I met Sungitha the way I never want to meet a girl \u2013 through a friend of my mother\u2019s. The idea of meeting a girl to marry through family connections is a long held tradition amongst South Asian families, but one I never before wanted any part of. But as I was now over thirty, unattached and without romantic prospects, thought the time was right to give my family a chance. Within days of my consent, I was shown two photographs of Sungitha by my mother\u2019s friend known to me as Shanthi Aunty. The photo\u2019s showed Sungitha as having a somewhat plump figure, round face and straight black hair. In one photo she is wrapped in a purple sari etched with gold brocade print, a distinct red putoo<\/i> on her forehead, hair braided with white lilies and several bangles of various colors swinging on her wrists. In the other photo she’s wearing a white short-sleeved blouse, knee length beige skirt, a gold rimmed watch with leather band round her left wrist and hair unadorned and long down her back.<\/p>\n
I was told by my mother and Shanthi Aunty that I had seen Sungitha in my younger years, before I started university. I highly doubt that we had spoken before or been part of the same conversation, but think it\u2019s certainly very possible that we had been part of the same audience at a Tamil cultural show or sat three or four tables away at a charity event or wedding.<\/p>\n
When I expressed interest in Sungitha, Shanthi Aunty passed along Sungitha\u2019s phone number and email address to me. My first call to Sungitha became a half hour long chat. I learned that she had two older brothers, both of whom were engineers and married, that she herself had recently finished teachers college and had been hired on by the public school board for a contract position as a Math teacher. The fact that she had a career of her own was a positive thing in my eyes and increased the odds that I would want to marry her. It didn\u2019t hurt her case either when I found out that we both preferred independent dramas that relied on character development rather than special effects, enjoyed traveling particularly to European locales and loved good food of all kinds whether ethnic or good old north American pub fare.<\/p>\n
We exchanged emails and text messages over the next two weeks before speaking on the phone again. During this call we decided we should plan a meeting before our families arranged one for us.<\/p>\n
Our first meeting was to be at a coffee shop located in her part of the city. I\u2019d offered to pick her up at her house, but she insisted that she would meet me at the coffee shop. When I arrived I found her sitting at a table for two dressed in black knee length skirt and striped collared shirt. I was relieved to find that she looked very close to the photos of her that I\u2019d been shown. Although it wasn\u2019t a huge inconvenience for me to be here – only a half hour drive – I would never have forgiven my mother or Shanthi aunty if I\u2019d been deceived.<\/p>\n
There was a lot to like about Sungitha. She laughed whenever I made a joke, appeared to be genuinely curious in learning all about me including my work, my interests, my ambitions, my family, my friends and had a really nice look and smell about her which excited me more than I would care to admit to my mother or Ranjana Aunty. I think she liked the fact that I had a master\u2019s degree and was ambitious in my career, that I owned real estate and lived an active lifestyle. The one thing she seemed to disapprove of was my passion for video games and comic books.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you heard of the Doom Fighter series?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you a fan?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really. Are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a huge fan! I own all nine games in the series and all the comics in the series. I will never forget the time my dad bought me that first comic. I have it displayed in my room in a glass case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh I see. How often do you play video games?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the time, every day if I can. Particularly on weekends. \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat much?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell yeah. I love video games. Friday night is the big night. All my friends come over then to my condo and we order pizza or fried chicken or something and play video games all night. The turnout has been getting smaller over the years, but the core group is still there.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I continued to connect with Sungitha by phone, email and in person over the next few months, but as I gradually found myself more and more disenchanted with the idea of marrying her, this then was reflected in the length and frequency of my attempts of contact. I could sense that she was eager to move things along more quickly, but remained chaste and innocent throughout, unwilling to engage in debauchery to tempt me, to push me to make what was in her mind the right decision. It was amazing to me to see how traditional she was in her values even given the fact that she had lived most of her life in North America, ever since she was ten, even staying in a dorm while attending university. I would have expected such an experience to make her less traditional in her ways. I wondered what was the most risqu\u00e9 thing she might have participated on campus during her undergrad years. She claimed to not be a regular consumer of alcohol, even despising the taste of most types and I believe her \u2013 honesty was definitely one of her strongest virtues in my eyes. One thing I would like to know is if she had kept a boyfriend at any point in her life. She certainly made no mention of one which may be also due to the fact that we had yet to formally ask each other about our past romances. But this had no impact on my decision on whether I would marry her or not, after all she seemed to be a good clean girl all around, a minor experience of young love wasn\u2019t going to change that. The only thing holding me back was me; I just wasn\u2019t sure if I was ready to take this next step in my life.<\/p>\n
