Perfect on paper

The twists and turns of life are curious, especially when you consider that with a single email you can go from being prized matrimonial material to a mere matchmaker. There it was, blinking at me from my mailbox: the matrimonial resumé of a friend.

At first, voices from the past raced through my head: random grandmothers of friends who had warned of that fine line between blushing bride and spinster.

Too fat, too old, too dark, too ambitious, too picky. The list can go on forever. But I held it all back and read the email carefully. It was from a friend who had relocated from Toronto to Bangalore. A success in every right, except for a requisite husband.

She wasn’t calling on me because I was a foregone conclusion and could forward her my book of rejected contacts. Instead, she was appealing to me in my job as a journalist.

Every day, she explained, I met strangers. I talked to and assessed people for a living. Except she didn’t quite factor in that this job isn’t as glamorous as she made it out to be. Sure, there was that occasional invite to a notable gathering but I spent most of my days chasing fire engines and talking to people who would not pass muster as potential bridegrooms.

In any case, I took a good look at this curriculum vitae. It was much like a professional one, except it contained far more intimate information, which, in turn, could be tweaked, depending on who was receiving a copy.

For example, the version for the real matchmaker – likely an astrologer or priest – contains the alignment of planets. If she were using online matrimonial sites or an advertisement in the papers, it may describe her as “wheatish.” An aunt would get a much more toned down version than mine.

But these are challenging times for a modern woman, be she Indian or otherwise. Apart from juggling an education and a job while being mindful of tradition, she also has to factor in other things such as matrimony.

My friend’s parents, having invested heavily in her education are rather proud of her achievements and had always hoped their daughter would marry someone of their choice, which by extension, meant someone who was vetted by most members of her family. In spite of years abroad, she chose to respect their wishes and her culture but she had to compromise on something. Thus the unconventional search. After all, she said, once she found a match, it wouldn’t matter how she got there as long as “he” was there.