SERIAL: INDIAN IN COWBOY COUNTRY
Bride hunting in Mumbai
Lata asked Mona, “Are you working now?”
“I used to work as a stewardess, but the travel was too much, so I just resigned,” she said.
“Oh, she enjoys travelling; she resigned so that she could stay here and take care of me,” the father retorted. “I told her that I could sell the house and move to Bangalore, but she insisted that Mumbai is my home and made me stay back.”
“Smart girl, Sastri. You have a smart daughter,” Appa said. “This is where you have all your friends and family. What are you going to do in Bangalore? You will be bored to tears. Remember Ramanna? He retired and went to Bangalore, and after one year came back to Mumbai. He said that he knew nobody, and he was too old to have the energy to start meeting new people.”
Over a warm lunch in a familiar atmosphere, with food being passed around and complimented upon, his mother, her father and Lata asked questions of Mona and Satish. They were attempting to fill in non-sensitive details of the seventeen years that had elapsed since he had last seen her in her pigtails, and she him, wearing shorts. Everyone stayed clear of Satish and Mona’s previous marriages.
After a long lunch, when they were about to arise from the table, Amma said, “Please be seated. I just remembered that I had made some semya payasam for this evening.”
When Amma got up to fetch the payasam, Lata and Mona simultaneously got up to help her. Mother and daughter exchanged knowing glances, and did not stop Mona from helping them serve the men seated at the table.
After dessert was consumed with obvious relish, the fathers rinsed their plates, placed them in the sink, and left the room, Satish followed suit and rinsed his plate, but when he attempted to stay back in the kitchen to help clean up, Lata shooed him away, saying he would only get in the way, saying, “You can do the dishes in America. Here, we have Pandu, who’ll come and wash them in the next few minutes.”
Satish was the odd man out in the living room. His father listened to Dr. Sastri reminiscing about his childhood in Bangalore, and how his sleepy little hometown had transformed into a crowded metropolis with pollution, traffic, and changing weather pattern. A few minutes later, Pandu rang the doorbell and went to the kitchen.
The women came to the living room carrying an exquisitely carved silver plate with traditional digestifs-betel leaves and Mysore supari. They sat a while, basking in the dulling aftereffects of a carbohydrate –rich Tamil meal, when Amma suggested that they move to the other room. Everyone arose when Appa said, “Satish, you and Mona sit here and talk.
They sat nervously on two ends of his bed that served as a seat during the day. They were silent for a few moments, then Mona asked, “What should we talk about, Satish?”
“I don’t know. Where do we start?”
“How about your life in Houston?”
Feeling unusually at ease with her, he readied himself in a comfortable position. He candidly recounted his life in Houston, describing in some detail his middle management role at Clark Oilfield Technologies, and its challenges.
He emphasized that his career had seen very slow growth, and he was not on a fast track of any kind. However, he enjoyed the people and solving engineering problems at Clark. He also described his multicultural social network and life, his friends and their families, and his activities and interests.
While he spoke, she relaxed, turned toward him, pulled her bare feet on the bed, and sat in rapt attention. When he had finished, she told him, in a composed voice, her story about how she had studied commerce and accounting at a Mumbai college. By the time she graduated, she was thoroughly bored with accounting. Her real interest was travel.
When she told her aunt on her mother’s side, who worked for a European airline, of her interest, she got her an interview. Mona had worked for the airline for about eight years on the India-Europe route, and used her vacation and travel privileges to see Western Europe and North America.
She said that five years earlier, she had married a colleague, a steward. They had a good married life, but the husband had a drawback-he was an alcoholic. Six months before his death, the airline dismissed him for being inebriated on the job, which compounded the problem. She said that her late husband was a very nice man when he was sober, but gradually, over the last six months of his life, those temperate moments were few and far between.
When her husband got fired, her mother had just passed away, and she was bereft with grief. The combination of her deep sorrow and his increased alcoholism made those six months a living hell for her. When he died in a gruesome motorcycle accident, he was in an angry, drunken stupor-she had just told him that she was leaving him.
