My Ordeal with a ‘Fair’ Bride (Part Two)

I started filtering the photos of prospective brides based on my criteria – all the three must match, you see – fairness, beauty and salary. My mother did the initial level filter of religion, caste, sub-caste, not being a relative of any of her pet-hate relatives and so on. Whatever photos ended up at my desk, I started filtering them then based on my conditions. For finding the fairness quotient, I used the shade-card issued by a fairness cream company. How convenient these shade cards are! I am able to find out even the mildest tint variance in a girl’s face – of course only in the photo – using these shade-cards issued by those helpful fairness cream companies.

My father, meanwhile, used to mumble that in his time they used to use shade cards only to decide the colors to paint on the walls. Old man, what does he know about changing times?!
 

Image Source - Google

As for the appearance, let me keep it simple by saying that she shouldn’t be heavy or strongly built. Though I had developed a paunch due to the constant sitting in front of my office computer while crunching all those account details along with fattening snacks, I preferred my woman to be someone who had a flat abdomen and the right set of curves. If you are going to ask me what those ‘right set of curves’ are, I prefer not to answer. Isn’t a man permitted to keep private his own personal choices and desires in this country, my poor bachelor Gods!

One fine day, among all the photographs, I happened to see a beautiful face. The face was matching the topmost shade in the shade-card, meaning ‘very fair’. No, this was fairer than the fairest fairness. She looked as if she applies one whole tube of fairness cream per day and had even drained the blood of her face. But, as long as she happened to be fair, I decided to go ahead. Now, in terms of the second criterion, namely appearance, they had given another photograph too, fortunately for me. She was in a while, thin saree, with a sleeveless blouse. Like those that heroines in the movies wear during rainy song sequences. OK, she had the ‘curves’ too.

I was glad at having found my woman at last. But, wait a minute, what about my last condition, namely salary? My mother squirmed in her seat. I knew that something is wrong. I looked askance at my mother. She uttered slowly, “The girl belongs to a very rich family. She has done MBA from a local engineering college. They bought the seat for her by paying Rs.5 lakhs as donation. She happened to go to the college in her own car. They thought that there is no need to for the girl to go for work or earn anything, since she is the only heiress for all their wealth’.

I felt little hesitation. What is wrong if she isn’t working? Doesn’t she own a car? Doesn’t she own an MBA degree? If somebody asks I will tell them that my wife – yes – is an MBA from a reputed university and is managing her family business. With such glowing thoughts, I told my mother about my interest in getting married to the girl. There commenced all my woes!

(To be continued...)