Humour

Stupid Cupid ... or
Lord Knows Why I'm Still Single

by ARVINDER SINGH KANG

 

Now that Valentine's Day is past and Cupid has fled to his lair, I think it is safe once more and I can come out and share with you my trials and tribulations in this regard. 

My first duel with the shameless child of Aphrodite happened in an examination hall when I was in Grade Nine.

Having studied in Akal Academy, a Sikh school, I had been taught to call all girls I met "Didi"(sister). So, the spirit of "universal brotherhood" became my guardian angel, protecting me from the slings and arrows flung at me from time to time by stupid Cupid.

Until that fateful day.

Right behind my seat in the exam hall, was this very pretty girl.

"Do you have an extra pencil", she asked, just about the time the exam was about to start.

"How stupid", I said to myself, "she's come to the exam without a geometry box!"

During the next hour, she borrowed my pencil, eraser, sharpener, as well as a few answers to questions she did not know. I might as well have kept my heart in my geometry box because, at the end of the exam, it was nowhere to be found.

However, she had replaced it with her phone number on a piece of paper.

"What's your phone number?" she asked, with a cute, innocent look on her face. I was still daydreaming.

Exactly then, I saw my father hovering in the shadows, waiting to pick me up. Cupid vanished into thin air, and all I could see was Dad's twisted handlebar mustache and ten-pound heavy thump on my head. "We don't have a phone at home!"

High school was fun. Or at least, that's how my group of friends want to remember it. We were not like those losers who would sit in the school canteen with their beautiful girlfriends. We were dignified boys and had other important things to do, like wondering - "How did this stupid-looking moron get such a pretty girlfriend?". Or - "What does she see in that idiot?".

Years later, we found the answer - you have to initiate a conversation! That, we could not do. So, we resorted to the primitive method of brandishing ourselves as Alpha males: group fights!

We fought all the way into university. But somehow, the alpha-male potion did not show its magic.

So, still saved from Cupid's honey-laden arrows, we entered university.

And voila! The alpha male pick-up-a-fight voodoo did reveal its magic here.

On the third day of college, I resisted ragging by seniors and even tried to retaliate ... it took me no time to get initiated into the most FOB ("fresh-off-the-bullock-cart") group of the engineering school.

The Enfield Bullet (a 350 cc Indian "mo-bike") was the official "bakki" (ride).

Handlebars were the only acceptable mustache style for men. Chamkila and Manak were the big singers of the time and "Eh ranna chanchal-haarian, kee ranna da itbaar" ("Women are coquettish, never let your shields down") was the group anthem.

Surprisingly, the more our group was hated by the female students of our school, the more attention I started getting from the opposite sex. Being in the Bhangra group, being a little chivalrous and being recognized by professors as a student of their class, added that extra icing to my profile that I needed to stand out just enough from the group.

(For the rest of them, one would imitate others and answer to the daily attendance call for all members of the whole group. Thus, a few in the group graduated with two undergrad degrees - Bachelor's in Technology and Bachelor's in Dhaba-traveling).

"Aha! Now I understand these girls," I thought.

Being hard to attain, we were given to understand, was as good as being a good "catch". So, for the next four years, there were always rumours in the air about each one of us, and yet none of us had a girlfriend. The ecstasy of being in the limelight and always being a good catch was too much to give up.

Valentine days were even more fun. When I was a sophomore, I was taken by a very pretty-looking senior.

"Excuse me, can I talk to you for a minute," I dared one day, having just slammed on the brakes of my bike and brought it to a screeching halt right next to her, as she was walking with her girlfriends.

"Yes", she said with a smile and some curiosity, while her friends walked on, giving us a cautious glance.

I opened my backpack, pulled out a cauliflower wrapped in Valentine-red paper. "Happy Valentines".

Before she could throw it back, I was nowhere to be seen!

By the end of our senior year, we came to the realization that being bachelors was not fun anymore. Some of our classmates were getting engaged, some getting married. Even the most picked-upon guy in the class had a girlfriend.

But we, cast in our four-year-old "dignified bad boys" reputation mould, gathered our lives together and moved on.

I did not stay in Chandigarh long enough, and moved to the U.S. for my Master's in a town called Far-Far-Far-Away. (Somehow Google can still find it, if you punch in a search for "Oxford, Mississippi").

Taming the tigers takes practice and time. In our case, we started too late to learn the rules of the game well. ["Old dogs ..." and all that!]

Far-Far-Away and Antarctica seemed to be the only two places with almost no Sikh population. So the chances of meeting fellow Sikh women were minus one. And long distance relations add another piece of complexity to this already complex human intercommunication system.

Last month, I visited my parents in India.

"So, Boy, what have you decided about marriage?" my father asked me one day, driving into the city. The car was moving and there was no escape. My mom had probably told him that I was deflecting all her recommendations about girls that her sister or her sister's daughter-in-law's sister-in-law's sister had made.

"Dad, I haven't given it much thought yet", I replied sheepishly.

"Then THINK! Khote Jidda ho chaleya, teri umar de mundiyan de do do jawak aa. Tainu labhan dee khul ditti aa, matlab eh nahin ke koi decision hee nahin laina. (You are now grownup like a donkey. Guys your age already have kids. We've given you the freedom to choose. It does not mean you can keep postponing the decision indefinitely.) You've got one year. Either let us know the girl, or we'll let you know!"

"Jee, Daddy Ji." It was not a recommendation. It was an edict, passed by His Highness, Mr. Singh.

So, here I am. Valentine's Day has once again come and gone. Having defeated Cupid for so many years, he now seems to sneer at me on each of these annual crossroads.

I'll let you know how I fare with him between now and next Valentine's Day. More and more, it appears that there is no escape for me from the age-old roll of the dice - the one we call "arranged marriage".

 

Arvinder Singh Kang is a 26-year-old Media and IT manager, geek, journalist and occasional writer. He still hasn't figured out why he's still single. He can be reached at singh@arvinderkang.com.

February 21, 2009

 

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