Anxious moms and curious sisters.

They abound. The doting mothers with dollops of anxiety. I mean, its a little more understandable if a 17-year teenaged girl's mom showed such emotions... but me, a 22 something, frequently-failed-in-love guy ! and my mom!

My sis tells me that mom thinks I will marry a foreigner. She fears it. Almost believes it.

I always had a fascination for travel, and in those toddling days, airplanes were stuff of fantasy. Whenever, once in a long long year, we would hear the roar of a plane, I would run to the roof and wave my hands. I thought that if only the pilot could see me, he would lower a rope that I will cling to and fly away to Lanka. Lanka, by the way, was 'foreign' for me.

All this fascination has driven her to this anxiety. . . "She won't touch my feet in marriage... she won't look after him... she will be too modern for him"... all these and more. Now, granted that no one dislikes a gori ladki, but still... marrying a foreigner is so ...ewww!
My children would be like characters in a black and white movie! And what if it is a blonde... negative IQ kids ??!

Not to say I do things to calm her. Using my sis as a messenger, I keep updating mom on significant developments. Now, mom has been prohibited from eating spicy food. "But she can listen to spicy stuff, na", my sister contends.
And that is it. She takes that as the licence to kill. She kills with a venegeance, any hopes that mom might have, of a traditional, baniya arranged marriage. The infinitely long procession, where the dulha's mother rants all the time, "Arrey, yeh rasm nahi karoge pandit ji"? and the dulha complains, "Yeh rasm bhi!".

I don't like all that. A short and sweet procession would be great. And then, I had this fantasy, born after seeing marriages in Hollywood movies. A fantasy that I will also have those ceremonies in the typical Christian style, my bride clad in the flowing white wedding gown [ and cleaning the floor behind her ].
If I could tell this to mom, she would go into a 5-year coma.

I can almost hear her say,"Beta, shadi to apne samaj mein hi achchi hoti hai" !

What to say of my sis!
Its only recently that she has started getting regular updates on my rocking love life. [Too many rocks, too little love! :O ]
Sometimes, her voice belies a genuine concern.
"Is he really going to marry a Muslim girl from Kashmir" ?
At times, she chooses to laugh away my deliberate pointers. But I love it when she starts behaving like mom.
"See, there's no hurry. We will find you a good girl."
Yeah, say that to an IITian IIMAite whose life was spoilt by girls drooling all over him! Whose years were spent in a hostel where there were more girls than houseflies!

I guess I will live with the feeling/hope that someday, I will indeed get to give mom a shock! She has almost resigned to that.