After my Dad had threatened to disown me of the family property, including all the contraband I had collected over the years that included my favorite somersaulting childhood toy pup whose brown fur I had once painted black, I finally got coaxed into meeting a girl for marriage. He warned me that if I refused to join the marriage bandwagon , I would be "cut-off" from women all my life stressing on the words cut-off. I hazarded a guess from his looks.

‘Is it vasectomy?’I asked. He burst into laughter at my extrapolated thinking and said no, it is something much more satisfactory. It was not yet summer in New York but I could already feel the heat. He warned me that he would stick a Gabbar Singh like poster in every galli nukkad of Surat, enlarged from an old photo of mine when I used to have long hair. So there would be me with ghungralu baal, a week's stubble on my face and a strategically placed large black mole below the left eye for the full effect, I would be subjected to lifelong target of paan residues and flagrant street art.

Sholay's famous dialogue came to mind and I put myself in it - "Yahan se pachas pachas kos door Gujarat me jab ladki shaadi ke liye nakhre karti hai to maa kahti hai beti shaadi karle , varna isse tera vyah karva doongi. "

So are you game ? My thakur Dad asked while I still contemplated life as a B-grade movie star.

“Ok,’I said “but why one, I want to meet more than one so that I have a choice’.

Big mistake, as my Dad gave that sneaky toothy grin of his which looked sinister in that eerie webcam lighting. "Yeh ladkiyaan nahin, phaansi ka fanda hain" I half expected him to say that. He said that 4-5 girls could be arranged instantly raising my suspicion about the profession he was into. But now my big mouth had put me into trouble and I mentally prepared myself to meet the damsels he would select.

‘Involve me in the selection process,’ I tried to salvage my sinking ship. Fair enough, he agreed and together we went through numerous profiles, of which some were downright ridiculous. One man had written he wanted the boy not only from the same language, caste, sub caste but also from the same village plus or minus 10 kilometres. I was surprised he didn't mention he wanted someone from the same species. And on top of that he had the nerve to say that his family was an open minded one. I could see that this was not all that easy. But all said and done, I settled on three sweet looking chicks. One sat on a window sill smiling (living on the edge types I guess) , the second one posed with a few thousand shopping bags in her hands (fashionable, will be heavy on the pockets) while the last one was a petite one but a humongous suitcase like purse hung gingerly from her left shoulder.

What had my life come to , a selection process, a swayamvar of sorts , where girls were not girls anymore but just another profile number. Poor things coerced by their parents to have their photographs taken in studios. I think it is seriously bad for one's self confidence. But anyway , nothing I had to worry about. They say handling one woman is difficult, I had three on my plate and that too whom I barely knew. The end was nigh , I said to myself.

Next post : The candidates in a little more detail.