.
“Hey I’m Robert Singh, and I saw you as I was going to work… blah..blah…blah”
But I couldn’t really do that, could I? I’m meeting someone tonight and that
would be so unfair for both of them. I would be unfair to my parents too. So
yeah, I just have to stick to the main plan: Spend the day with this mysterious
lady being a ghost and meet the real ghost tonight being me. Perfect plan (L)!
As
I was contemplating on my not-so-very-nice-the-universe-is-playing-tricks-on-me
life, she finished her prayers. She went out of the temple and headed straight
to a mean-looking street. What is she doing in this crowded street? Does she
perhaps live here? Well I don’t find a problem with that, so let’s go.
When
I thought I lost her to the crowd of people I saw her near a man doing a paint
job on one of the stores. He loaded some of the paints on a makeshift
mini-elevator and was half-way up when something went wrong with the ropes
supporting the elevator. The elevator toppled sideward followed by screams. I
was shocked and became rooted to my spot because I really don’t like seeing
falling objects and this time with a person coming with it. But what really
amazed me was the reaction of the mysterious lady. She didn’t even moved an
inch even if the elevator toppled just above her head. Is she blind? Even so,
is she also deaf? Oh no! I have to save her. The paints are going to fall off
the elevator and it surely will fall on her head.
Without
so much as having second thoughts, I readily run towards the lady and shoved
her off the falling paints. Exactly the same time that I’ve pushed her off
harm’s way, I felt the paints hitting my back (including the containers). It
didn’t feel great by the way! And even though I want to stay and just sit on
the sidewalk for a while to recover from pain I couldn’t do it. I would reveal
my cover and I don’t want that to happen.
So
instead, just as quickly as I came into the scene I run past the lady and
continue running to the opposite direction. It felt like I’m the bad person
that put her on harm’s way rather than the one who sacrificed his black suit
that is now painted white at the back. When I thought that I’m far enough from
the place of incident, I stopped running. I sat on the sidewalk and felt sorry
for myself. I now lost the lady and the chance of still following her. Just as
I was about to lose hope, I saw her walking towards me. Oooops, I need to hide!
She can’t see me, no, not like this! I mean, she would definitely recognize me
right? Or wouldn’t she? That’s not the point now, I should not reveal my cover.
So I dived behind a big drum only to find out the hard way that it’s a garbage
bin.
Oh
the smell is irritating to the nose! I held my breath for the whole time. Well,
technically not the whole time because do you know what happened? Would you
believe that of all the places that this lady could pick for conversations with
street vendors, she chose the same spot near the drum-turned-garbage-bin? Great
timing right? SO instead of just staying behind that bin for 3-5 minutes I
ended up staying there for I think 20-30 minutes. I really would like to
eavesdrop on their conversations but I need to focus my whole attention on
breathing. If I didn’t do that, for sure I would faint. Man if you’ve been in
my position, you would cry! I almost did! And I’m such a loon staying there.
And
yes, she did decide to continue walking. The minute that she’s out of sight I
sprang up so high that some people were actually startled. They stared at me.
Me with my black suit, necktie and black shoes – emerging from under a big pile
of trash – a very unusual sight. I just held my head high and pretended that
nothing is unusual about me or where I’ve been. I walked away, faster than my
normal walk.
It
is now almost noon and I saw her enter a restaurant, maybe she’s hungry too
just like I am. As I was about to enter, a guard pulled me aside. He looked at
me with disgust. Who wouldn’t? I looked like a beggar. I readily came up with a
different story about my misfortune and he seems to buy it. He allowed me to
enter given that I remove the outer coat of my suit, I happily obliged.
Inside,
I scanned the area and looked for the lady. She was seated on the far-right
corner of the restaurant, facing the street where we come from. I found a seat
opposite that very same seat she’s sitting, on the far-left side. I see she ordered
vegetables, maybe she’s a vegetarian. It’s very common among Indian women to be
vegetarians, I ordered the same. I’m also an Indian, I’m also a vegetarian.
There’s
nothing really special about the time inside the restaurant. I’m not yet
finished eating when she prepared to leave. What, she’s already finished?
Arrrggghhh! I want to finish this vegetarian dish, it’s very good. Chef’s
choice! But there she goes the lady of my dreams, becoming literally a dream.
So I rushed out of the restaurant and I saw her walk towards the train station.
Where on the face of India is she going?
As
I was about to cross the street where she passed, I saw that there is a very
fast vehicle approaching. The street is not paved so there are some muddy
puddles on it. I looked at the position of the lady across the street, she’s
walking slowly now. According to my calculations, even if I’m not an engineer,
she will be soaked in that muddy water from one of the puddles if she continue
walking in that pace and the vehicle coming continue to come on that pace too,
within minutes. This time I take my time crossing the street, but there’s no
difference in the reaction of the lady and the coming vehicle. Not again! She’s
out there somewhere again, it’s like she’s not aware of the harm that’s coming
her way. What is wrong with her? Obviously she could hear the roar of that
vehicle and she’s very much aware of the puddles on the street. But why? Why
not save herself? I have to save her again. Oh save me!
