*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,
Radha walked inside her house after a long day of work. She put on her slippers, kept the keys on the key holder, and walked inside the house to see her father praying in front of God.
She took the glass kept on the table, wiped it with a tissue, and then filled it with water. She was drinking it, but her gaze was on her father, who hadn't turned around once in acknowledgement.
"You must have something to ask me, right, papa?"
"You haven't given your board exam papers and come home to ask you how was your paper. At one time, even that was easy, but how was the boy...this question would be..."
"Did not like him."
Her father gave a tired smile, "Nothing new...as always." He folded his hands in front of God for the last time before turning to face his daughter. "Can I know the reason?"
"I did not like the slogan that was written on his t-shirt."
Saying thus, Radha walked away from there.
"What?!" her father asked with an incredulous expression on his face. "At least have the courtesy to give a proper reason. Did not like the slogan that was written on the t-shirt? Is this even a reason?!"
He turned towards the temple again and addressed God, "Look, look at her. Now I am tired. I am...you only do something now."
At Ghanshyam's house,
Everyone is waiting for Ghanshyam to come home. His mother, Devaki, is pacing around the room.
"Where is this boy?" she muttered, tensed.
"Now whatever happens," Vallabh kaka, that is Ghanshyam's uncle, said, "Let us take it sportingly. Ghana is still young. Even if 5 years go by, he will still get proposals for marriage."
Kuhu let an inaudible gasp at that comment while Devaki panicked.
"Why are you saying like that?"
"Let it go," Vallari said suddenly, "Don't take his words to heart." She gave a piercing glare to her husband, "He doesn't understand, he always does this. Even while watching the cricket match, he keeps on saying that we will lose, we will lose...thinking that we will win the match."
"Dada (means elder brother), when you say that we will lose, do we really win the match?" Digambar asked curiously.
"Yes."
"Then listen, next time when I put my money, say that we will lose, we will lose...then," he clapped his hand excitedly. He laughed and looked behind him to see Supriya, his wife, sitting there and glaring at him. His laughter died down immediately.
"Why are you listening to him?" Vallari questioned her brother-in-law. "Don't listen to him and put your money anywhere. They will just drown."
"I was just joking!" Digambar tried to laugh it off, but Supriya just walked away to the opposite side of the room. "I am not...where am I going to put any money?"
"What happened?" Vallabh asked his younger brother.
But the reply came from Yamuna, his niece, "Father is afraid of mother."
"Hey, take this biscuit and sit quietly," Digambar said to his daughter while Vallabh laughed.
"All husbands are afraid of their wives."
"Yes, yes!" Digambar said and looked towards the ladies sitting together. But he just got a cold look in reply.
"Now let us see what happens with Ghana after his marriage."
"Ghana, Ghana....when is he going to come?" Digambar questioned out loud.
Just then Kuhu recited her poem shaking out everyone from their tensed mood. But she was interrupted by Mai, who came into the room in her wheelchair, with Pari right behind her.
"There is no darkness anywhere," she scolded Kuhu, referring to the poem she just said, "Sit there quietly."
Kuhu just huffed and sat down beside her uncle.
"You all talk so much! When I was a teacher before, there was so little mischief in the class. There was always a pin drop silence. And here you all...like television nowadays, your mouth also needs to be controlled with remote control. I have come here, still, you all are going on with your chit-chat. Sit quietly!"
Everyone stopped talking after that. The ladies just folded their hands, Digambar was smiling quietly, Kuhu and her father were displeased which was evident on their faces, and the children, Ganga and Yamuna, got busy with their coloring.
This silence stretched for a minute before,
"Oh ho! Say something! If there is silence in the mind, then it thinks of all the negatives thoughts. Understood?"
It was Mai ajji, again. At that everybody's expression changed, but no one said a word.
"And Shyamrao has not come yet. Is he going to marry and come home now?" Mai questioned out loud.
Just then, Ghanshyam arrived home. Ganga was the first one to spot him as he ran towards his cousin.
"Dada (Dada means elder brother), who won? Who won?" Yamuna, too, held his hand asking for a verdict on their bet.
"Dyana," he simply answered as the kids expressed their disappointment and ran away.
"Leave all that winning and losing things," Devaki interrupted, "Say what happened first."
Ghanshyam looked at everybody's eager face once and then contemplated on how to break the news.
"No"
Everyone's face fell while Mai ajji got angry, "Shyamrao, Shyamrao, you are doing too much! Just because we listen to you, you are doing what you want to do. You have rejected 63 girls...now which angel should we bring from the heavens? I'll tell him to send one (him here, means her husband who is no more)."
