Its All About The Click is the story of Mitali, but essentially the story of almost every Indian woman who has reached the ‘marriageable’ age but hasn’t settled down for various reasons and has hence come under the scrutiny of the society by default. No matter how modern and developed we might have become, some things just never change. Amusing and fun, Mitali’s story takes you through some crazy situations. From rapid-fire interviews with maternal uncles for their ‘USA-based’ nephew to hilarious meetings where she is taught to make poha for the darling son. Mitali seems to be doing it all to find her perfect match. As she ticks off the boxes while looking for that ‘click’, will she find her true love? Below you can read an excerpt from this book. Courtesy: Fingerprint.
An excerpt from the book, Its All About The Click
“They rejected you,” Mummy apprised me of the verdict of yet another almost-alliance. After the whole fiasco of that interview with the two men in my office cafeteria, my fate was jinxed. In spite of all the hard work and the outrageous amount of money I spent on my profile photographs, my luck just didn’t seem to be hitting the right cord with my destiny. Every rejection felt terrible, every single time. And the worse was when someone you have rejected, goes on to reject you. Nothing—and I cannot say it enough—nothing can irk you more than this.
“THEY rejected ME!” I asked shocked “After I travel to Mysore to meet them, lugging around seven boxes of sweets, and getting almost mummified in that stupid silk sari, they reject me?!” I could not believe the nerves of that family. They had insisted that I travel to Mysore to meet their family and then had the gall to make snide comments about the quality of the sweets that I had got for them. Of course that hadn’t stopped them from stocking it up in their refrigerator and stuffing their faces with it later.
“Yes, they said your kundalis did not match,” Mummy responded indifferently. By now, she had become a little too used to me being rejected.
“They matched the kundalis beforehand, didn’t they? Didn’t they exact the latitude and longitude of my birth and get their own pandit to make my kundali before making me go all the way to Mysore? And now they say that the kundalis don’t match?”
“It is just a way to reject a girl. If only you would have taken them for a tour of the Infosys campus .. . things might have been different then . . .”
“Seriously Mummy? You really think they rejected me because I did not take them to visit the Mysore campus? Seriously?” Sometimes I just couldn’t believe my mother.
“Why do you care? You did not even like the guy”
“Because it’s my prerogative to reject them first!” I shot back, taking a stand for myself. “They accused me of smuggling high heels to fake my height. They made me take off my sandals and stand next to the guy to see if our heights were okay or not. And then, that aunty took me to the kitchen to teach me how to make poha for her son, because as per their dear darling boy, a girl who cannot make good poha, cannot be a good wife!”
“You are making it sound so dramatic, Meetu,” Mummy said dismissively. “I did not find the guy that bad actually. After all, he is a manager in HDFC bank.”
Picture Credit: Fingerprint
I could never understand my mother’s attitude in this regard. Why did she have to support some random guy instead of her own daughter, someone who was attached to her umbilical cord for nine long months?
“Okay, first of all, you guys did not even come with me. I had to travel alone to Mysore because, as you put it, you could save money for my dowry . . . Second of all, the guy did not even seem normal. He was speaking in such a choked voice it was like someone was slowly strangling him to death. And then, he handed me an HDFC Loan Application brochure just before I left. Tell me, who does that? I understand that he is a bank manager, but handing me that loan brochure? What was this? A promotional campaign? What was he even thinking? And then his father suddenly began insisting that I take them for an Infy campus tour like a spoiled toddler. I think they accepted the whole proposal for this purpose only . . . so that they could get a free pass to visit the Infy campus!” I was fuming now.
“Then why didn’t you take them? It is the biggest campus in Asia, after all. If you have something to flaunt, then why don’t you?” Mummy demanded.
“MUMMY! My office is not a place to entertain guest!” I retorted, even though I knew my words were falling on deaf ears. “Who takes random people on a tour of their office, huh?” I still had scars of humiliation from that one meeting in the office cafeteria. Never was I going to repeat that mistake again. Ever.
Mummy sighed. “You always have some reason or the other ready for your rejections. Always it’s the other’s fault. With last proposal also you did such stupid things,” Mummy said in a disappointed tone.
“With whom? The ones who rejected me because of the cycle accident?”
Yes, I had had some ridiculous rejection reasons awarded to me over the course of the past couple of months. The people in question had asked me about my interest in sports, if any, and if I had ever had any accidents. And I simply told them the truth—that I had one teeny accident in sixth grade, while cycling and had gotten a few stiches on my right knee. They gave me disdained looks, but then they had been doing that for just about every one of my answers. So I assumed that maybe the whole family had a face like that.
But later, they gave exactly this reason for having rejected me:–“The girl has a history of cycle accidents”
“Yes. They said it was an issue for them. I don’t understand why you have to reveal such things to anybody at all!”
“But what was so wrong about the cycle accident?” I asked, exasperated. I just couldn’t understand why my mother thought it was my fault. All I did was to fall off my cycle. Years back!
“Because girls can lose their virginity with accidents like that . . .” she spoke in I-know-it-all manner.
I sighed, defeated. There was no way I could even begin to rationalise with a logic like that. Why, I wondered, was Tanu never conferenced in such calls when I need her unbiased opinions?
“You know what? Just forget about this one. From now on, I will look for grooms who are based only in Bangalore. I am not traveling far and wide just to get rejected,” I said, frustrated. This particular rejection had costed me around 2000 in sweets, tickets and a day’s office leave. Going by that rate, I would be homeless by the end of the year. Not to forget, still unmarried.