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Posted
on 20-Dec-00 10:18 PM
WELL WRITTEN ARTICLE!!!!
"A Suitable Girl"
A fictional satire
My parents wanted me to get married. Every evening, as I returned home from office and slumped down on the family couch with a cup of steaming Ilam chiya, my mother's constant, "Its time you got married, Bhupu," only made me switch the channels all the more.
OK, I agree that my parents are not orthodox morons, hell-bent on forcing me to marry someone they have chosen; but I couldn't help feeling very annoyed everytime the topic of wedding came up. As a 20-something male working as a banker by day,and watching movies by night, I had yet to find my Miss Right in Kathmandu. Simply put, she seemed not to exist anywhere!
In the meantime, the women of my dreams seemed to visit me only in my dreams: Manisha Koirala, Madhuri Dixit, Pamela Anderson Lee and bevies of other unattainably luscious babes.What's an under-pressure-to-get-married guy like me to do in Kathmandu?
The problem seemed to sort itself out when well-meaning relatives started arranging "dates" for me. My deal was to meet carefully pre-screened (i.e. of the rightcaste,class,height,weight,complexion...whatever) Nepali women -- one at a time, at some restaurant. She and I were supposed to talk, laugh, gaze into each other's eyes, and if sparks flew, I was to ask her out again and again, until she, I suppose, in a moment of insanity, said yes.
If no sparks flew, well, there was nothing to get burned up about. This, I was assured, was a liberal, Westernized Hindu's sort of civilized halfway between a blind date and an engagement. But would I meet my soul-mate this way?
MISS BOOK REVIEW: I met her at Nanglo on Durbar Marg. Delicately picking at the salad, she gushed about the Beatles, Merchant-Ivory movies and Pratyoush Onta's writings. Her idea of fun included listening to Hari Prasad Chaurasiya play the flute, spending hours at the Mandala Book Point browisng through their Penguin book selections and reading back issues of Himal
magazine and The Kathmandu Post Review of Books. Talking with her, I felt I had to be extra witty, extra smart and extra not-so-myself. And so, in the end, with my head bursting with "gyan-goon" ka kura gained from her, I decided that she would be mismatched with a Yuba Manch and Kamana magazine-reading-idiot like me.
Miss AMERICA-OBSESSED: At Fire & Ice in Thamel, this youngest daughter of a corrupt bureaucrat candidly admitted the only reason she was meeting me was to find out whether I would take her to the US. Why was America so important to her? Because all her sisters were there with their computer programmer husbands. Besides, she added, "In America, there would be freedom to do
whatever I want." When I explained that I was in Nepal for good, largely to take care of my parents, she got up, pouted her lips, and gave me a sweet bye-bye,leaving her pizza-pie on the table, half-uneaten.
Miss HINDI FILMI: Fashionably dressed and strikingly made up with a dash of Erotique perfume wafting out of her buxom self, this lovely woman was waiting for me at Aroma Restaurant in Jamal. Since shrill Hindi music was blaring from the speakers, we slowly ended up chatting about Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. Soon after, over mango lassi,we were comparing notes about the sorry state of Nepali cinema, and she went on to express her obligatory
Kathmandu's middle-classy concerns about Nepal's losing its cultural, social values "due to [what else but] hindi-nization." Sadly, in the end, unlike in that super-hit Shah Rukh-Kajol movie, nothing kuch kuch happened between us.
Miss NGO ACTIVIST: Over sweet and sour chicken at Rice & Bowl in
Tripureswor, this young lady looked straight into my eyes, and explained what she had majored at some pricey liberal arts college in America. She was articulate, and seemed to know more about Nepal than I ever hoped/cared to.
Her job was in Lahan, where she was supervising poor Tharu women on some gender-based income-generating project. She was obviously very smart, earnest, dedicated, and sounded like just the woman needed for Nepal ko Bikas. But, in the end, moved both by patriotism and mostly by self-doubts, I thought that such a dynamic woman must be saved to run the country someday.
So, there I was: Four dates, and no suitable girl in arms. Surely, there must be a few marrigeable Nepali women with a great sense of humor and a zest for life, right? But, sitting here in Kathmandu,I wonder, and I wonder.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 21-Dec-00 09:18 PM
Hi Maximus:
>>This web-site is not your father's property.
Actually, I am not even a member of GBNC.
>>Anybody can post anything whenever,whatever and as many
times as they want.It doesn't matter either you like it or not.
This is a truism, and I have not disputed it.The reaction I
posted here was just a suggestion.
>>I didn't know Ashu had already posted
this article.Since you had already read this article you could have just skipped it.
My suggestion had two parts: one repetition of the article, and
another lapse in giving credit to the original writer.Do you think
plagiarising is okey?
>>You don't have to be
so impatience about it and write speedy harsh comment on it.
I am neither impatience,nor did I write speedy harsh comment.I
read the article fully, went back to history log and found out
the date , the name of poster and original writer's name from
there, and posted my suggestion.That's not impatience.If my
comments sounded harsh,I am sorry for that.But I read it
repeatedly,and found nothing harsh there.Such comments are aplenty
in this website.
>> I am feeling some kind jealousy here.
Sir,I am not jealous.This is the only website I visit for fun,
and I always read and try to write comments on whatever fellow
posters write here.I term it affinity.I have no reason to be
jealous of any body.
>>Learn to appricate others work and better if you learn something from it.
Please go back and read my comments on this article.I am the
person who wrote appreciatory comments on it,even in August.I
said the article was well written again and again.But, I suggested
that repetition of the same article may not be very good option,
especially in different names.Ok, even if you write that, why
do you omit the person's name who originally wrote it?Is that the
best idea? Isn't it everybody's responsibility to suggest
amelioration?
I want to assert it again that this is not my family property.But
,Maximusji, please respect the family value and don't bring my
father or mother type of words here.I don't appreciate such
sentences.
Happy holiday to you also.
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