I Too Had a Love Story

  ‘The story is the same everywhere. We poor bachelors,’ MP said trying to be funny.

  ‘I am serious, MP,’ Amardeep said.

  ‘So, have you or your family fixed something?’ I asked him.

  ‘No. My story is just like yours. But the fact is that, one day, we’ll have to settle down with a life-partner. How long can we ignore our parents’ questions? They too have expectations, wishes and dreams for us.’

  ‘I know what you mean Amardeep. But are you really ready to spend your whole life with someone? I mean, in our four years at the hostel, there were so many times when we had to adjust with each other … This one will be for a lifetime,’ Happy said.

  ‘But, sooner or later, we have to do this, right?’ Amardeep asked.

  ‘What if we just carry on the way we are?’ MP said.

  ‘Then imagine yourself at the age of sixty, living alone. Life isn’t that easy, my friend. It’s a journey. And the best way to complete it is with a life-partner,’ Amardeep said.

  That night, on the bank of the river, the four of us discussed this issue seriously, for the first time. Maybe it was the first time we felt we were mature enough to talk about it. So many questions, ifs and buts were raised and answered between us. So many views were brought in and debated. None of us was against marriage but we wanted to evaluate its benefits. Amardeep and I were quite convinced about the marriage thing. And this discussion made Happy and MP think about the matter quite seriously, even it didn’t convince them. (Which reminds me of a slogan I read on a T-shirt: If you can’t convince her, just confuse her!)

  ‘But then, other things come into the picture. Love marriage or arranged marriage? Parents’ choice or ours?’ Happy said.

  ‘Now, that’s a personal choice. But given that we are independent, I don’t think our parents will object to our decision,’ Amardeep said.

  Happy kept mum hearing this.

  ‘But Amardeep, look at our lives. All of us are North Indians, working in far-away states. The chance of finding a soul-mate, in this case, is quite slim. Moreover, the kinds of jobs we have don’t give us the time to interact with different people. And above all, none of us would like to marry a girl chosen by our parents, if I am not wrong,’ MP said.

  ‘I don’t know if your last statement is valid or not, but the rest is in your hands,’ Amardeep replied.

  ‘But MP has a point. In my case, I would like to marry a girl of my choice, but for the last one year I was abroad and I don’t know if, in the next couple of years, I will be in India. Given this fact, it is quite hard for me to work on my marriage plan. And for a person like me it’s impossible to settle down with any girl who is not Indian. Forget Indian, she has to be a Punjabi first of all,’ I said.

  ‘How did you apply for your job at Infosys?’ Amardeep asked, digressing from the topic.

  I answered, ‘Through some job website.’

  ‘And Happy, how did you transfer money from London to your parents?’

  ‘Through my Internet banking account. It’s quite fast,’ he answered.

  ‘See? The world is becoming Internet-savvy. And, given the fact that we all are IT graduates who are on the net almost everyday, why can’t we use this for the marriage thing too?’

  ‘Are you talking about matrimonial websites like Shaadi. com?’ Happy asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are they really useful? I don’t think so,’ MP put forward his view. ‘To know if a dish is sweet or salty, you have to taste it first. That’s the only way to know things for sure,’ Amardeep answered.

  ‘Or better yet, ask a person who has already tasted it. Why take a chance?’ Happy said, trying to make us laugh.

  ‘So Raamji, are you on any such website?’ I asked.

  ‘Not yet. But I’m thinking of it …’

  When we did not say anything, he explained, ‘The best thing about this service is that you can go through so many profiles without leaving your desk. The filters are good enough to provide you suitable matches. And you can interact with the persons who interest you … Everything is so systematic. Above all, you don’t need to worry about your physical location …’

  Amardeep made some valid points, which is probably why we didn’t have much to debate about.

  ‘Hmm … Well, I don’t know if this thing is going to work, but it is worth giving a try. Who knows …?’ Even MP was convinced.

