M

35

Three weeks later

y mother wore her reading glasses. She flicked through the pictures on the shaadi.com app on
my phone.
‘See this. Why haven’t you accepted this one?’ my mother said.
We sat in my living room at noon on a Saturday morning, I in blue pajamas–white T-shirt and
she in a salwar-kameez.
‘Read it out, mom,’ I said, typing on my laptop. ‘What does he do?’
‘He works in Facebook,’ she said, and removed her glasses, surprised. ‘How can you work in
Facebook? He does Facebook all day?’
‘No, mom. Facebook is a company. Go on. How old?’
‘Twenty-eight. Height five feet ten inches. I will read his profile?’
‘Sure. He wrote it?’ I said.
‘No, it says written by parent.’
‘That’s two points down.’
‘Stop it. Even I had to write it the first time for you, right?’
‘I will never forget that. Anyway, go on.’
My mother read from the phone screen.

Our son is an intelligent, humble and simple boy who is looking for a suitable life

partner. He prefers a career woman, someone who is willing to live in the USA. He is

a systems engineer at Facebook, where he has worked for the last five years. He is

based in Menlo Park, San Francisco. He did his engineering in Computer Science from

NIT Nagpur, where he topped his class. He did his masters from MIT in Boston, USA.

He is our only child. We are a simple Punjabi family based in Mumbai (originally from

West Delhi). We want the right girl above anything else, as she will be our new family

member.

My mother finished reading and reached for a glass of water.
‘Not bad, well-written. Open-minded and honest. Salary?’ I said and pressed save on my
laptop.
‘It says between 150,000 to 175,000 USD, plus stock options. Is that good?’