Part 2: News flash.
No one knew how the 5 days flew by, but they did...with shopping, parlor, mehendi and other arrangements that never seemed to end. She had not slept a blink ever since that night her father had marched home and had declared her impending doom. Acting out as often as she can, she had sometimes skipped meals. It was all getting too predictable for her parents and by now her father had a timetable for her drama sessions too.
Besides the angst, that she was only handing over her life to a stranger, she had been stupid and had not taken a look at the munda's pic that her father had brought in from one of his campus journals. The guy was only the sought after junta after all...who had taken over all papers and journals that IIT had published the entire four years he had been there. Then MIT had invited him over for a royal scholarship, which literally translated into We-will-pay-you-Come-study-with-us type deal.
Given the image that her parents had been drawing up in her already confused mind, she could not come to think of spending the remains of her life with another geek. Her father had driven her crazy as it is with his highly incomprehensible lingo and now there was only more of it coming from his pupil. It seemed like a transfer from one asylum to another; Vanavani campus to MIT campus where her days to come would revolve around nuclear physics...yet again.
She was getting married?...her mind rebelled as she rolled in bed and muffled her cries into the plumped up pillow. If the thought of marriage had not sunk in yet, then it was only natural that she hated the guy whom she thought was nothing less than a noose around her neck.
If marrying out of caste or state was still blasphemous to many in the region where she came from, it had always been the opposite in her family. The dowry really had been the number of postdoctoral thesis they had done. In other words the one with the most brains carried the highest demand. And so their family tree had branched off to take shoot in far off exotic lands. Simply put she had a German aunt, two cousin's married to men from dragon land (China) and a Singhalese doctoral fellow for another brother-in-law. Although foreign by birth, they were all taking into their cultures very well and their family was now indeed set out to register a Punjabi into their global village that they were so keen on building. She absolutely adored and welcomed her cousins from the unfamiliar nations, but when it came to her own country she could not stand it. Geet's anger really stemmed from the fact that her outlander cousins and aunt had showed up because their not-so foreign spouses had picked them purely because of the love they had shared. In her case, the four-letter word did not exist, but only exertion and force into marrying him remained to lament.
"Well...think about the future generation...I'm sure you will be giving birth to the next Nobel prize or the next Einstein given that its really a coming together of generations of brawny brains" her uncle had cracked his so-called PJ while at their routine scrabble session, last night. Good heavens, for once can no one think of anything else other than the mating that was to follow, she had thought at those already embarrassing moments. Here they were already planning on the next Khurana Iyer and she was ready to jump off the ledge. At that thought she had rolled her eyes and her father had left the room continuing their cold war. Her father had taken morbid offense to her turning down his favorite student leaving her to wonder if he was his offspring and why he was patronizing him blindly. Argh! She screamed as she got off the bed to get ready for the informal meet and greet that evening. Her not-so better half, who was best for anyone except her had already safely arrived.
Walking sulkily to the bathroom, she paused to look herself in the mirror. She turned around, twirled and moved side to side to check her out. No this was not self-adoration, but she still couldn't convince herself that he had accepted to get married without so much as a phone call or a photograph of her. The parents had planned not to have them meet until tonight and conveniently with her ill-luck, it had been working quite well. "I'm alright" She said softly, as she found herself alone in the room.
All right? Did the women know how many juniors she had tempted to switch to nuclear physics to get into Vasu sir's class, but the sheer complexity always drove them all away, leaving the remaining few to enslave their waking time at the lab. Thereby the false notion. She was quite the Iyer chic on the block, with her long hair that ran up to below her waist, her slender figure, fair skin and eyes that took the onlooker by a storm. Somehow growing up amidst so many guys had made her feel that it was normal for them to ogle and that it had nothing do with her looks. Even when the galli kids who froze every time as they watched her religiously on her way to Kalakshetra dance classes, did not help make a change to her stubborn belief. In all her glorious ignorance, she didn't know her comely looks had already bowled over the one person, she detested to the core.
If the last 5 days had been living hell for her, her future husband had spent a very busy week shopping for his upcoming India trip, with no clue that he was getting married to the same girl he had had feverish dreams all summers he had come down for research projects to the Chennai campus with Vasu sir. That was some secret that his father and Daadima had been keeping from him the entire time the talks had started between his father and her father. Not that he hated girls - the sentiment actually being quite the opposite - but he had been cavalier on all marriage proposals that had come his way the past 3 years and his father had dreaded and questioned his preference of gender for a partner. So in order to end his own woes, his father had approached Vasu, his research mate, the next instant he had received a call from Maan that he would be visiting for a short while. Fairly put, they were planning to poach the chicken the minute it landed at the airport.