  It was 1.30 a.m. Our empty stomachs reminded our brains of their existence.

  Amardeep said, ‘It’s quite late and I’m damn hungry. Let’s get home.’ And he stood up stretching his back.

  ‘So who’s the first one?’ MP asked while we all were dusting our clothes.

  ‘The first one to marry? Or first one to make his profile on the website?’ Happy asked, laughing.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘I think this guy,’ Happy pointed his finger at me, I don’t know why.

  It was probably 4 a.m. by the time we had dinner and slept. And, after a long time, we enjoyed the kind of sleep we used to enjoy in our hostel. That day became one of the most memorable days in our lives.

  We spent the next day visiting some of the best hangouts in Kolkata. And we went again to the Launch Ghat in the evening to ride the ferry to the other side of the city. And, believe you me, being on the ferry was no less amazing than boarding the Titanic in 1912. Being with your best friends is simply wonderful. We ate, drank, talked and enjoyed to the fullest at a pub called Some Place Else.

  That was the last night of the reunion trip.

  All three of them came to drop me at Howrah Station and, once again, the four of us hugged, just like we had at Hyderabad Station, on the last day of college.

  ‘Who’s going to cry first?’ MP asked. But all of us laughed at that stupid and senti question.

  The train called me with its final whistle. I got into the carriage and stood at the door, waving to them all as the train left the platform. I reached Bhubaneswar the next morning. That same morning, Amardeep and MP boarded flights back to their respective places. Soon afterwards, Happy also flew back to London.

  Khushi

  Three weeks later. I was in my office, just like on any other weekday. I was checking out the photos that MP had shot of us all, during the reunion trip. He emailed them to us and while I was looking at them, in my Yahoo! inbox, I noticed an ad flashing in the top-left corner.

  It was an ad for a matrimonial site—Shaadi.com—with a beautiful girl, smiling and looking for her perfect match.

  Recalling our reunion discussion, I clicked the hyperlink on this ad, which took me to the website. With the default filters enabled, I clicked the search button and, in no time, I was on the result page with many feminine pics. Wow! Some among them were damn pretty, and I wanted to check them all out. But before I could visit the sixth one, I was prompted to register at the website, without which I couldn’t browse through more profiles. The trailer was over and to watch the whole movie you had to register yourself.

  ‘I didn’t have much work that day, so I thought I’d register myself and create my profile on the site.’ This is what I kept saying to Happy, Amardeep and MP. Whereas, it was actually the other way round. Those pretty faces on the results page forced me to make time in my hectic schedule—which involved project delivery to a client, the very next day.

  Someone rightly said, ‘Three things—wealth, women and …’ (I always forget the third one) ‘… can make anything happen in this world.’

  So, finally, my profile was on the website. I uploaded a nice photograph and unchecked any checkbox which asked to hide my whereabouts from girls who might be searching for me. I did not forget to mention my professional trips to the US and Europe either. After an hour or so, I was all set to check out those pretty faces again. I set my filters to check out all the Punjabi girls on the website and hit the ‘search’ button.

  The results page displayed some three-digit number—the total number of profiles that matched my search criteria. This was
exciting! But I could only check out some fifty of them before my eyes grew tired. Still, among those fifty or so, there were a few whom I wanted to contact. But before I could do so, there came a heartbreaking moment. To talk to those pretty faces I had to make a payment to the site. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Damn!

  The only cost-free part was a way to express my interest in them by clicking a button on their respective pages. This would send a message from me to their inbox. But even if they gave me an affirmation to interact, I still wouldn’t get their email ids unless I made the payment. I checked the amount they were asking for. ‘3000 bucks for the yearly plan! No way,’ I said to myself. Then I thought, ‘I will only pay up if I happen to get good, affirmative responses from those beauties.’ Till then, whenever I felt like it, I could ping any girl on the website to show my interest in her profile.

  This was the beginning of my experience with Shaadi.com—at the cost of my project delivery, which I almost screwed up.