Whenever I talked to my mother she would tell me how she often gets calls from relatives and family members asking to know what was happening between me and Sungitha. I am sure that many of these people assumed that we were already set to be married and that a wedding date announcement was coming soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what do you think?\u201d said my mother one day. \u201cWill you marry her?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know mom,\u201d I said. \u201cThere\u2019s no spark between us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean spark? What is that? You mean like chemistry or love? Remember how you met each other. You met through family connections. Most people in our culture marry this way. It is not a love marriage, so there isn\u2019t going to be any of this spark or chemistry that you talk about. It\u2019s more a practical arrangement \u2013 you need a wife, she needs a husband. You are both educated and her family is good. That is all there is to it. \u201d<\/p>\n
The people I confided in most were my two closest friends, Frank and Mike. There was a time when I\u2019d had more friends with whom I opened up to like this. It just seems that with time these other friends became more and more detached, age bringing with it increased employment and relationship commitments.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure you want to get married?\u201d said Frank.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell yeah,\u201d I said. \u201cI mean we are getting to that age right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t want you to do something you\u2019ll regret.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019re just afraid you won\u2019t see me again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe. But, I also just can\u2019t believe that you want to have an arranged marriage. An arranged marriage!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really all that bad. Sungitha is a nice girl. She\u2019s pretty \u2013 you\u2019ve seen her pictures she\u2019s good looking, she\u2019s educated and we have a good time together. I just don\u2019t know if I want to get married that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you have to marry her at this point? Isn\u2019t that how arranged marriages work?\u201d said Mike.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I could back out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure? Sure doesn\u2019t seem like it if we\u2019re to believe anything you\u2019ve told us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s set guys. No offer of marriage has been made, no wedding has been set, no ring of any kind has been bought. Our family\u2019s just think we are getting married because we\u2019ve kept talking for so long. She\u2019s a really great girl. I\u2019m just not ready right now, or not sure if I\u2019m ready. It\u2019s a big step you know to get married. My life is going to be very different to what it is now. But everyone keeps telling me, everyone but you guys I guess, that I\u2019m getting old and I should get married and maybe they\u2019re right. I am over thirty now. We\u2019re not kids anymore. Maybe it\u2019s time we grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alright man, it\u2019s your life,\u201d said Frank. \u201cLet\u2019s just hope Melissa doesn\u2019t find out about this. She\u2019ll go mad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank was right about Melissa. She was the girl I had broken up with nine months ago, after a three a hand year relationship. We had gone looking to buy property together, and the beginning of the end for us was when I decided to buy a two bedroom condo on my own. It became clear to her then that I didn\u2019t want to marry her. I told her that wasn\u2019t true and that there was still a good chance I would marry her, but that was still far off in the future. Things were never the same between us since then and we broke up within three months of my moving into the condo.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Of all couples I knew I\u2019m certain that more than half are unhappy. At least two of my aunts are always bickering with their husbands. Kevin and Daniyal were pushed into matrimony from family and their would-be wives. Sam claims to be happy, but he is a private person and so it is hard to know what is really on his mind. He met his wife Elizabeth the same time I met her, at a summer job we all had working rides at a theme park. Toward the end of the summer they had become a couple. They seemed quite happy then and more so on their wedding for which I served as Sam\u2019s best man. But I know that at that same summer job there was another girl who had first caught first Sam\u2019s attention. I also know that if that girl hadn\u2019t turned him down and if Elizabeth hadn\u2019t pursued him it is highly unlikely they would have ever become a couple. And then there was Roger and Patrick, my coworkers. Never a week goes by when Roger doesn\u2019t confess to me how much he would love to get out of his six year relationship with his girlfriend Sue. Patrick meanwhile has had the same girlfriend for over four years but that doesn\u2019t stop him from pursuing other girls. I wonder how my life might change if I were to marry Sungitha? I\u2019m sure she would want to eventually move into a bigger living space, a house in the suburbs perhaps with newly tiled floors and a basement and two bathrooms and a driveway enough for three cars. My commute into work would be longer, friends would visit less often because of distance and I\u2019d be playing a lot less video games, but then with the larger space I could set up a pool table in the basement and a blue chlorine-filled pool in the backyard.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve started to get emails and messages from people I\u2019ve known and have lost touch with over the years, congratulating me on my upcoming nuptials. One such email even came from Melissa.<\/p>\n
