It was a mid-winter afternoon in early 1994 when I met Shree. We sat across a low coffee table on the sprawling green lawn of the India International Centre in Delhi. The long shadows of the trees nearby played nudge-nudge over our faces.
Over coffee and a sandwich, she asked me about my background, my job, my family and why I had advertised looking for a bride. This was my first life interview; call it a date if you wish. She was dressed in a dazzling black saree, Ray-Ban sunglasses perched on her shiny black hair, and a large Hidesign handbag resting on her lap.
I was in typical journalist clothes: jeans with a mismatched shirt of a non-memorable colour, a half-sleeve khadi jacket thrown over it. Two ballpoint pens peeked from the chest pocket, the hallmark of a journalist. I had taken care to trim my beard so that my large and leaning glasses would not scrape it on my cheeks. The jhola rested on my lap, and the black helmet was on the coffee table. A warm breeze drifted through the trees, softening the afternoon chill, but I was too quivery to order a sandwich for myself. Any haywire breadcrumb or tomato piece could crumble my prospects. The coffee cup was heavy enough to lift.
“I will let you know,” Shree said after our polite conversation. She asked for my phone number and for the bill in the same breath. When the waiter came with the bill, I grabbed at the chance to redeem myself.
“Are you sure?” She asked with a curious glance.
“Of course!” I gave no chance to second-guess myself. I didn’t want to be billed as a leech.
A couple of days later, the phone at my newspaper desk rang. “When can you come home to meet us, Kanti?” Shree asked.
Shubhasya sheeghram, goes a Sanskrit phrase: do auspicious deeds immediately. I lost no moment in agreeing to visit the same evening.
Looking for a bride
The walk from the pavement of Shree’s house, where I parked my scooter, to the door was the jumpiest of my life. What is she like? What would we talk about? What if all that I was going to get was a No? She could have told me over the phone or written another letter: that would be less of an embarrassment.
Shree had written to me in response to my matrimonial ad in the newspaper. I had just been hired by the country’s top newspaper to head its desk for a satellite edition. The salary package was handsome, so my two flatmates suggested that I was now fit for marital bliss.
“Find me a girl, and I will marry!” I challenged as a filibuster.
They jumped onto the idea instead. “We’ll place a matrimonial ad in our paper,” pat came the reply. The three of us bachelors worked in the same media house. “Just tell us what you want.”
A girl with rich parents? A large house that she would inherit? A Maruti Esteem car, a new one? Enough wealth to have a grand wedding and some more?
My friends stumbled on their track. I was not beating the same tune. All I wanted was someone simple and sensitive, smart enough to be in a partnership for life. No complexion, caste or cash credentials needed. It took us three copy editors a few hours to polish the specs into an ad of size and shape that I could afford to place in the newspaper, despite my handsome salary.
Some 40 letters arrived in the next few days from all over India. The nearest correspondent was in Delhi, where I lived. She was looking for a bridegroom for her younger cousin, who was highly sensitive, talented, creative and worked in a magazine as a copy editor. Could I call her if I wished to take it forward?
Why not, the nearest could be the dearest, I reasoned. So I called, and we had the date at the IIC.
A doe in the library
The calling bell at Shree’s door in a posh Delhi neighbourhood was shrill. My heart jumped.
Shree welcomed me and led me to her father’s library. “This is Tilottama, my cousin. Tilo, in short,” she directed my gaze to the slim and dark, doe-eyed beauty leaning against a shelf of books. “You guys talk, I’ll get some tea for you,” Shree left us to our pounding hearts.
Tilo looked like she was about to bolt, but didn’t know where to look. To use a cliché, a doe caught in the headlights. But the late afternoon sun was behind the tree by the window, so the shadows darkened the room. I slid my glasses up my nose to get a clear view. She was in a deep purple silk saree with a colourful pattern in the border, matched with a pink blouse, covering her delicate frame gracefully in neat folds. Her midnight-dark tresses, lightly parted in the middle, fell to her back, spreading a mist of jasmine scent. A pair of multi-coloured kundans glittered in the drops of sunlight that filtered into the room through the leaves. A room heater hummed warmth in the air.
“Ah, namaskar,” she replied to my greeting, a small smile appearing, as if bracing for rejection, her eyes lowering to the mosaic floor, her fingers knotting in the hem of her saree’s pallu. I studied her intense vibe that seemed to be painted in the colours and style of a Raja Ravi Varma.
“I met your Didi the other day, and she is so nice,” I ventured to loosen my tongue, referring to her elder cousin.
