Rank 453.
I wait for happiness to kick in. Rabbani shrieks and calls out for Baba, who comes rushing in. We all hug each other, saying we knew this would happen and how happy we are. But all I can think of is how alone we will be.
Just then, Rabbani’s phone starts ringing. I know it will ring now. News like this travels fast. She receives the call and shrieks ‘Thanks!’ I fight back tears; when I look at Baba, he’s even worse. We will miss her when she’s gone, more than she would ever know. It’s not until three hours later that she’s done, and we reheat the food to eat.
‘Dada? Can I borrow your phone?’ she asks, then takes itherself.
She taps and swipes.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Shh.’
A couple of minutes later, she hands me back my phone. ‘There you go. Bumble and BharatMatrimony profiles, done and done.’
2.
Aanchal Madan
Vanita, my very own Seema Aunty, is sitting at the table adjacent to me. Her son is tinkering with a Lego set, small pieces of which keep falling over from all sides of the table. Her son’s cute, and has picked up the Bangalore accent within six months of her moving here. It sounds unwieldy on others, on him, it’s cute.
I try to not be distracted by the Lego and concentrate on Anshul Garg, my date.
Anshul Garg sits in front of me and nurses his glass of whisky. He’s thirty-five, one year older than me, works at Oliver Consulting, travels a bit, earns twice as much as I do and lives alone in his own house in Gurgaon. I know these details because it’s Vanita who has spoken to Anshul on my behalf on BharatMatrimony and set up this date. I have delegated the search for a life partner for me to her and she has accepted the responsibility with a ferocity and dedication I hadn’t expected.
‘He’s perfect for you,’ Vanita had insisted when she briefed me about Anshul. ‘But at our age, there are very few guys who are legitimately marriageable and are unmarried. Most of them let go of the idea of marriage by this age, but Anshul hasn’t.’
Anshul’s desperation is almost as fervent as mine to find someone to marry and ‘settle down’. It’s a strange phrase: settle down. Anshul seems pretty settled to me—savings done, car done, owning a house done. But in our scheme of things, to settle means to stop wanting more things. Like me, he too missed the bus. Getting married in your thirties is like solving a Rubik’s cube with your toes.
Our twenties brain works entirely differently from our thirties brain. In our twenties, we can party, vomit and yet make it to the office the next day. We can let utensils rot in the sink for two days without consequences. The laundry can pile up. We forgive and forget easily, make rash decisions with few second thoughts or lingering doubts. We are kinder, easier to be with, more accommodating of life’s vagaries. There was plenty of time to take remedial measures if decisions went south. But not in the thirties. In the thirties, every decision becomes calculated, and so choosing someone to settle down with becomes an exhausting checklist of what you want and possible deal-breakers. What we want is someone who fits into our very specific scheme of things. It’s harder for older women, like me, of course. Strange to call myself an older woman because I feel young in my head. But in pornographic terms, I’m more in the cougar category than the babysitter category. Men my age can get married to women half their age, intellect, etc. Women can’t. It’s worse because a woman in her early thirties who has pushed marriage in favour of a career is most likely successful. And there are very few men who would want to get married to someone earning more than them.
So, the options are few and far between.
I hate to say this, but people in their mid-thirties who are still unmarried are extremely hard to live with—me included.
Anshul and I are both trying to be good listeners. It’s clear that both of us want to be speakers in the conversation, notlisteners. I, for one, have a reason—my job as a psychologist involves listening to people all day long. On a date, if you can call this a date, I want to be able to speak and be heard.
As Anshul explains how booking Airbnbs is a better option when travelling through Europe, my eyes flit to Vanita and her six-year-old son. I feel a pang of envy at the fierce love Vanita has for her child. In the past few years, Vanita has been trying hard to have another child. After three miscarriages and a broken heart every time she lost a pregnancy, she gave up. And every time she lost a pregnancy, I felt an illogical regret for aborting my own pregnancy all those years ago. I had let go of something Vanita would give anything for. I know my decision at the time was right, but that’s how my mind toys with me. Vanita went back to work two years ago, but still harbours hope for another child, hoping to adopt a girl. I’m not that crazy. I don’t have it in me to love something that doesn’t come from me.
I grit my teeth as I ask Anshul, ‘And what happens when you have travelled all across Europe and South America and have had all the experiences? After everything that’s there to be done is done?’
Anshul looks at me with a raised eyebrow, his expression one of mild amusement. ‘What do you mean?’ he asks in an almost mocking tone. ‘There will always be new experiences to be had.’
‘Sometimes, I think I overestimate how much happiness comfort and money can get me. And I can only say it now that I can buy comfort. It’s such an upper-middle-class thing to say. That money isn’t enough, that money isn’t the answer to everything. Fifteen years ago, I would have given an arm to be where I am today and now...’
Anshul smiles as if he knows and asks, ‘What do you wantthen?’
‘I look at my peers juggling parenthood and work, while I just have so many hours wasted in the day... it feels strange.’
‘You’re complaining that you have too much fun and not enough responsibility. That’s the dream situation, isn’t it?’
‘It should be, right?’ I answer. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted. And yet it doesn’t feel dream-like.’
‘Is that why you want to get married? To bring some complexity into your life? Don’t you think that’s, like the young people would say, toxic?’
‘Who cares any more, Anshul? Everything is toxic. A dependent friend is toxic, a lover is toxic, parenting is toxic, news and social media and mansplaining and feminism and trans movements, name anything, any feeling, and it’s toxic. It’s the word of the decade.’ The weight of my words seemed to press down on both of us like a heavy blanket of sadness. ‘I just thought there would be more to life.’
The light I had noticed in his eyes earlier dies down. He knows now that he won’t ‘settle down’ with me. That’s the hallmark of dating in one’s thirties. Everyone thinks everyone else is weird and hence, single. No one thinks they are single because they are weird too. I have many clients my age who can’t understand why they are the only sane, single, mid-thirties people around.
