A Suitable Girl

I received a rather apocalyptic email from my aunt yesterday, asking me if she should ‘look for a girl’ (hang on! her words, not mine) for me, now that I am approaching my 30 year old mark (does that mean I am nearing a one-third life crisis?) and time is running out for everyone. I have been sitting at this computer for fifteen minutes now thinking of what to write as a simple, short, jargon-free, and precise reply to someone who has not yet been tainted by the wiles of the Academy. So I am going through the following list of reasons why the answer to that question can only be a ‘no’, and I find myself rejecting them one by one.

(1) The Gay Reply : Since I am feeling rather light-hearted after going through all this heavy thinking, perhaps I should start on a gay note. I could tell her that the reason why ‘looking for a girl for me’ is out of the question is because, to put it bluntly, I am gay.
Objection!!! : Most Indians do not know what the word ‘homosexuality’ denotes, and, even if they do, they would never imagine that someone in their own closet is gay. As it is, my aunt already thinks that I am quite ‘abnormal’; now I do not wish to cause her any further pain by making her believe that I am ‘unnatural’ as well. No, my aunt is not mature enough for this reply.

(2) The Asinine Reply : There was, in the Mediaeval Ages, a clever man called Jean Buridan who is alleged to have come up with the following story. If you put an ass in between one pile of hay and one bucket of water, the ass will not be able to make up its mind as to whether to go for the hay or the water; and, consequently, the ass will simply stand there motionless. I could reply to my aunt that I face a similar dilemma concerning the dialectics of Globalization and/or Localization. That is, if she looks for a non-Indian girl (although how she would do this beats me), I will stand condemned by the environmentalists of buying into Globalisation; but if it is an Indian girl that she is after, I shall be accused by my fellow Academicians at Cambridge of allowing myself to be swayed by the parochial winds of Localization. So I shall plead to my aunt that she should understand my Buridanesque dilemma.

Objection!!! : I shall have to speak to my aunt for at least two hours on the telephone to explain to her what Globalization and/or Localization are about. Not that I mind doing this, but I know what her response will be : ‘You know what? That is all very fine according to the theory. But you get practical now! Come down to earth for heaven's sake!’

(3) The Feminist Reply : I can tell my aunt that it so happens that I inhabit a privileged part of the world where, for better or for worse, I am surrounded on all sides by a most curious species of females who are called the Feminists. If they were ever to know that I have consented to my aunt’s ‘looking for a girl’, they would drag me at once to Cambridge University’s Committee For Gender Equality, and, needless to say, I would be skinned alive by it.

Objection!!! : Well, very much the same problem with this reply as well. I shall have to spend three hours this time discussing the various strands of Feminist thought with her, starting from Sappho to Hypatia to Heloise to de Beauvoir to Reuther. And neither she nor I will be any wiser at the end of the heroic effort on the part of a man to explain Feminism to a woman : ‘Ok, ok, I got all that. But what is your point?’, is what she shall remark.

Perhaps, then, I should try a different tack instead, and simply allow her to go along with the whole shebang by sending her the following matrimonial (patrimonial?).

ID : Ironist_Lovable
I am 29, going on 30, residing in Cambridge, UK.

My Basics :
Age : 29
Marital Status : Never married (though there just might be more to this than meets the eye; as a famous philosopher once said, rather ominously, everything depends on how you define a word)
Children : No (not biological ones at any rate, and none forthcoming either, though nobody is responsible for one’s intellectual children)
Height : 5’11” (so that I do not need to stand on the shoulder of giants)
Complexion : Extremely Fair to Extremely Wheatish
Body Type : Discursive to Recursive
Special Cases : Everything about me is a special case; really, you have to meet me to believe this, and even this timely warning will not quite prepare you for the shock

My Religious and Social Background :
Religion : Trust me, you don’t want to know what my ‘religion’ is
Caste : Downwardly-mobile Brahmin (the downward slide started with my grandfather who married my grandmother’s sister)
Mother Tongue : Bengali (this is because as I once wrote in my autobiography : 'A man is not born as, but becomes, a Bengali')
Family Values : No family, hence no values

My Cultural Background :
Country of Birth : India
Grew up in : Assam, India
Personal values : I value the person, isn’t that valuable enough?
Can speak : Bengali, English, and Assamese

My Education and Career :
Education : Ph.D.
Occupation : Still trying to find one
Annual income : Negotiable
My Star Sign : Aquarius

Hobbies, Interests and More :
My Hobbies : Music; Indian and Western classical, Indian and Western folk
My Interests : Listening to music, reading books, talking to ducks, playing the fool with dogs, listening to the whispers in people’s unspoken words, and seeing the shades of sadness in the smiles of the sleeping sky
My Favourite Music : Beethoven’s symphony no 6, Schubert's symphony no 9, and 14th - 18th century Bengali folk music
My Favourite Read : ‘Crime and Punishment’, Fyodor Dostoivsky; 'The Home and the World', Rabindranath Tagore
My Favourite Movies : (Bengali) Gonoshotru, (Hindi) Sholay, (Spanish) Profundo Carmesi, (Italian) Ladri di biciclette, (English) The Kiss of the Spider Woman, and (French) Le Dernier Metro
My Sports : Mental acrobatics, (occasionally) badminton, and morning walks to meet the ducks
My Favourite Cuisine : Bread and butter, and cornflakes with five spoons of sugar
My Preferred Dress Style : Usually in the usual black (or green) coat

My Personality :

I don’t quite know where to start. I mean I have never done this before, this writing about myself, and I am feeling so nervous right now. Okay, okay, *gasp*, let me begin by saying that basically I am a nice, decent, and fun-loving guy. You know what I mean? I am studying for a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, and if this does not sound like fun to you, well, what can I say? People with whom I have been associated usually tell others (if not me, sadly) that I am an easy-going and a no-hassles person who takes all things as they come.

Partner Expectations :

Now coming to my partner, she should be home-loving, children-loving, dog-loving, caring-loving, and loving-loving, someone who shares my idea of what fun is and someone I can chill out with. She should be a convent-educated and a very outgoing woman who wishes to live life to the full (with me, of course). Actually, you know, she should be, how do I put it, she should be very independent-minded and that kind of thing, but she should also be down-to-earthed, grounded, rocked, planted, and rooted in our Indian family values which are so precious. She should be, shall I say, a woman of substance and she shall not be disappointed to find a substantial man in me. She should seek a long, happy, and contented family life surrounded by children and grand-children in which she will wake up every morning and discover that she loves me just that one bit more everytime I say her name or everytime I walk into the room.

Now, then, that is the stuff that I have written. But I am still thinking whether or not to send this matrimonial (patrimonial?) to my aunt …