For more than a year, she blamed herself for her husband’s death. Gradually, it dawned on her that he had brought it upon himself. Between almost silent sobs, she shared difficult memories with him. He said the kindest words to soothe and console her. Then he began his story.
It was brief. When he reached the part about the reason for the divorce, he told her, “It just did not work out”. She did not ask him for details, but said, “It’s best that we put those rotten memories behind us and start a new life. No point living in the past.” Then she smiled a pretty smile and asked, “So, what new movies have you seen lately?”
After they talked about the movies he had seen on his twenty-hour airplane ride to Mumbai, they shared humorous experience about air travel. She related stories about obnoxious and funny passengers, and he about the idiosyncrasies of the airline industry, particularly its staff.
When Amma came into the room two hours later, around teatime, she was pleased to see that Satish and Mona were talking like old friends who had rediscovered each other.
When Amma asked if they wanted some tea, Mona said, “Amma, do you know that your son is real buddhu, a simpleton?”
Amma was pleasantly surprised to see the transformation of the quiet, impeccably polite woman of a few hours ago to a naughty familiar child.
“Why? Why is he a buddhu?” she asked.
Mona burst into a laughing fit and told the mother, “Your son is not only a buddhu but a sadhu, a saint, Amma, I was the stewardess on his flight to Mumbai. He ignored me throughout the trip. Not only that, he saw me today, he did not recognize me.”
Amma was amused and went to share the coincidence with the rest of the family, seated in kitchen.
Satish was dumbfounded. “But I remember that my stewardess’s name was Monica,” he said.
“My given name is Monica, Satish. Mona is my pet name. My grandmother’s name was Monica, and people did not want to confuse the two Monicas in the family, so they called me Mona,” she said.
She pressed her fingertips on his forehead and said, “You may be from IIT, but to me you are a real buddhu.” She ran out of the room to the safety of Amma’s presence.
By the time he could reach her, she was firmly behind Amma, who said to her son, “You dare not touch her,” in a mock stern tone. Turning to Mona, she said, “If he ever troubles you again, let me know.”
“This is exactly how you two behaved when you were children,” her father observed. “She would tease you and you would go running after her until she reached your mother for protection.”
As everyone sat and drank their tea, Lata was the first to pop the question. “So Mona, what do you think of my brother?”
Amma and Appa were astonished at her unusual boldness. Dr. Sastri seemed pleased with the question.
“I think Satish should answer that question first.” Mona said.
Satish said, “Since this woman thinks that I am buddhu, I better make sure that I have thought it through. Dr Sasti, do you mind if I take Mona to a restaurant and talk to her some more?”
“I have no objection, young man, but don’t you think you should ask her?” he replied.
Mona said yes, and they left immediately. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and he had about five hours before he left home for the airport and his flight back to Houston. As they got into a cab, he told the taxi driver to take them to a hotel in South Mumbai.
They chatted for the entire half-hour ride to the hotel, attempting to provide each other with details of the lost years. Often, she kidded him for not recognizing her. He cautioned her to be on the lookout. Sooner or later, he was going to get even with her for having kept her identity a secret for so long, and for calling him a buddhu.
When they reached their destination, instead of walking in the direction of the restaurants, he went instead to the airline ticket office located in the same hotel. The staff at the office immediately recognized her. They gathered around her to say hello and ask about her life on “solid ground”. She said that it took some getting used to.
She then turned to him and asked, “What are we doing here?”
Unexpectedly, he took her by the hand and sat her down on a sofa. Under the gaze of her curious colleagues, he asked her, “Will you marry me, Mona? If you say yes, I will change my reservation right now, or else…” She cut him short and said, “Yes, I will marry you, you buddhu. There is no ‘or else’.
After he postponed his reservation, he called his parents and told them that he had proposed to Mona, and she had accepted. They were ecstatic. So was the airline staff, who applauded the unusual event that had occurred in their office. Monica was a bit embarrassed by the attention she received.
On their cab ride back home, Satish warily reached out to his bride-to-be , held her hand and said, “I told you I would get even with you.” They were married at her home four days later.
When Satish saw his wife in her bridal dress, he could not help but think of what Ralph D’Souza, his friendly middle-east companion on his fight to Mumbai had said: “This airline has the most beautiful stewardesses in the world.”
