The HIGH

I hate to see people off. As they step away, I feel a tug at my tear ducts…that intensifies with the increasing distance separating us. Before I know it, the floodgates fling open and my desperate attempts at batting my eyelids and containing the tears within, FAIL….miserably. Yes, I’m that hopeless :-\  

I remember the first time I saw off my ‘first love’. We were about 18. The hopeless romantic that he was, he drove after my train and we caught one last glimpse at the junction where the train hits the road. My roomies were with me. “Awww… He loves you so much”, they gasped. I blushed. Hell yes, I thought so too! Five years later when we broke up, my world fell apart. The relationships that followed were disasters rebounds. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

By about 25 I used to feel like I had known and seen enough. I was pretty content with occasional rendezvous with the crush-material. But the need to “root” had crept in and just like that father in a certain matrimonial ad, I had my imaginary sehra that I’d try on every admirable man I met. It was a subconscious pursuit. You’d agree the primordial instinct of any woman, at that age, under normal circumstances, would be just that – find herself the “fittest” of her species (from amongst whatever is accessible / available), conjoin, copulate and propagate. But my kind’s definition of “fittest” is pretty skewed. We want this, this, this, that…that…..that and that and also that (and dread dying unmarried). Then there’s parental and peer pressure that increases exponentially as the clock ticks on your age. “Girl, time you get married and made babies!” “Please meet Mr. Harry’s son, Mr. Tom, who’s an engineer with XYZ. He’s just what you’re looking for.” It’s that stage when all of a sudden you find everybody around you assume that they exactly know what you are looking and are on a single-minded mission to get you married as if propagation of the human species depended on it! My mom became especially adept in landing prospective grooms on my plate. And after a while, let truth be told, I began enjoying the attention and of course, the free food… ;-) This blog encapsulates my not-so-funny situation back then.

A friend introduced me to Shaadi.com. But wouldn’t that me lame, shouting it out loud “I’m ready to mingle & marry”. But again, why do we go to job portals like Naukri.com? I saw a point there. 

I hesitatingly created a profile with only few lines of “about me” that read more like a justification of why I am there, doing that. Kid you not, but it seemed to be enough to grab eyeballs, albeit from all the ‘wrong’ people. I didn't know what to do with those run of the mill profiles with ostensibly misleading, photoshopped pictures of men in all shapes and sizes and colors. I considered unsubscribing. 

One of those days I got this message that read somewhat like - if you really want to find somebody here and vice-versa, maybe you go ahead and add some relevant info about yourself. Now that made some sense. I was tempted to check out who this gentleman could be. First impression: This guy looks hot! But not a marriage material! But something about that brazen, unkempt, stubbled look kept me going. A little research and I landed at his Orkut profile. What a show off – was my second impression. But there was this one perfect bonhomie pic with his family that made me bite on the bait J He appeared to be that ideal son, the dear brother. I was intrigued. The next time when I talked to that friend who introduced me to Shaadi.com, I found myself gushing about him. That’s the beauty of such sites I guess. Your intentions are obvious and it makes things so much simpler!

The next time I went to the cybercafé, I couldn’t resist dropping him a note. “I happened to land at your profile while hopping around at Orkut. And I just wanted to say hi”. I was a chicken, alright and pretty obviously, he didn’t reply.

Now, his brushing me off so unceremoniously was unacceptable. Dear Ego couldn’t take it and compelled me to drop a mail. This time, an explicit one confessing where I came from. Well, I secretly hoped he’d come after me panting, which would turn me off and it’d be a piece of cake getting over him. Women are a bundle of contradictions, no? But wait…that didn’t quite happen.

It was sometime late August, he finally replied. One mail led to another. Both of us were narcissists and could write on and on about ourselves. Thankfully, we also loved reading about one another. I would drop by the cybercafé every evening after work. He started adding his phone number in the mails. I resisted. The mails got longer. He could see I wanted to take it slow but he seemed to be in a hurry. He started concluding his mails with a “Please feel free to call me”.  On one such mail, all that was visible was his phone number – big, bold and colored. I almost fell off my seat laughing. I couldn’t help but take it down. This exchange of mails, waiting to read his mail at the end of the day, discovering him bit by bit, or rather mail by mail, that platonic high was amazing… His English was impeccable. His wit was arresting. His sense of humor was just right. He was perfect and I wanted to hold on to all of that…  

One night, he was driving down from Pune to Hyderabad and I couldn’t help texting him a “safe-journey”. That marked a promotion: from mails to SMS. The mails continued nevertheless, but we were now just a message away. My face glowed and the heart skipped a beat every time I got a new message….literally! I still resisted calling him. It was an unspoken deal – I would be the first one to call.

My matrimonial meetings were still going on. One evening I met this guy who happened to have the Titanic theme as his ringtone. That was it! That ringtone was like the clarion call that shook me. That day I called D for the first time. We talked for almost an hour. We talked again. And again. I, the believer of platonic, could have continued living that ‘sweet pain’ for few more months, but D was 32. He insisted, “We get married or we end this here and now” and I could see he meant it. The following weekend he came down to Delhi. What happened in those two days deserve a blog of its own. Life changed in the blink of an eye. By November our parents met. By December I had moved to Hyderabad with him. And on Oct 3, 2008, exactly a year after we first met in the streets of Noida, we were bonded forever in matrimony.  

When Boomer and I saw him off at the gate today and just when I was beginning to feel that tug...I ran after him for one last kiss (to the horror of our watchman)…

We are a regular couple. We fight like cats and dogs. We make up. We fight again. I am not a ‘believer’ - not in the traditional sense of the term, nor am I an atheist. I never say my prayers. But every time I feel the way I am feeling right now, I want to turn to somebody I can give one tight hug and thank for one of my best ‘decisions’ in life and for this beautiful HIGH, every now and then…