Me , The Matchmaker....

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <wunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <wontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> ‘Matchmaking’ has always interested me. Maybe its in my blood. My mom and aunts pursue it with so much interest….at times, bordering on passion. If someone somewhere so much so mentions that they are on the look-out for a prospective spouse for their son/daughter/neice/nephew/third cousin’s son/or whoever…., they would at once start going through their list of acquaintances and ‘select’ the matching profiles and recommend it to the person who happened to mention it. and mind you, its all done in their heads! No computer generated profiles or biodata forms that you ‘ll see with the average ‘broker’… just matching profiles in their heads impromptu and even rattle off the phone numbers. The rest was left to the involved parties. And ofcourse it gave them pleasure and pride to attend the wedding if it worked out…and ofcourse they never let the young couple forget that they were instrumental in sealing their fate !

Now that I’m married and now that I’m basking in the newly found ‘aunty’ status ( my friends insist that once you are married, you become an ‘aunty’ to other’s kids by default) , I decide to try my luck at this great ‘art’ of matchmaking. So I announce to my mom and aunt that I ‘ll find someone for my favourite cousin Jai( though he will kill me if he hears that!). And, at a recent wedding, I decided to take the plunge. But first, I needed to know how to go about it. So I first ditch my mom and latch onto my aunt…( yes, my mom’s good…but my aunt…,she’s something else! she is what they call a veteran…!) so I tag along with my aunt just to observe her do her thing.

Her modus operandi is thus. she first picks the victim by a regimented interrogation of their relatives, then she extracts their age with a subtle ‘oh my god, how much she has grown….i saw her when she was this small (indicating an exaggeratedly ‘small’ size with her hands )’ , then their occupation with a clever ‘ she was always such an intelligent kid, she must be doing very well for herself…” and finally their marital status with a blatant ‘ so have you started looking for boys yet?’ then she moves on to tell them about this absolutely wonderful ( very subjective) , well-placed ( usually in the US, in an unimaginably boring number-crunching job ), handsome ( which is ofcourse open to interpretation) boy who she has known since his ‘chaddy’ days and his parents were suchhh wonderful people and how good a proposal this was and what they ‘ll be missing my missing this one etcetra ectcetra…. All this gets the parents invariably interested. And the fate of the unsuspecting victim is thus sealed!

So, This was it?? it seemed pretty easy to me. Only the extolling part was a little difficult but what the heck I thought, extolling the virtues of my favourite cousin wasn’t that difficult a job. Afterall its just a few white-lies… And if my mom and my aunt can do it , so can I ! Thus, operation ‘getting-jai-hitched’ began.

That’s when I see her! Wow! I think…she’s just the one for Jai. So I approach her with confidence and establish eye-contact with her. She smiles back. Encouraged , I approach her…. But as soon as I reach her, I go totally blank. Say something I tell myself… finally I say…. ‘er….hmmm….jai is a such a great guy you know….he is totally cute too…’ and that was when I was interrupted by a man carrying a small kid. Apparently her husband , and the kid leans down and kisses her ‘mommy’. Oopsie….! I made a boo-boo! Then she says… ’u were saying something…?” her husband seemed to be rather broad and I dint want to risk my neck so, i mumbled something non-committal and disappeared so fast that even alladin’s jeenie would be put to shame. And thus ended operation getting-jai-hitched in a matter of 10 minutes. And was Jai relieved!!? But alas, his relief was short-lived because though I had failed, my mom and aunt had successfully collected upto five proposals for him. And whether or not and how he got hitched is yet another story.

But Ofcourse, that ended my attempts at match-making…..well, alteast for now, that is. Well, that’s me…I never give up. And maybe someday I will become a ‘veteran’ too. Afterall its in my genes…