After 134 Rejections...

5

*Please excuse the mistakes*

Ghanshyam reached his aunt, Ulka's workplace. He patiently waited as she was busy dictating to her student. 

He sat down in front of her desk as soon as her student left the room.

"What happened? What are you doing here?" asked his aunt.

"Listen...63"

"Don't you get tired? Bored?"

"Bored? Anger, frustration, annoyance, despair, everything is happening...it is suffocating me," he sighed, "But then, what do I do? Mai ajji's (ajji means grandmother) stubbornness and mother's emotional nature...these are my limits. I am unable to say anything before them, I have to give up..."

"Why don't you just say the real reason to them?"

"When I had gone to meet the 3rd girl, I had told the real reason, hadn't I? No, they are going on and on about this one thing only," he sighed in frustration, "You know, now it is...it is extremely insulting for the girls and me too. What must they be feeling when I say no to them?"

Ulka just listened to her nephew patiently.

"Do you know what reason have I told to the girl whom I met today? Reason to say a no?"

"No," she immediately responded, "No, I don't want to hear anything. Just say what do you expect from me?"

"You fight my case before them."

Ulka joined her hands before him and shook her head in negative. 

"Yes, yes, please...listen to me. Among the 14 people in our house, there are only 2 with whom I can talk. You and Digya kaka (kaka means uncle, essentially). Everyone else is just saying their soliloquies. I mean they keep on talking and I just listen. And you are the only one who can speak in front of Mai ajji without hesitation. That is why, please atya (atya means aunt), you speak, you speak for me and explain all this to them. Because all this has to stop...I...all this is very frustrating for me."

"Look Ghana, I speak like this...rationally, and what I expect is that the person in front of me also listen to me and take my word in the same, rational manner. This is the only thing I expect."

Ghanshyam nodded in positive.

"But at our place how this works...you know it very well. Mai thinks emotionally...crying, getting emotional, Yamdoot's arrival, etc, etc. When my and Vinod's divorce was going to happen, at that time Mai had done what all kinds of things...My God! Full-on emotional blackmailing..." she shook her head at her reminiscence. 

"Ghana, the topic of marriage has been given undue importance at our place. This means if someone is not married or if someone's marriage is going to break apart, then everyone thinks of it as a big calamity or something. Like we are incomplete without marriage."

"Yes, exactly."

"It has been so many years since my divorce, still Mai says the same thing about me...'My poor Ulka'. What...why poor? I mean..." she sighed. "This is the way it is. Anyways, whatever help I can offer from my side, I will do it."

"Thanks! Thanks, atya...I mean thank you, really, really thanks a lot."

"Okay, okay, that's enough," she smiled.

"Okay, are you finished? Are you leaving now?" 

"Yes, I will leave now."

"And if you are going home, then I have brought my scooter with me."

"I don't sit on things who are incapable of managing their own weight."

Ghanshyam's grin fell.

At Radha's house,