"Dad...Send the driver to the airport around 5.15. Given my assessment, I should clear customs in exactly 43 mts, but this is not considering the delays I might have if my baggage gets lost" He said, haughtily as he waited for his Singapore flight to take off.
"Well son, I'm sure you would have already run a risk model around that time estimate, so I'm going to skip the arguing...but I do have something important to tell" Gaurav shifted uncomfortably in his office chair.
"Yes Dad...the flight is taking off in another 2 mts. You got to make it quick" he rushed through his words in hopes to get the stage back to his father in time.
"Hmm...I guess there is no other way to put this, and so here it goes" He paused a bit before he continued "I'm sorry son but I have your marriage fixed..."
His father's statement had frozen him to the seat alive. What? His mind screamed trying to make sense of the words his father had just uttered. Well no man should be delivered such bad news when he was stuck between two paunchy women. There was no way to escape to the bathroom either, not before the flight was about to takeoff and that left the nausea settle back in his stomach. Disgusting. The bewildering look did not leave his face and the news now put a creased wrinkle in his forehead as he stuttered into the phone.
"My...what?...Are you even serious dad? How the hell can you do something like that? Don't I have to decide?...this is my life. Whatever happened to freedom of choice..." he had started off slowly, but now he had enough anger to set ablaze a small town.
"Maan puttar...listen" he said to cut him off which his father's steady and calm voice always did.
"You will like her and this is probably the best thing that can happen to you... ever. Remember half bollywood was ruled by southern women"
"Are you crazy dad? How can my marriage ever be the best thing for me?...Oh! Please I haven't even seen her...This is unfair...You are driving me into a coma here...But she is not Rekha or Sridevi, I'm sure Dad" He whined and went on "Can she at least speak Hindi? I can't for the life of me speak English all my life, let alone whatever language she does" He bellowed in frustration "Really my marriage? with an idli-sambhar patriot? Argh!" he heard his words ring in his disbelieving ear.
"I agree to your point on marriage, but its quite necessary you see. We all have to face hell on earth. And I have a gut feeling this might work out too...even when it comes to that idli sambhar...that way I will at least get something to eat when I visit you" His father stated quite openly leaving less to argue, although Maan did.
"Gut feeling? The biggest gamble of my life and with someone I don't even know...Dad you are such a sellout..." He sighed now.
"Sellout or not, coming back to her...I think you might have met her...She is Vasu's daughter. Geethika? I thought she will take to your nerdiness easily, given that she has lived with one all her life" with that he had to cut the call, as the hostess had forced him to switch off the mobile device. Damn the stupid rules, he knew that the packet network of his one cellphone did nothing to send the meters heywire, but that was a moot point he did want to pick up now and so he sat back, still stuck in that initial shock.
If his marriage was quite the news that was difficult to imbibe, this was a deathblow. Geethika?...He meant Geet. Only the bombshell firecracker of a drama queen that had driven him nuts his entire research tenure? She truly adored the woman, well she had only been a gal then, but getting married to her was an entirely different matter.
Before the news flash of his marriage could even register fully in his mind, his name on his lips had taken him back to all the times he had secretly followed her in his cycle across and outside campus. He could very vaguely recollect her face and her features now that some 5 years had already passed, but her eyes had stuck to his photographic memory and had never left him. He was a practical man and seeking out the daughter of his mentor was only second to choosing a uranium isotope for his thesis topic (He considered it to be the highly overrated nuclear material of the century). Did he get it right? That his dream girl was to be his wife and his mentor his father-in-law. Some truths needed tequila and lime to sink in and this one deserved double shots.
Much to many girl's dismay, he was the touch-me-not variety...not the playboy kind, but the lets-not-even-get-there kind. Seemingly he was as virile as they came, but the commitment word and 'together forever concept' had him running a mile a minute. But the damages were already in progress and fighting the inevitable did not make it look gracious as he entered the guillotine. Perhaps it was only her who could have convinced him in snappy minutes when he had been a runaway groom for years according to his father. And so a smile crept up his face while a strong resolve took root in his being. Geetika Iyer Khurana...He chuckled at the name as his daydreaming kicked in slow motion. While he was going to land in a total state of unpreparedness to be her groom, he might as well have some fun at it, he thought now. That called for a phone call to his and her father at the next layover...for he had one and only one condition in agreement for a lifetime of female exploitation and servitude.
Edited by 6thElement - 14 years ago
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