Marriage Blues

These days when I meet long-lost friends
What they ask is not
“How have you been?”
or, “I missed you a lot!”
but, “who are you seeing?”
or even, “Have you tied the knot?”

Family get-togethers are even more amusing,
all they are interested in is your marital non-status.
Sitting there and countering questions can be weary,
with a plastic smile hiding an anguished soul
“Yes pinni, haven’t found the right girl.”
“No attaya, I assure you I am straight.”
When I really want to say
“That’s none of your business.”
“Why don’t you fuck off.”

When I read the Sunday paper
I turn to the matrimonial column for some fun (amid the daily dose of rapes, murders, robberies and Sunday specials)
“ Wanted: Good looking, handsome, well-earning, socially settled, tall, fair, Iyer- Brahmin, 30 years old, NRI, (preferably) Male with no bad habits for good looking, pretty, fair, homely, 26 year old Iyer-Brahmin (presumably) female, who can cook good sambhar, rasam, sing ragas, play veena, knows full Bharatanatyam, will look after mother-in-law, sweeps, swabs, sobs (when necessary), will press husband’s legs, can rear children, no bad habits.
Interested parties may please send photo.”

Sometimes I feel I should give in to obdurate aunts and well-meaning uncles
and get married the traditional way amid blaring nadaswarams,
instead of trying to find love in a loveless city.

The irony is hard to miss: a child of modernity, of convent schools,
of Marxist-leninist-feminist parents
hankering after tradition.