Not Any Funny Stuff

                               

It was lurking during my just-shed-adolescent days. Then it began rearing its ugly head quite often. And now, at the most luring period of my age, it has gained a monstrous stature which hovers over the head like a bunch of ferocious bees stormed onto the man who dared to hit a stone on them. Got the drift? No? Okay, I give you an apt instance here.

On a perfect ideal weekend, we were lunching on a scrumptious meal and the atmosphere was aromatically heavy with the wafting aromas of the piping hot daal combined with the steamed rice and a spicy chicken curry. And then, when least expected, maa speaks directing towards me ,” So, you are still stuck with your no-marriage melodrama  or should we get into details of the profiles been proposed for you?” The chicken piece decided to stop on halfway through my neck and I faltered while giving a meek response. “ err…umm..no..yeah…well..you see…I don’t want to marry so soon. I have made it clear a hundred times. Why keep asking me then?” And the maa’s voice exploded with the intensity that could’ve challenged   Bengal’s incumbent CM’s  ‘ear drum-shattering’ speeches . “ What do u mean by ‘So soon’? You are at the ripe age of marriage!” So, I was attributed with the adjective-ripe.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen! You heard it right. Indian girls at their mid-twenties are as ripe as a stale over- ripe banana which reeks of a staunch smell , smirked by everyone , and if not swallowed  soon, gets it’s permanent address into  the trash can. I am lucky to have a comparatively chilled out father who believes on casual discussions rather than insane hollering so as he sensed the heated argument about to take place between me and my mother , very astutely he shifted the gear to some other direction.

That day,I escaped but it’s not always the case. Nowadays the mother has made it her habit to point on something or the other related to me. Sometimes, I am abnormally fat for her. Sometimes, my head  goes bald according to her as she feels my scalp sheds off hair strands with the same speed as that of a F1-car that wins the race. And I am not a daft to not get the hint she gestures at. It’s the prospective groom of mine, she is worried about, who might not find me a perfect ensemble of a divine character and a modelled figure.

And alas! Its not only my mother who feels I should be garlanded off to a man who will crown me to the honour of a lady that is destined to carry his legacy forward. I go to a friend’s house to find some instant relief. And voila! there lies another mother who immediately jumps on her new prey (that’s me of course)  and slays both of us together with her ear piercing philosophies.

Well, I do not deny that these mothers are  right in their own ways. But again, who wants a smooth and all fun-life to be hitched with a non-glamorous obstacle like marriage? Yes, of course a marriage arranged in a planned manner is not that funky, isn’t it? And if you talk about love marriages, Oh please! Do not even get me started with that. Because, even if u choose a Brad Pitt for yourself, the mothers and all the aunty-clans you’ve got in your whole relative lineage, will make you feel like the biggest loser on earth as if you've picked a street dog over a German Shepherd for pet.