  Apart from Happy, Amardeep and MP, nobody else knew about my profile on the site, not even my parents. Because telling them that I was thinking of getting married meant stirring a hornet’s nest. The moment they found out, they would bring inputs from their acquaintances all over the planet—and, Jesus! How I hated that!

  For the next few days, I got responses to my requests. Every time I opened my inbox there was this strange excitement. But, most of the time, it didn’t last long. The best ones had declined me. In fact, most of them had ignored me. Only a handful accepted my request but, unfortunately, they didn’t appear that good. ‘Ah! This website is good for nothing,’ I told myself. As if I was James Bond and all girls in the world would throw themselves at me, the moment I approached them.

  And this is how Shaadi.com went from high-priority to the lowest-priority. Time passed by and I visited the site once in two or three weeks, clicking buttons on profiles that interested me, but without much expectation. Some more girls declined me; some girls, I declined. A few wanted to interact, but their education was not impressive. Some called me up on my cell; to some I wrote a few SMSs. A couple of them wanted me to move abroad but I was not game; some others, I could not convince that India was a better place to live in.

  During one of my short, official trips to the US, I also happened to buy the yearly plan for a girl who badly wanted to talk to me. Damn! Out of the three things (wealth, women and … the last one which I always forget) that could make anything happen in this world, the second was already making me do things. The irony being that the girl, whom I coughed up 3000 bucks for, never got in touch. I lost all interest in the website.

  Then, one evening, I received an SMS on my cellphone.

  Hi I m Khushi I

  received ur msgs

  on my other cell can

  u pls call me now

  That was 20-July-2006 18:58:19. My cellphone’s inbox still shows the date and time.

  When I got this SMS, I was in a conference call with a client in the US. I quickly recalled the name of the profile from which I had got an acceptance the week before, along with the contact mobile number and an email id. I wrote an SMS in reply:

  M in mid of a conf call.

  wll ring you in another

  hlfnhr.

  The very next minute, my cell flashed the arrival of a new message.

  I too hv cmpltd my conf cal

  few min bck. U cmplete urs and

  I can wait till then.

  After finishing my call, I dialed her number but only after I had quickly browsed through her profile.

  ‘Hello!’ said a beautiful voice from the other end.

  ‘Hi! This is Ravin.’

  ‘And I am Khushi,’ she said in a pleasing and confident voice.

  ‘Yup, I learnt that in your SMS. Sorry I kept you waiting but I was in the middle of an important conference call with a client.’

  ‘No problem. Even I had some stuff to complete.’

  Our conversation began formally but, in no time, it became quite relaxed and informal when we found out some amusing things.

  ‘I learnt that you were born in the month of February 1982,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. 4th February. Anything specific?’ I wondered if I was supposed to recall something from her profile. But the only thing I remembered, then, was that she looked beautiful in her picture.

  ‘You might have noticed that my year and month of birth are the same.’

  ‘Oh yes! 22nd February. I had seen that,’ I said, quickly rushing to my computer and scrolling through her profile. ‘And you were born in Faridabad …’

  ‘No. I was born in Kolkata. My dad was in the defence services and, when I was born, he was posted in Kolkata and was staying there with family.’

  ‘Really …? You won’t believe this!’ I shouted, attracting my coworkers’ attention.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You guess!’ I said, heading towards the staircase area, where I could talk to her without disturbing the others.

  ‘Don’t tell me you were also born in …’

  But before she could complete her sentence, I shouted again, ‘Yes!’

  ‘But, how come?’

  ‘That’s my mother’s native place.’

  And I don’t know why we screamed and laughed at this fact. Thousands of people must have been born in the same year, the same month and the same place, given our country’s track record. But the way we reacted!

  ‘You know, there is something else we have in common—the classical music thing. I learnt that you hold a degree in playing the sitar,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. And you hold one in playing the tabla, right?’

