‘Aiyo, what?’ Manju looked at me shocked.
‘What’s the deal with Harish. Tell me now or I’ll tell your mother you watch
porn,’ I said.
Manju looked stunned. ‘I don’t watch porn,’ he said in a scared voice.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ I said. Every boy watches porn.
‘Only once I s ...saw a blue film, at my friend’s house, by mistake,’ he
stuttered.
‘How can you watch it by mistake?’
‘It belonged to my friend’s dad. Please don’t tell amma.’
His face, even his spectacles looked terrified. I closed the books. ‘Tell me all
about Harish. How did this happen?’
Manju told me about Harish, the poster boy of the perfect Tamilian groom.
Radha aunty had pitched Harish for the last two years. He fit every criteria applied
by Indian parents to make him a worthwhile match for Ananya. He was Tamilian, a
Brahmin and an Iyer (and those are three separate things, and non-compliance in
any can get you disqualified). He had studied in IIT Chennai and had scored a
GPA of 9.45 (yes, it was advertised to the Swamis)’
He went on to do an MS with full scholarship and now worked in Cisco
Systems, an upcoming Silicon Valley company. He never drank or ate meat or
smoked (or had fun, by extension) and had a good knowledge of Carnatic music
and Bharatnatyam. He had a full half-inch-thick moustache, his own house in the
San Francisco suburbs, a white Honda Accord and stock options that, apart from
the last three months, had doubled every twelve minutes. He even had a
telescope he used to see galaxies on the weekend (I told you he had no fun).
Manju was more excited at the prospect of seeing the telescope and thought it
reason enough for his sister to marry that guy.
‘He said you can actually see the colours on the rings of Saturn,’ Manju said,
excited.
‘You spoke to him?’
‘He called. Couple of times,’ Manju said.
‘Ananya spoke to him?’
nora
(Nora)
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