I
ran and just about the time when I’ve pushed the lady away from one of the
biggest puddles I’ve ever seen in my life, the roaring sound of a vehicle came.
And then ----- PLOOOOSSSSHHH! I didn’t have enough time to turn my back so the
muddy water splashed all over my face, my undershirt (which is white, my mother
will not like this), my shoes, my pants. And just like how I was humiliated the
first time, I ran for my life again. Why did I run? Of course to not reveal my
cover. Okay, that’s not really the reason why I’ve run. I was ready to reveal
myself now but not like this! I totally looked like trash. As I was running
away I briefly turned back only to see that the lady just entered the station.
I
gathered my remaining self-respect and walked back towards the train station. I
didn’t have any other choice, that’s the only place where I could have access
on a public CR. When I’m inside the station, I walked straight to the comfort
rooms. Inside I tried to remove the mud that’s stuck on my shirt. I couldn’t
remove everything but at least the mud lessened. And I also cleaned my black
watch, I didn’t even know that it was this dirty. This is my father’s gift to
me when I graduated college and I value this one. I walked out when I’ve given
up that I could still improve the appearance of my white long sleeves.
I
saw her again there, seated on the last row of the benches at the women’s
section. And is she asleep? Oh my, it looks like she is. I sat at the men’s
section where I could see her. It’s now almost 4 pm and I only have less than
two hours of being with her. I sat there and I tried to veer off boredom by
observing people. From time to time I would look at her and would admire the
look of peace on her face. Time passed by slowly, and this is to my advantage.
Before I know it, I too, had fallen asleep.
I
woke up with the sound of my phone ringing. I answered it and was shocked that
my angry mother was on the other end.
“Robert
Pritap Singh! Where on earth are you? Did you intentionally plan to be late
tonight?” my mother is very angry.
I
looked at my watch and it’s already 7 pm. I looked for the lady and she’s not
there anymore. Oh no, did I really sleep for three hours? Oh no!
“Ma
I’m really sorry, no, it wasn’t my intention to not go home early tonight. I
just, I slept. I didn’t know that it’s already 7 pm.” I sincerely apologized.
“You
slept? But where? You could’ve gone home after work, if you’re that tired.”
Mrs. Singh replied.
“Well,
I’ll explain later. I’ll be on my way now.” I couldn’t tell her that I’ve slept
on a train station, she’ll freak out even more.
“Okay.
And be quick about it. Alina is already here. It’s a good thing that she and Anushka
are having a great time given that she’s also into guitars. You should be
thankful for your sister. Come home now.” Commanded Mrs. Singh.
“Okay
mom, I’ll be home in a bit."
Now
I’m the one freaking out. I didn’t have any time left now to shop for a suit. I
think I have to go home like this. I’m so worried. Not about what Alina or
whoever she is would think about me. I’m more worried about my family’s
reaction. Maybe my dad would take my appearance as a kind of revenge or
something. I have to come up with the best excuse. But the problem is I’m not
really good with excuses. I’ve always been honest ever since. What should I do
now? I think the best solution is to head straight home now. I’ll do the
explanation tomorrow.
When
I’ve arrived home, all of them are seated on the dining table. They’re talking
and laughing. They looked like one big happy family. My mother and my sisters
were all seated in their usual places. Alina is seated on the end of the table
facing my dad, she’s wearing a red dress. My dad is seated on the other end of
the table, facing the main door of our house. So when I’ve entered the house he’s
the one who readily saw me. Shock entered his face.
Just
like a choreographed dance troupe, they all turned their heads at the same
time. I’ve never felt this down before. If I could only undo all the things
I’ve done today. Oh no, I saw the disappointment on my mother and father’s
faces. I saw the dissatisfaction on my sisters’ innocent eyes. The girl who I’m
supposed to meet is quite shocked herself. I want to explain myself at that
moment but words betrayed me. I just stood there feeling lost and so shy about
my appearance. And when I thought the silence will not end, Alina spoke.
“OH
MY GOD! You’re that wacko on the street. OMG you guys (she turned to my
family), he’s actually the one I’m talking to you about. You know, the one who
keeps barging in on my trips. I couldn’t believe it! It’s totally you – that
black suit with the paint, white long sleeves that’s all muddy now because
you’ve decided to shower the puddle water, that watch, that black shoes – it’s
totally you. I mean, what’s your problem today huh? Life’s really that boring?”
And
just like that, my confidence soared sky high. I smiled my most beautiful
smile. All I asked on the way home is: Please be her. Please be her. Now my
wish is granted. It’s her.
