...AND I AM ENGAGED !!!

There is really no other way to sum up what happened and a severe lack of creativity on my part means I can't really think of any other title to put for this post. I could call it the Blogger's block but then if anyone is really reading this blog,(Read: close friends who are forced by me to do so)they would know that I am not much of a blogger. 5 or so posts over 4 years could be a world record of sorts for lack of activity on any blogging site but of late, I have revived this much neglected activity of mine due to being egged on by a special someone who surprisingly enough thinks that I have some talent when it comes to writing nonsense.

Anyway, back to the title and as clear as I hope it is, let me still clarify that I am engaged to a girl(Who shall remain anonymous till she gives me a go ahead to use her name in these posts) and not engaged in work or engaged on the phone or any other statement which could use the word "engaged" as most of my wise friends would point out !

I think I have gone off topic again so I shall try to stick to it from this point onwards.

So ,I am engaged and it was basically "arranged" by my folks. In the age old debate regarding Arranged Marriage vs Love Marriage, I have almost always supported the latter with a fervor that would indicate that I have a lot happening on that front. That has, unfortunately for me, been largely a misconception. Barring the one-off cases, I have been about as active amorously with the fairer sex as Baba Ramdev is and even he, I have heard, has Rakhi Sawant pining for him due to his flat abs ! My argument has often been that only someone socially incapable of finding a girl on his own would resort to an arranged marriage. So, has that opinion changed now?

Umm...No

I still think it is the last resort. But....in the past few months in which I have now come up close and personal with this archaic practice, I feel getting someone you can click with in the entire horoscope hullabaloo is possible. Over the years, the process itself has matured enough to keep up with the times though I still know people who have met the girl/guy once and then have gone on to get married to that person a couple of weeks later .Now ,that is a scary proposition at many levels. The possibility that either of the two has an alter ego that howls during a full moon night and claims that chilled blood is their favourite beverage is minimal but is still enough to give me nightmares for one! Blame it on watching crappy horror movies !! In my case there is a good 8 month gap between having seen the girl and when I finally get married to her and that is comforting because I have known relationships that have lasted less than that!! This period should help both of us to get to know each other well enough to not have a situation on the wedding day where she tries to introduce me to her friend and goes 'Err..whats your name again?'.

Back to my whole process though. The initial pleasantries through phone calls between the parents had been exchanged, the horoscopes had been matched and the moment of truth of the girl and guy finally meeting had arrived. The thirty minutes or so it took me to figure out whether I should go formal as if it were a job interview or casual with my limited choice of tees or jeans seemed like an eternity and by the time the platoon from my place(My mom,dad and me) had finally reached her place,we were unsurprisingly though fashionably late. I had held my breath throughout the journey to keep my tummy in and had tried practicing my best smile(not that it had ever helped me before) in front of the rear view mirror of my car while adjusting it. The latter of course got a strong reaction from my paranoid dad who told me to look at the road and concentrate on driving !

We rang the bell. The door opened,I gasped, my tummy sagged and my smile vanished at the sight in front of us.

Job interviews with a panel of 2-3 interviewers are normally pretty scary but here I was greeted by her mom,dad,uncle,aunt,cousin, cousin's wife,her nephew, nephew's mom, her sister and 2 cats who had got in somehow. I did assume that the cats would not subject me to a round of questioning so it was safe to be least worried about them. I waited for a barrage of questions but surprisingly, I got none. The standard questions regarding the route I took to reach their place followed with some general suggestions on what would be a better route being provided by all and sundry. However, the overwhelming feeling of being a fish in an aquarium stayed and I felt that every movement or statement on my part would be dissected,studied and analyzed later in the day. In the midst of this uncomfortable situation, I tried looking around to locate the one person this visit was for and finally managed to locate her.And...

I was floored ! Suddenly, the entire visit seemed worthwhile and the necessity to pull in the tummy dawned on me again. I tried to stop myself from gawking at her by trying to look elsewhere but it seemed a pretty difficult thing to do .Thankfully,her folks, having been thoroughly bored by my responses probably decided it was best to banish me to another room to talk with her and I was more than happy to oblige.

Not having much to say, I became Captain Obvious for a moment and began the conversation with "Well...This is awkward" to which she nodded . This was the cue to bring in random topics of interest and that continued for the remainder of the meeting.The conversation itself was as awkward as would be expected in such cases with long pauses during which we looked at her nephew trying to play NFS on the desktop in the room while keeping a ear open to hear what was being said between us. However, it established a few things
1. She was pretty and smart
2. She did not show any psychotic tendencies
3. I was bowled over by her
4. She was pretty...oh, I said that already !

With the above points in place, it was quite easy for me to say "Yeah..she is nice" when dad asked me the one word question "So?". For some unfathomable reason, she found my buffoonery endearing and apparently gave a similar response at her place. This final frontier having been conquered, it was only a matter of time before we got engaged !

The weekends became and continue to be times I look forward to as the only time I get to meet her on "dates". From coming to know that it takes her ages to shop for anything to figuring out that she has a superstitious side to her when it comes to keeping her close ones happy, every date seems to open up facets of her personality that help me know her better.It feels nice to think that we could do this for 6 months or so and then somehow term ours a love marriage if she isn't bugged by my antics then ! I guess this could be a strong case for an arranged love marriage if we can survive this 8 month itch !!