Hi Surrendon,<\/i><\/p>\n
I know I\u2019d said I didn\u2019t want to keep in touch. You\u2019d hurt me and I was really sad and couldn\u2019t stop crying. But something has been bothering me lately and I just had to write to you. I\u2019ve heard that you are getting married? First I need to know, is this true, because I\u2019m still not sure if I believe it. And if it is true, that you\u2019re getting or are married, can you please answer me this: why?<\/i><\/p>\n
Melissa.<\/i><\/p>\n
The initial reply I typed out for Melissa was similar to what I\u2019d written to the others: I started by stating that there was no wedding imminent, and explained how I was introduced to a girl named Sungitha through friends of family and that it is still early and that we are not engaged or even boyfriend and girlfriend although we communicate often by phone and email (regular), and in person (occasional).<\/p>\n
I saved the email to Melissa in my drafts folder in case I wanted to make to make any additions, in particular a request to meet in the coming days for dinner or coffee. I\u2019d always assumed that she wanted nothing to do with me after our breakup, but after her email I could not help but think that maybe her mind was now in a different place. It has after all been over a year since we broke up, surely that was a long enough time for a girl\u2019s heart to mend, especially in light of this recent and not insignificant development in my life. Then I sat back in my chair, my hands clasped behind my head with elbows out and eyes looking out the window, and thought: Why does everybody assume I\u2019m getting married to Sungitha<\/i>? I sent my email to Melissa with a request to meet for coffee and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I found her angry response in my inbox:<\/p>\n
Why are you so eager to meet with me huh? You are supposed to marry this other chic. What do you want to do, marry her and keep me on the side? I\u2019m sorry but I\u2019m not going for that arrangement. You can\u2019t have you cake and eat it too. Don\u2019t bother me again you got that you asshole?<\/i><\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t take offense to this email as I knew Melissa was known for sometimes responding in a rash manner and was often sorry after. Although the circumstances were much different this time around, I was sure it would be just a matter of time before I would hear from her again with an apology.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The first time Sungitha met my friends was at my thirty first birthday party that I held at my condo. I had known her almost six months now. I couldn\u2019t figure out how I should introduce her to the other guests, all of whom knew each other. She wasn\u2019t my girlfriend and she sure wasn\u2019t my fianc\u00e9e although we\u2019d often talked about marriage. It wouldn`t even be appropriate to say that she is my friend. I guess I`d have to settle with addressing her as Sungitha for now.<\/p>\n
I asked Sungitha to arrive early so that she could help me set up and so she could be properly introduced to everyone else. I didn\u2019t leave her side until most of the guests had arrived. But if I\u2019d thought she would now mingle with my friends I was wrong as whenever I saw her again it seemed her focus was solely on Jacqueline, the four year old daughter of Elizabeth and Sam.<\/p>\n
The face of my birthday cake was made to look like the cover of the first Doom Fighters. The idea for this cake was apparently Frank\u2019s while the cake itself was made by Elizabeth. I could not take my eyes off the cake especially the picture of the five muscle bound members of the Doom Fighters with their bazooka-like guns. I continued to stare at the picture even after I had blown the fire on the thirty one candles and had made a wish.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou love my cake or what?\u201d said Elizabeth.\u201cI spent so much time trying to make it look just like the drawing on the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen are we going to cut the cake?\u201d said Sungitha.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if we are,\u201d I said. \u201cIt looks so good the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to eat my cake?\u201d said Elizabeth, her hands on her hips.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no don\u2019t take it that way. The thing is I just love this cake. I love it so much that I think I don\u2019t want to cut it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat no cake?\u201d said Frank.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook there\u2019s enough food here for everyone, including a really nice cheese cake and lots of ice cream,\u201d I said once the cake was in the freezer. \u201c You won\u2019t go hungry tonight and you will get your sugar fix.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJacqueline is going to be so disappointed,\u201d said Elizabeth. \u201c She was so looking forward to having some of the cake. What are you going to do with it anyway if you\u2019re not going to eat it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I might want to save it in the freezer or maybe we will eat some tonight, but for now I can\u2019t imagine destroying it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A little later when I was smoking with Frank and Mike on the balcony and no one else was within earshot, I told them about how I had invited Melissa out for the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter what she wrote to you?\u201d said Mike.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what did she say?\u201d said Frank.\u201c Is she coming?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t write back,\u201d I said<\/p>\n