"But I am sure you will reject her also."
Ghanshyam just nodded his head.
"I saw the picture of all the girls whom you met. They were good looking, well-educated...I selected only such places. But you! Your mother was the first one. When your father had gone to see her and if he would have behaved the way you are doing now, then you would not have been standing here today. Understood?"
"Yes"
"Let's go," Mai ajji huffed angrily and said to Pari. Pari obeyed and turned the wheelchair towards Mai's room.
"Ghana, what happened? She wasn't good looking?" Vallabh questioned him.
"No, she was."
"Then what happened?"
"What?" Ghanshyam stared in surprise. He thought to say something but then decided better of it.
"Do one thing...don't ask me any questions. All of you. What I have to say, I have said that to Ulka atya. Ask her if you all want." Saying thus, he walked away from there.
"Ghana!" Devaki yelled behind her son's retreating form.
"Why is he behaving like this?" Vallabh questioned.
At Radha's house,
Radha walked into the kitchen where her father was already present.
"Hungry...I am feeling very hungry," she said as she sat down at the dining table.
She was busy arranging the table mat and the spoon holder in place when her father said, "I have not made anything today."
"Okay," she understood his trick, "Do we have bread? Yes, we have. I will eat bread and butter. Will you eat the same, papa? Or do you need something else? This means if I am to cook, then there are not many options available...but we have noodles, then if some of the breakfast was left or else, half-fry? What will you eat?"
"I had soaked the pulses also in the morning, but I have not done anything about them, too."
"Sometimes we do get lazy. That is fine," Radha commented nonchalantly.
Her father paced around for a moment before he spoke again, "The breakfast is still left. Should I heat it for you?"
"For me?"
"Yes"
"No, really no. You will eat bread-butter, right? Or should I heat the breakfast?"
"To be honest, I am very hungry," Radhan'a father started in a small voice, "But still I won't anything!" He exclaimed here last part.
Radha let out a deep sigh and kept the butter knife aside.
"Okay, now do I have to ask? Papa, why are you behaving this way? What happened?"
"What happened?! Today also you rejected a proposal. Now, till you choose a boy by yourself, I will go on a hunger strike. Yes! I will not have a grain of food nor a drop of water."
"Papa, this is too much, too much."
"You are being...you are doing too much. You rejected the 71st proposal today. What do you think of yourself? Or do you not want to marry at all now?"
"I will do it when I find the appropriate match."
"Appropriate means what? Explain that to me once."
"Papa, please don't make me talk on the same topic again and again."
"That is because you don't have an answer, you just have reasons. And those reasons are the already fixed ones."
"Now if I don't find the boy who fits in my specifications, then how do I just get up and marry?"
"Specifications? What specifications? Tell me, when there are 500 spoons on the table and one of them...only one of them is not in line, then you think the whole table is a mess. If a person's shirt has an ink mark, then you think the person is not concerned about cleanliness at all. You don't like the crowds and if anyone dances among one, then you get irritated."
Radha tries to put on her earphones but she is stopped by her father.
"Listening to iPod, reading books....you don't want a social life. And if this is how you behave, then how will you like anyone? Tell me."
"Okay, you are not going to let me eat in peace here, right? I'll go out and eat."
"Hey, hey listen, you are not going to achieve anything by ignoring this talk."
Mahesh followed his daughter as she walked towards her room.
"Now I am the way I am. I get irritated by crowds and mess. If my specifications are so much of a problem, then let the boy accept me as I am."
"He will accept you as you are, but will you accept him? You have given the whole list of reasons for rejection, from hair, nose, giving more tip, not liking the color of the house...you have even rejected a boy because he didn't know who is Hari Prasad Chaurasia!"
Radha shrugged as if to say 'so?'
"Some are over-smart, some don't have their own identity, and then something else...I am not understanding what is happening. Tell me, has God sent you to study all the marriageable boys? What do you think of yourself?"
"I am so irritating, aren't I? Then I will match with whom? That is why I am saying to stop all this marriage thing. Even I don't like to keep rejecting people like this."
"That is why just say yes to one person. There are a lot of good boys. You know, once you start living together, everything else falls into place...you automatically find that connection."
"Papa, I have a lot of work today. I have deadlines to meet, so, goodnight."
"The hunger strike is true! It is still going on," Mahesh said behind his daughter's running self. "Now I am not going to back down even if I die. I will not eat or drink anything! If you are stubborn, then...then I am your father, keep that in your mind."
Published: 28th December, 2020