Lata asked Mona, “Are you working now?”
“I used to work as a stewardess, but the travel was too much, so I just resigned,” she said.
“Oh, she enjoys travelling; she resigned so that she could stay here and take care of me,” the father retorted. “I told her that I could sell the house and move to Bangalore, but she insisted that Mumbai is my home and made me stay back.”
“Smart girl, Sastri. You have a smart daughter,” Appa said. “This is where you have all your friends and family. What are you going to do in Bangalore? You will be bored to tears. Remember Ramanna? He retired and went to Bangalore, and after one year came back to Mumbai. He said that he knew nobody, and he was too old to have the energy to start meeting new people.”
Over a warm lunch in a familiar atmosphere, with food being passed around and complimented upon, his mother, her father and Lata asked questions of Mona and Satish. They were attempting to fill in non-sensitive details of the seventeen years that had elapsed since he had last seen her in her pigtails, and she him, wearing shorts. Everyone stayed clear of Satish and Mona’s previous marriages.
After a long lunch, when they were about to arise from the table, Amma said, “Please be seated. I just remembered that I had made some semya payasam for this evening.”
When Amma got up to fetch the payasam, Lata and Mona simultaneously got up to help her. Mother and daughter exchanged knowing glances, and did not stop Mona from helping them serve the men seated at the table.
After dessert was consumed with obvious relish, the fathers rinsed their plates, placed them in the sink, and left the room, Satish followed suit and rinsed his plate, but when he attempted to stay back in the kitchen to help clean up, Lata shooed him away, saying he would only get in the way, saying, “You can do the dishes in America. Here, we have Pandu, who’ll come and wash them in the next few minutes.”
Satish was the odd man out in the living room. His father listened to Dr. Sastri reminiscing about his childhood in Bangalore, and how his sleepy little hometown had transformed into a crowded metropolis with pollution, traffic, and changing weather pattern. A few minutes later, Pandu rang the doorbell and went to the kitchen.
The women came to the living room carrying an exquisitely carved silver plate with traditional digestifs-betel leaves and Mysore supari. They sat a while, basking in the dulling aftereffects of a carbohydrate –rich Tamil meal, when Amma suggested that they move to the other room. Everyone arose when Appa said, “Satish, you and Mona sit here and talk.
They sat nervously on two ends of his bed that served as a seat during the day. They were silent for a few moments, then Mona asked, “What should we talk about, Satish?”
“I don’t know. Where do we start?”
“How about your life in Houston?”
Feeling unusually at ease with her, he readied himself in a comfortable position. He candidly recounted his life in Houston, describing in some detail his middle management role at Clark Oilfield Technologies, and its challenges.
He emphasized that his career had seen very slow growth, and he was not on a fast track of any kind. However, he enjoyed the people and solving engineering problems at Clark. He also described his multicultural social network and life, his friends and their families, and his activities and interests.
While he spoke, she relaxed, turned toward him, pulled her bare feet on the bed, and sat in rapt attention. When he had finished, she told him, in a composed voice, her story about how she had studied commerce and accounting at a Mumbai college. By the time she graduated, she was thoroughly bored with accounting. Her real interest was travel.
When she told her aunt on her mother’s side, who worked for a European airline, of her interest, she got her an interview. Mona had worked for the airline for about eight years on the India-Europe route, and used her vacation and travel privileges to see Western Europe and North America.
She said that five years earlier, she had married a colleague, a steward. They had a good married life, but the husband had a drawback-he was an alcoholic. Six months before his death, the airline dismissed him for being inebriated on the job, which compounded the problem. She said that her late husband was a very nice man when he was sober, but gradually, over the last six months of his life, those temperate moments were few and far between.
When her husband got fired, her mother had just passed away, and she was bereft with grief. The combination of her deep sorrow and his increased alcoholism made those six months a living hell for her. When he died in a gruesome motorcycle accident, he was in an angry, drunken stupor-she had just told him that she was leaving him.
For more than a year, she blamed herself for her husband’s death. Gradually, it dawned on her that he had brought it upon himself. Between almost silent sobs, she shared difficult memories with him. He said the kindest words to soothe and console her. Then he began his story.