When dinner was served I sat next to Sungitha. After dinner I played the Doom Fighters IX game. I\u2019m not sure what Sungitha did after dinner. She definitely didn\u2019t take a turn on the game, although it\u2019s possible that she watched us play.<\/p>\n
It was about half past ten when there came a series of hard, angry knocks on the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpen up you fool!\u201d came a familiar, but drunken voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan somebody see who it is,\u201d I said. All my attention was on the game and I wasn\u2019t going to pause it just to open the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cMelissa!\u201d said Mike.\u201c How nice to see you after so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
I glanced over to my right and there was Melissa walking toward me. I put the game on pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cMelissa, glad you could make it,\u201d I said with a smile. My smile left my face as quickly as it had come when I realized that Melissa seemed not to be in a cheerful mood and was walking briskly toward me. \u201cIs something wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you!\u201d she said stopping just two feet away from me. \u201cYou invited me to your birthday party even though I made it clear that was I mad at you. You broke my heart several times in fact over our almost three year relationship. Almost three years, wow \u2013 short by just a few weeks and it would have been three years. And now you\u2019re going out with this new girl, but you write to me anyway. But why? I know why.\u201d She looked around the room and grinned when she saw Sungitha in the kitchen with Jacqueline. \u201cIt\u2019s you isn\u2019t it? You\u2019re the girl he\u2019s going to marry. You must be. You\u2019re like the only person I don\u2019t know here.\u201d Like everyone else Sungitha remained still, her mouth slightly ajar. \u201cIf you want my advice I say don\u2019t do it. He\u2019s a fool. Did he tell you how he wrote to me asking me out? And after I turned him down with like this angry email he proceeds to invite me out for his birthday! He\u2019s got commitment issues. Surrendon, when will you grow up and be a man already and commit to one girl?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMelissa please. It was you who wrote to me first, remember? And no I don\u2019t have commitment issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI may have written to you first, but it is you who first asked to meet for dinner and then after I blasted you proceeded to invite me to your birthday party! And you do, you do have commitment issues. You can\u2019t be with just one girl; it\u2019s the reason why you couldn\u2019t marry me, why we broke up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, that\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what was it? Was I not good enough for you and your family? You want a more traditional girl for your wife? And why have you written to me asking to see me? You wanted to fuck me, that\u2019s why. Yeah that\u2019s right everybody, he wanted to fuck me! Even though we broke up months ago and I told him to leave me alone, forever!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMelissa, you\u2019re drunk,\u201d said Mike. \u201c I\u2019m a getting you a cab.\u201d He pulled out his cell phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo I\u2019m not and no you\u2019re not. And what do we have here? A cake of the Doom Fighters.\u201d She walked to the table with the cake. \u201cI know about the Doom Fighters. It looks amazing by the way. Elizabeth made this I bet. So when are we going to cut this thing anyway? It\u2019s almost eleven now for god\u2019s sake. So how about it then folks? How about we have some cake?\u201d She then swung her leg under the table, popping the cake and its board into the air. Airborne, the cake with board spun counter clock wise, before crashing with a thump<\/i> onto the polished hardwood floor.<\/p>\n
I remember Mike and someone else, not sure who, take Melissa out of the condo. I sat back down and resumed my game. I don\u2019t know what happened with the cake. Maybe some of it was served, whatever had not reached the floor, and the rest likely thrown out.<\/p>\n
The remainder of the night was a blur to me. Of one thing I am sure, that some good fortune had come my way in the game of poker I played after my run on Doom Fighters IX because when I first woke up the first time the next morning there was a nice collection of bills in my pocket and I\u2019m sure I did not make a trip to the bank. My eyes lids were on the way back over my eyes when I sat up suddenly with a start as I vaguely recall something bad happening around my prized Doom Fighters game. I looked over to my desk and there was my first Doom Fighters comic still in its glass case. And there were no cracks. Thank god. Must have been something else then. Time to go back to sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sungitha I met Sungitha the way I never want to meet a girl \u2013 through a friend of my mother\u2019s. The idea of meeting a girl to marry through family connections is a long held tradition amongst South Asian families, but one I never before wanted any part of. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"parent":148,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-577","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1985,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/577\/revisions\/1985"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}