To break through the awkward silence, I used my reporting playbook: how did she land in Delhi from her hometown, Kolkata? What do her parents do? What is her current job like? What does she like to do in her leisure?
The conversation meandered and halted at times. She did not hold my gaze for long. Each time our eyes met, hers darted away as if eye contact were a flame and she feared being burned. And yet — she kept looking back. No one had ever seemed so gentle, so careful. I was not sure: maybe the world had not yet hardened her, or maybe she had been hurt many a time.
Tittering twins, jittery hearts
The uneasy silences were luckily filled with the giggles of two 8-year-olds, Shree’s twin boys — Robin and Roshan. Their thin bodies, topped with closely cropped hair, were tittering between us like fawns. I tried to get their attention and strike up a chat with them, but they were too excited. “Masi (aunt) is getting married, Masi is getting married,” they rhymed in a sing-song tone. I was thankful the warmth rising from my neck merged with the rosy rays of the setting sun.
Someone flipped the lights on. Chai and samosas were placed on the coffee table between us. The wafting tendrils of their steam warmed our mood and chilled our nerves somewhat. I bit into a samosa, and a tiny slice of chilli caught my tongue unawares. “Can I… can I… can I please have some water?” I hiccuped. The twins tittered again.
A slender hand covered with colourful glass bangles opened a water bottle and poured a glass. The bangles moved in a faint jingle: something tinkled in my heart. I gulped the water in one motion: it satiated the heat of the chilli as well as my unease.
Things seen and unseen
The bottle on the table was left open. The cap had slipped out of Tilo’s hand and rolled away. She bent down to pick it up, but didn’t come up with it. I looked down and saw that she was on her knees, feeling with her hands only inches away from the cap. Her saree’s pallu had slipped from her shoulder. The quick rise and fall of breath was obvious. I was stunned. It was right there, and she couldn’t see it.
“It is right here, and you can’t see it?” I stammered.
“Masi can’t see without her glasses, Masi can’t see without her glasses!” The twins sang in unison.
“What, you have glasses? Why aren’t you wearing them then?” I wondered aloud.
Her face fell. The doe’s eyes almost swelled in horror. Tears welled up. She pulled her pallu back in place to save herself from the double horror and straightened her frame.
“Tilo has been rejected by many men because of her thick lenses. They spoil her beauty and might spoil her kids’ eyes, people think. She was afraid you’ll do the same,” said Shree, walking in.
“That means you haven’t even laid eyes on me all this time! Go get your glasses,” is all I could say.
The boys flew like sparrows. The glasses arrived in a moment. Tilo put them on her fragile face; the high-power lenses made her eyes expansive and her gaze more intense. The tinkle deepened into a flutter. It felt like I was caught in the headlights. I looked away first.
In that moment, something unravelled and settled in me at the same time. A few minutes of chai-samosa conversation told me nothing about what Tilo wanted, what made her laugh, what lay behind in her life, what dreams she had. But I could see clearly that I wanted to be someone she would not look away from. Especially with her thick glasses.
Sandstone ruins and old wounds
I broke Tilo’s lonely heart on our first outing to Qutub Minar. Sitting on the red sandstone steps in the ruins, I told her that before she made any firm commitments, I ought to tell her about my past misadventures. Then I went ahead with my sob story.
In my student days, I was a loner like a cuckoo. I spoke little and not to the girls. But I made a lot of friends writing letters to strangers across India and abroad. One girl and I became particularly intimate, sharing the happy and sad moments of our lives, seeking support and solace from each other. After several years of exchanging long, hand-scribed letters, we had become soulmates. When her family started looking for a match, it seemed natural to us to be together for life. A job interview in her city gave me the excuse to meet her and confirm our desires. But her family caught on to our plot and barred her from being in a relationship with a boy from another community. A goodbye letter from her, written on a beautiful letter pad, was all I was left with.
Tilo listened quietly, her sight set on a distant minaret. Tear drops smudged her pink saree into purple spots. The silence lay heavy in my chest, filling the emptiness I had been carrying for about five years. Did I burn my chances? Did she think of me as a sham? Or did my story ignite hurtful memories of her own? I couldn’t tell if her tears were of regret, sadness or relief.
When I dropped her off at home, my back was drenched in jasmine tears. But she clutched onto me through the ride.
(The writer is a former journalist and communications professional.)
Yes, there are different parts of the story and the more you look at and think about them the story or novel will shape itself or you will see different possibilities.
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