It was brief. When he reached the part about the reason for the divorce, he told her, “It just did not work out”. She did not ask him for details, but said, “It’s best that we put those rotten memories behind us and start a new life. No point living in the past.” Then she smiled a pretty smile and asked, “So, what new movies have you seen lately?”
After they talked about the movies he had seen on his twenty-hour airplane ride to Mumbai, they shared humorous experience about air travel. She related stories about obnoxious and funny passengers, and he about the idiosyncrasies of the airline industry, particularly its staff.
When Amma came into the room two hours later, around teatime, she was pleased to see that Satish and Mona were talking like old friends who had rediscovered each other.
When Amma asked if they wanted some tea, Mona said, “Amma, do you know that your son is real buddhu, a simpleton?”
Amma was pleasantly surprised to see the transformation of the quiet, impeccably polite woman of a few hours ago to a naughty familiar child.
“Why? Why is he a buddhu?” she asked.
Mona burst into a laughing fit and told the mother, “Your son is not only a buddhu but a sadhu, a saint, Amma, I was the stewardess on his flight to Mumbai. He ignored me throughout the trip. Not only that, he saw me today, he did not recognize me.”
Amma was amused and went to share the coincidence with the rest of the family, seated in kitchen.
Satish was dumbfounded. “But I remember that my stewardess’s name was Monica,” he said.
“My given name is Monica, Satish. Mona is my pet name. My grandmother’s name was Monica, and people did not want to confuse the two Monicas in the family, so they called me Mona,” she said.
She pressed her fingertips on his forehead and said, “You may be from IIT, but to me you are a real buddhu.” She ran out of the room to the safety of Amma’s presence.
By the time he could reach her, she was firmly behind Amma, who said to her son, “You dare not touch her,” in a mock stern tone. Turning to Mona, she said, “If he ever troubles you again, let me know.”
“This is exactly how you two behaved when you were children,” her father observed. “She would tease you and you would go running after her until she reached your mother for protection.”
As everyone sat and drank their tea, Lata was the first to pop the question. “So Mona, what do you think of my brother?”
Amma and Appa were astonished at her unusual boldness. Dr. Sastri seemed pleased with the question.
“I think Satish should answer that question first.” Mona said.
Satish said, “Since this woman thinks that I am buddhu, I better make sure that I have thought it through. Dr Sasti, do you mind if I take Mona to a restaurant and talk to her some more?”
“I have no objection, young man, but don’t you think you should ask her?” he replied.
Mona said yes, and they left immediately. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and he had about five hours before he left home for the airport and his flight back to Houston. As they got into a cab, he told the taxi driver to take them to a hotel in South Mumbai.
They chatted for the entire half-hour ride to the hotel, attempting to provide each other with details of the lost years. Often, she kidded him for not recognizing her. He cautioned her to be on the lookout. Sooner or later, he was going to get even with her for having kept her identity a secret for so long, and for calling him a buddhu.
When they reached their destination, instead of walking in the direction of the restaurants, he went instead to the airline ticket office located in the same hotel. The staff at the office immediately recognized her. They gathered around her to say hello and ask about her life on “solid ground”. She said that it took some getting used to.
She then turned to him and asked, “What are we doing here?”
Unexpectedly, he took her by the hand and sat her down on a sofa. Under the gaze of her curious colleagues, he asked her, “Will you marry me, Mona? If you say yes, I will change my reservation right now, or else…” She cut him short and said, “Yes, I will marry you, you buddhu. There is no ‘or else’.
After he postponed his reservation, he called his parents and told them that he had proposed to Mona, and she had accepted. They were ecstatic. So was the airline staff, who applauded the unusual event that had occurred in their office. Monica was a bit embarrassed by the attention she received.
On their cab ride back home, Satish warily reached out to his bride-to-be , held her hand and said, “I told you I would get even with you.” They were married at her home four days later.
When Satish saw his wife in her bridal dress, he could not help but think of what Ralph D’Souza, his friendly middle-east companion on his fight to Mumbai had said: “This airline has the most beautiful stewardesses in the world.”
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