  ‘Indeed. I learnt to play it for four years. In fact, I was never interested, but my dad forced me to …’

  ‘Well, you know what? That’s the only reason why I felt like contacting you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ I said slowly.

  ‘The hobby section in your profile said that you play the tabla. And your interest in classical music was the only thing that differentiated you from the others and made me feel like talking to you,’ she clarified.

  So that was it! A tabla makes a girl want to talk to a guy! It was impossible to understand girls, but I felt like hugging my dad and thanking him for forcing me to learn the tabla.

  ‘Even I got my degree after four years at Prayaag University. And we both are in the IT industry,’ she pointed out more things we had in common.

  ‘Oh yes! You work with CSC Noida, if I am not wrong?’ I asked, knowing that I wasn’t wrong. And how could I be, when her profile was in front of me?

  ‘Yes. I work with CSC … Tell me something. My friends say that Infosys people are studious and good rank-holders. Is that true?’

  ‘Are you expecting me to say ‘no’ to that?’

  She laughed.

  That was my first ever candid talk with a girl I hadn’t seen yet. On that call, we touched base on various things: the latest movies we had seen, our best friends, her family, my family, our college days, music and other areas of interest.

  ‘So is your family in Bhubaneswar too?’

  ‘No, my native place is a very small town called Burla, near Sambalpur. Mom and dad live there. My brother and I are in Bhubaneswar, and we both work with Infosys. We stay in a rented flat with two other roommates, and visit our parents on alternate weekends. Burla is just a night’s ride from Bhubaneswar.’

  We talked for nearly an hour. I could feel my cellphone burning my ear, and the cell’s battery was on its last legs. And even though I wanted to keep talking to her, I had to say, ‘Listen! My battery is going to give up soon. But I hope we are going to stay in touch.’

  ‘Your battery?’ she said, laughing.

  ‘I mean, my mobile’s.’ I started laughing too.

  ‘Just kidding. But I believe we’ll talk again.’ Then she added, suddenly, ‘But before you hang up, you have to say one good thing.’

  One good thing? Now where on earth would I f
ind one good thing to say? But I’d watched a movie the day before and, thanking god, I repeated a line from it. ‘Bismil ka sandesh hai ki kal Lahore jaane wali gaadi hum Kakori pe lootenge, aur un paison se hathiyar kharidenge.’

  Then, I took a deep breath, and waited … And she burst into a big laugh.

  I still think it was a good line. But I don’t know what made her laugh. Anyhow, I too joined in her laughter, so that she would not think me stupid or lacking a sense of humor.

  ‘OK! I’m hearing the final beeps from my cell. It was really nice talking to you, Khushi. But we won’t be able to talk more, though I want to.’

  ‘Same here. I liked talking to you very much. See you.’

  ‘Yeah, bye.’

  ‘Instead of bye, you should say ‘see you’. It’s nicer. It means we’ll interact again …’ she said, and touched my heart, somewhere. Her innocence and the candid way in which she talked to me had left its mark on my mind.

  ‘See you,’ I said, before I hung up.

  That night, lying on my bed, I went over the conversation again and again. And I wondered: Could I have been more humorous, just to impress her further? Or was the call just perfect, the way it should have been? And was she thinking about the conversation too, at that very moment, sitting somewhere in her room.

  I don’t know why, but I felt like calling her up again and it was hard to curb that urge. But I had to control it, because I did not want to mess things up, right in the beginning, by becoming a guy who bothers her at 11.30 in the night. ‘No,’ I said to myself, loudly, switched off the light and jumped into bed.

  Alone in my room, I was smiling, talking to nobody and there was this different sort of feeling within me. I slept, just so that the night would pass, and a new day would come when I could hear her beautiful voice once again.

  The next day, I waited for her call. Though we’d not decided that she was supposed to call me, still I had this gut-feeling that she would. By 10, in the office I was getting restless. I wanted to hear her voice but, at the same time, I wanted her to call me up.