Travails of the male mind

“Wake up! We have to leave in 10 minutes!”

Aditya slowly wakes up, all groggy, and pushes the blanket aside.

“Get dressed quickly.”

“Dressed? I am already dressed.”

“But you are wearing the same clothes you slept in!”

“So? Who else knows this apart from you?”

“But they are not even ironed!”

“Who cares? I went out wearing ironed clothes for twenty years. Still I am single. If wearing ironed clothes would have got me anywhere, I would have done it.”

“That’s all you think of – girls.”

“And why not? See, all living beings have just one basic function – that to reproduce. And so it is with humans. Humans…”

“Oh please! Not again. Stand behind me and see how my hair looks. Hope its not looking like a cock’s tail.”

Aditya goes and stands behind his sister, Madhubala. Her hair looks exactly like a cock’s tail.

“It’s looking great.”

“Seriously?”

“Of course!”

Relieved that his lie was believed and he won’t have to see different variations of a cock’s tail, he proceeds to go out of the room.

“You haven’t combed your hair.”

“Oh ya, thanks.”

He stands in front of the mirror, ruffles his hair and prepares to go out again.

“You are not going to comb it?”

“Nah. The ruffled look looks good on me.”

“The hell it does. Anyway, get my clip from the next room.”

Aditya goes, finds an orange clip on the table, and brings it to her.

“Not this one! Have you ever seen me wearing it? The black one!”

“Then why did you buy it?”

“Oh ho! You are an idiot. Just get the other one.”

He shrugs, being used to her ways, and gets her the clip she wants. Then he proceeds downstairs where he finds his parents waiting for Madhubala to get ready.

“Is your sister ready?”

“Ya, she’ll be ready in 5 minutes.”

After an hour, they finally manage to get out of the house and head for the market in the car. He has no idea where they are headed or why. He knows he can buy a black tee from anywhere. Suddenly, his mom utters the ominous words,

“Stop in front of Gupta’s Saree Center.”

A low, hopeless groan escapes his mouth.

It is going to be a long day.

“Groan all you want. You will have to do the same for your wife and then for your daughter.”

“What would I not give to fall in love with a tomboy…”

“Keep dreaming. Mom and I are going to find a wife for you.”

“Animals never marry. Why do I have to?”

“Get out. We have reached.”

They enter the sari shop. Such a bright explosion of colors all around him would normally have made Aditya perk up to no small extent. But experience is a good teacher. He knows that they are going to be in there for at least an hour, maybe two, and all this time, he is going to be completely ignored. Aditya lapses into a reverie, thinking, amongst other things, when will Bani be voted out of the MTV Roadies show. The swayamvar of saris begins.

“Show me the green one. Below the red sari.”

The salesman obeys and spreads out the neatly folded sari.

“Nah! The fall is too thick. Show me that one.”

“Fall is too thin.”

“Don’t like the embroidery.”

“Hmm..ummm…mmmm…well this seems ok..”

Aditya suddenly jerks out of his reverie. His mom actually liked a sari 10 minutes into the ordeal? This might not be so bad…

“But mom! Isn’t the color the same as the one you had worn to Laaltu Mama’s wedding 4 years back?”

(“Darn it! How the hell does Madhubala manage to remember what all of us wore to each function over the past 5 years??”)

“Ya, you are right! How could I not remember? Bhaiya, take this back. Show me that pink one..”

And so it goes on, interminable minute after interminable minute. Aditya’s daydream is broken from time to time by the sight of the occasional nymph passing by the door of the store, but that’s about it. Suddenly,

“Hey Aditya, how does this sari look?”

He starts in surprise. Madhubala seems to be, he can’t believe it, asking for his opinion!

“You are asking me?!!”

“Ya.”

He looks at the sari. It’s a bright pink sari with silver embroidery on the fall and the pallu – something which is called kanjeevaram. He always had a thing for girls in pink.

“Its great!”

“But isn’t it a bit too pink?”

“A bit too pink? Umm…(what on earth does ‘a bit too pink’ mean? )..well…”

“And the embroidery. Isn’t it a bit too loud?”

He looks at the embroidery. It looks magnificent, royal, majestic.

“It looks magnificent, you know. It’ll make you look like a queen.”

“No it won’t. This will look like I am desperate for attention.”

“Why did you ask me then?”

“I forgot you are an idiot. Do me a favor. When you feel like gifting me a sari, just send the money across, ok?”

“A sari? The way you are hogging, the only thing you’ll fit in is a room.”

“Hogging? I am dieting, you oaf. And secondly, you should practice the backtalk with your girlfriend….ohhhh…I am soooooooo sorry, you don’t have one.”

“Hmph.”

He sulks in silence. He then looks at his Dad. Dad looks at each new sari calmly. Mom asks for his opinion now and then and Dad actively considers the color combination, the width of the fall, the loudness of the embroidery, scans his memory for Mom’s sari collection, and then gives his opinion, which, surprisingly, Mom accepts more often than not! Aditya guesses that with experience (meaning saris Dad lovingly gifted to mom but which mom never wore), he might also become a trusted confidante to his better half.

(“Wait a second!! What am I thinking? Actively consider bleeding myself financially over these damned saris? I’d rather give all my money to the Eunuchs Association of India. At least, then they wouldn’t bother me at traffic lights and in trains.”)

But he can only ponder over the state of his non-existent bank balance for so long. Soon, he again lapses into silence, and stays that way for the next hour, wondering why on earth he came in the first place. Finally, the wait is over. His mom and sis buy one sari each, a positive bonanza for the shopkeeper and a relief for the salesmen who now have to fold the fifty odd saris neatly again before the next mother-daughter duo descend to wreak havoc on them.

Aditya walks out, with a spring in his step, and with his red tee shirt, looks for all the world like little red riding hood prancing away to her grandma’s cottage. He starts prancing towards the car when he hears his mom call out to him,

“Aditya! Where are you going? Come this way. We are going to buy Salwar Suits for your sister.”

He stops dead in his tracks, the prancing beaten out of him as surely as Bangladesh’s drubbing by the Australians. He looks at the car as a dying man looks at a piece of floating wood. Extremely reluctantly, he turns around and follows his mom.

It is going to be a really long day….