Great Indian Bride Hunt - The Parallel Process

Even when talks with Anusuya were still in progress, my parents brought in a new girl into the equation. As I mentioned in my last post, I was becoming adept at parallel processing of multiple prospective brides. Given the title of the post is parallel process, you can expect me to rant on about parallel processing and multi-threading before I move on to the actual story. But I guess that will make my typical reader feel the geeks are having their revenge. What with so many geeky blogs burgeoning all over the internet. Maybe I can instead talk about parallel lines and geometry and Euclid. But that would make it school boyish. What do school boys have to do with marriage, unless we are talking about 'Balika Vadu' here? And I definitely do not want to talk about the Hindi soaps. For this is no damn 'Lux Perfect Bride' program. This is my own personal blog.

Lets get on to Girl 5. Here we did not start with g-talk as usual. Instead I was asked to call her up and talk right away. She started off much more enthusiastically than the others “I just have three requirements from my prospective husband. He should not smoke. He should not drink. He should not eat non vegetarian food.”

Fair enough. I told her honestly that I had indulged in tobacco for a brief period but five whole earth years had elapsed since I last experienced the ethereal sensation caused by the passage of smoke from burning tobacco leaves through my lungs. I had enjoyed the pleasure of dissolving my ego in solvents made from fermented grapes, barley, wheat, rice and other substances for a more extended period of time. But I had put that also behind me and had taken a firm resolution six months back that my ego needed no further dissolving and had so far stuck to the resolution. And yes, though I had not consumed any items derived from killed animals for the past six months, I was still open to the possibility whenever I happened to be a stranger in a strange land. But I was willing to forego the option for her sake. She told me she does not care about the past and was concerned only about the future which I took to mean I had come clean. She then told me she could not focus her mind on the trivial issue of marriage when there were more important things at stake such as Sachin Tendulkar’s performance in the ongoing one day match, Federer’s quest for a sixth Wimbledon later in the evening and the F1 grand Prix race still later on. So I was advised to present my case through electronic mail and she promised to dispose of it at leisure.

I complied with her majesty’s wishes and faithfully wrote out my plea to her the next morning. One day passed. No response. Another day passed. Still no response. Yet another day passed. Situation still remained the same. So I decided to act and sent a gentle reminder. Immediately I got a response

“Good morning. Extremely sorry for not responding earlier. I was held up with some work. Your conversation and the email communicated to me clearly about yourself and what is your expectation. Even if I appreciate your values of life and profession, I feel that my dreams and goals in life are quite different and are not in sync with yours. Sorry that we are not in position to proceed further with this alliance. Kindly convey the same to your parents. I wish you good luck for your future endeavors.”

This was fine but what surprised me was the way in which the girl’s parents conveyed the same fact that the girl had conveyed to me to my parents. “We do not want our daughter to having anything to do with shady characters like your son, who indulges in immoral acts such as smoking. So please don’t bother us again.”

 I was thinking of suggesting to John Gray to write a sequel to his book ‘Men are from Mars, Women from Venus' titled 'Women are from Venus, Women’s parents are from Jupiter'

As I began to see more and more girls, my efficiency had begun to go up and lead time was coming down drastically. For the uninitiated, lead time is an operations management concept closely related to the philosophical concepts “Everything that goes up has to come down” and “Everything that goes in has to come out”. The lead time is a quantity that measures the amount of sand that falls into Father Time’s hour glass while what has gone in is trying desperately to come out. In this case it is the distance between the point a contact is initiated with the girl and the point the communication comes to an end, on the time axis.

I spoke with the sixth girl for an entire hour on a Sunday morning. She conveyed to me that she would let me know when we can talk next by Sunday evening. Her parents conveyed the same fact to my parents by Monday evening “Our daughter informed us that your son’s interests are not compatible with hers. It was pleasant interacting with you folks. We wish your son best of luck in finding a bride”.

A similar conversation ensued the following Sunday with a different girl. My opinion of the girl was neutral and I could not come to any kind of conclusion either way. We parted ways promising to get back to each other for another round of discussion soon. Meanwhile my parents contacted me and got my feedback. They were not too impressed with the girl and her family and wanted to call off the match unless the girl had managed to form a strong positive impression in the first meeting. But they did not want to hurt the girl’s parents. So they decided to convey it in the ‘Women’s parents’ language also known as Jupiter language. My mom called up the girl’s parent and told them “Our son informed us that your daughter’s interests are not compatible with his. It was pleasant interacting with you folks. We wish your daughter best of luck in finding a bridegroom”.

But there are occasions where the best of punch lines fail when used inappropriately as one Bishop in a British church had discovered. This bishop was traveling in the United States where he heard that ministers regularly used humor in the pulpit. He decided he would try to learn from the example of his American colleagues. One Sunday he found himself in a large Methodist Church. Suddenly the minister said, "The best years of my life were spent in the arms of another man's wife." The congregation was in shock until he drew himself up and said, "My mother." The congregation then laughed and the English bishop thought, "Jolly good! I must remember that!" On his return to England he entered the pulpit and decided to repeat the story told by the American. "The best years of my life, were spent in the arms of another man's wife." At this point he drew a complete blank. The congregation began to whisper and murmur. His wife folded her arms and became cherry red. His mother-in-law, who had come to church that Sunday was gritting her teeth. So he repeated himself (hoping to remember the punch line): "The best years of my life, were spent in the arms of another man's wife... ." Alas, to no avail. So he said "For the life of me I cannot remember who she was!"

My mom found herself in a similar situation when the girl’s mom replied “Your son only spoke to my daughter about his interests. My daughter never told him anything about her interests”

But my ever resourceful mom was not the one to be put down for long by a minor gaffe. She responded nonchalantly “We do not want our son to having anything to do with shady characters like your daughter, who indulges in immoral acts such as smoking. So please don’t bother us again.”

The girl’s parents were too shocked to even think of a reply. My mom used the temporary reprieve to make a quick exit. While the punch line from the parents of girl no. 6 had backfired, the one from the parents of girl no.5 had saved the day. Luckily for my mom, the parents of girl no. 7 never called us back.

So there ends my bride hunt chronicles. Though by and large I have reported the actual facts, at many places I have used my prosaic license (what’s the equivalent of poetic license?) to give a slight strategic twist to the facts to spice up the narrative and give the reader a more enjoyable experience. I bear no malice toward the girls mentioned in the story and mean no disrespect to them. I hope none of them ever read my blog. But just in case let me put a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: The story narrated here does not claim historic authenticity. The events mentioned in the story and all the characters are a product of my fertile imagination. Any resemblance to real life events or real life people is purely coincidental. After all isn't life itself a series of fortunate and not so fortunate coincidences?

However things did not really end there for as you see I am have still not married and begun to live happily ever after, right? So obviously there has to be more, right?

Next Post        :  Great Indian Bride Hunt : The Final Problem
Previous Post  :   Great Indian Bride Hunt : Rotation
Series Start     :   The Great Indian Bride Hunt