Chick chick chick, chick-tales

Aunt: The other day, in the train I met this lovely girl, she comes from a good home
Bakwas: If you ever, EVER talk about girls or if you try setting me up with someone I will never talk to you again.

This was my last conversation with my aunt.

So to give you lowdown about my “love life”, which was once active in comparison to Pete’s unborn love life, I have dated two ladies and had upto three other extremely messed up flings.
My homeboy Z once very wisely called girls associated with me as ‘psycho monkeys’. To keep the nomenclature simple, we shall adopt ‘psycho monkeys’ as the term given to girls associated with me.

Psycho monkey number 1: Case too boring to discuss.

Psycho monkey number 2: Let’s call her Chocolate cola. The only interesting part of our relationship is that we mutually dumped each other because we pretty much ran out of ideas, that and the fact that I was a sum total of eighteen years old then and I had been dating her for three years. Wow kids these days!

Well she’s now married to this hot shot IT dude, with an MBA. To which my sister appropriately said “You didn’t stand a chance dude!”, which is true. He self funded his MBA! There is no chance I would EVER better that. Anyway, we keep in touch; every time she needs to feel good about her weight she calls and mocks me. Bless her!

Psycho monkey number 3: By this time I was slightly smarter, but romantically far dumber than even the American standards system. Proof of how dumb I was (am) is the belief that I was capable of making a long distance relationship work. What on earth was I thinking? Let’s call her Poiuy. Poiuy wisely dumped me as soon as she unravelled that not too far from the surface of me, lies an extremely selfish person who doesn’t support anything or anyone’s aspirations.
I classify our current communication rate as ‘Bi-birthday’.

Psycho monkey number 4: Boring x 2 = Way too boring to discuss.

Psycho monkey number 5: Ms Cockroach, the latest of my infatuations. This was a dead end from the very beginning. I definitely couldn’t have gone more wrong with this one, I’ll leave it you to see why. Ms Cockroach is an engaged, Afghan millionaire’s daughter. Like that wasn’t an obvious sign, her fiancé is a philanthropic investment banker. Chocolate cola, summarised all this into one word, Terrorist! But she was so pretty, that too on the surface pretty not the beautiful inside kinds!

Here’s an interesting story, in order to make fun of her, I was enquiring about Ms Cockroaches religious affiliation! When she indicated she wouldn’t tolerate that, I brought up Ibn Batuta and how he Travelled across world, you know to make amends for my daftitude. So as I knew it, the Quran recommends that one must travel. In doing so, a person gains a wider perspective of the world and experiences challenges that nurture ones being. Ms Cockroach, who is a Muslim by birth (how shocking is that!) told me: “Firstly Bakwas, get your facts straight: the Quran doesn’t “recommend” travelling, it tells you to go on pilgrimages. Second, do you really need the Quran to tell you that travel broadens your horzon!” Setting the embarrassment of me being a NOT so hot intellectual aside, I admit that she isn’t just a hot-bod but is a person who is aware and had a personal perspective of things. Thus began the trivial pursuit of an ‘engaged to a investment banker’ cum ‘Afghani millionaires daughter’. Stupid stupid, STUPID!

My aunts Sunday pass-time is to read matrimonial classifieds of some Telugu periodical. That never bothered me as a kid, ‘cause I thought she was trying to hook my cousins up. Then there was an unrelated episode when she told my dad that she found me a ‘suitable match’, yeah the odds of that happening! So you’d expect my dad to know me, you know being my father and all, and yeah my old man did me proud. He knew way better than telling me something like that. But the job had to be done, someone had to tell me that my aunt had found a ‘suitable match’! Now everyone knows when all channels to Bakwas fail, it’s time to turn to Bakwas’ cryptonite. My sister!

You know how sometimes you just don’t want to deal with the suspense and you prefer to know right away whether it’s bad news or not (note how positive I am, there is bad news and not bad news. No ‘good news’.). So my sister calls me up one evening and says right off the barrel, ‘We need to talk’. Given all the grime I’ve waded through in my life, my spontaneous reflex was to say ‘I need my lawyer!’. Well after much cajoling, telling me there was nothing wrong, she told me that my aunt had found The Holy Grail! The one that shall bear the immaculate son. First there was denial. I just couldn’t come to terms with my sister not having dealt with this herself. This is a big deal for me. My sister always made the big decisions for me!

She later made a couple of very valid points: Why would she want to be the one who spoilt my chance of getting married, in case I was interested. Further it’s time for me to step out of the diaper and start wearing ‘em boxers!

Anyway then came anger. So I asked my sister whether she was out of her mind for not having told my aunt that it was a ridiculous idea. I was really annoyed that she even let such an issue to be brought to the table. I guess the deeper anxiety was:
a. Whether this was a sign of my sister washing her hands off me.
b. What about my plans? What was going to happen to the ‘Millionaire Bakwas weds Bisele Gundchen’ dream?

Then came bargaining. Now I have no interest in the rigmarole of responsibilities. There was no way I was going to give up my ‘minor’ status that easy. I promised my sister good grades, responsible drinking, I told her I was even willing to stop drinking! Exactly, I was that desperate. At this point my sister was as confused as an electrical engineer with a light bulb.

But then things took a not so slight turn. The question begging to be answered was, who on earth was this girl! As a matter of fact, in the broader perspective who were these people, who without any idea of the who, what, when, where, why’s of me wanted to get their daughter married to me! I mean, how can one merit ones worthiness solely on their parents. I was saddened for the girl, because it was her parents who were making an uninformed decision which could define her life. That’s when slight depression came.

Finally, it was acceptance that crept in. While I could do my part in not being part of what I consider an unfair bargain for a girl, but is that going to change anything for me? Are my folks going to suddenly realise this and start a resistance against young girls getting married to strangers. Hell no! So I accepted that I could only do my part and not part take in this illogical practice.

So what actually has been bothering me is what my brother in law casually said when he heard ALL of this, he said that I have commitment issues, wa-what!! Which makes absolute NONSENSE right! I mean, here I am single for about 2 pages running and I have commitment issues! How?

Suggestions being accepted now in the form of women ;)

-Bakwas