ALLIANCE invited from qualified
professionals 33–35 yrs for beautiful,
clean-hearted daughter, 33/5’2”, wheatish complexion,
Ivy League grad, MBA from top school. Seeking
match with successful, handsome Hindu
vegetarian boy, caste no bar.
SIKH parents invite correspondence from
MD/MBA/JD family-oriented candidates
for their caring, very fair, 29/5’4” dentist
daughter. New Jersey resident, innocent
divorcée, traditional with modern outlook.
“These ads all are looking for doctors,” Prem said, trying to ruffle the pages angrily.
“I am not saying you should marry them,” Beena said. “Just meet some girls, have some fun.”
“I hate this idea,” Prem said.
“Okay, fine, be alone,” Beena said, stuffing too much idli into her mouth.
Laughter erupted from Leena’s table at the same time that the heart wrenching song “Lambi Judai” (“Long Separation”) from Hero began, and Prem wondered how this restaurant had become a showcase for depressing song videos. They changed the topic of conversation to Isha Rao’s failed hunger strike, trying to ignore the disproportionate amount of fun the other table was having. Beena paid the bill, and Prem thanked her for the kind gesture and good food. As they got up to leave, he said, “You know, you really have some bad ideas,” but stuffed the pages into his pocket anyway.
Prem carried on his solitary existence on the phone at Beena’s. He had started to book other vendors, such as a lighting and AV company, a security firm, and a limousine service for airport pickups and drop-offs, though there were still no stars to pick up or drop off. By May, the snow, hardened and brown at the curbside, had melted, and it started to feel like a temperature he could withstand. June saw the arrival of AC units sticking out of King’s Court windows, and Prem wondered why Beena didn’t install one when she could afford it.
That same month, Gopal got engaged. He had met Radha at Sanjay Sapra’s daughter’s graduation party at Moghul Fine Indian Cuisine, the most celebrated and formal restaurant in town, where he noticed her across the room hovering around the paneer station, a giant orange flower tucked behind one ear. Her face had a dewy glow and her plump arms were threatening to bust free from her skin-tight sari blouse. Without speaking to her, he already couldn’t imagine his life without her. When he finally approached, he said, “You look like actual Radha. The one with cows.” She smiled shyly, and he admired her modest nature and chin dimple. She, in turn, liked his curly, tousled hair and was impressed by his incisive questions about American culture such as “Why is Jack short for John?” which demonstrated a delicious curiosity. It wasn’t long before the Singhs were hosting in their apartment a grand potluck engagement party for the couple, which quickly spilled out onto the lawn on a hot summer night. Prem stood around with his friends and watched the happy couple feeding each other coconut laddu, then boondi laddu and besan laddu. In that moment, with no one feeding him excessive laddu, Prem recognized how lonely and bored he had been these few months. He had taken to frequenting places where he thought he might see Leena—Drug Fair, Dairy Queen, the parking lot of the Mediplex building across from John F. Kennedy hospital where her gynecologist had her offices—but he never saw her this way. Only when he was least prepared for her presence did she appear, at Bradlees discount department store, at the post office, in the queue at Krauszer’s. Sometimes, he positioned himself just so on a doorstep where he could sit and peer into the Engineers’ store for a good long while.
That night, after the partygoers had dispersed and the apartment residents had gone to sleep, Prem took a peek at the matrimonial pages Beena had given him. It seemed ludicrous to consider responding to an ad when Leena was in the world, yet he found himself reading each one carefully and did not take long to select one:
BENGALI Hindu parents seek match for well-mannered physician’s assistant daughter, 35/5’1”, issueless divorce, somewhat dusky complexion, slight limp, with sound values.
It seemed the most desperate and least demanding of the lot, and he liked that there was no medical expertise expected of him. He called the contact number one morning when Beena was working a shift at Drug Fair, and the girl herself answered. Her name was Suchitra and couldn’t believe that someone responded to the ad.
“You don’t mind the dusky complexion, slight limp, and issueless divorce?” she said.
“I would like to meet you,” Prem said.
“Fantastic!” she said.
They arranged to meet at the Woodbridge Mall, which Prem knew Leena and most people from King’s Court did not frequent, and he enjoyed the half hour it took to bike there on that bright morning. Suchitra was standing outside in front of Alexander’s department store when he arrived, smiling and holding a yogurt container. She had on an Indian top with jeans and very elaborate gold earrings.
“Prem? This is for you,” she said, handing him the yogurt container. “It is rajma. Oh, why did I bring rajma? So stupid. Who brings rajma for a date? I just thought, you know, sometimes bachelors do not eat good food and they miss our Indian dishes, so I made it for you. But now you have to carry it around. I can take it back. Give it here.”
Prem was thrilled to meet someone who was more awkward than he was and pulled the yogurt container out of her reach. “Are you trying to steal my rajma?”
They had an easy, enjoyable morning together, strolling through the mall, grabbing a slice of pizza at Sbarro’s, stopping at Stern’s so she could buy a pair of sensible slacks. Prem carefully avoided A&S, where Gitanjali Vora worked, but other than that, he felt a refreshing ease he hadn’t felt in a long time. Suchitra was as warm-hearted as the ad had stated and chattered incessantly, which was always a good situation for Prem, who preferred listening over talking.
“So I started saying the temperature in Celsius again after my divorce, you know, because I thought I will probably go back to India anyway. I came for that stupid guy, so why stay in this Fahrenheit country? That was three years back. Mum and Dad live with me now, but we will see. Today is twenty-three, twenty-four degrees outside.”
Suchitra told him the story of her not-so-issueless divorce from a man who had openly cheated on her. He would call her dark and crippled and then order her to make him tea. He would berate her for having an unimpressive job, though he had lost his as a dental billing manager almost immediately after marriage. He had begun to drink during the day, and quickly his mental abuse had become physical. She called the police to have him removed from her life.
Prem’s eyes welled up as he heard her story. When she was done, he put the yogurt container on the floor and turned to face her. “Your skin color is dark and beautiful, the way you walk is cute, and your divorce was a horrible nightmare you survived. All of these qualities make you superb.”
Her eyes filled with tears too, and she smiled. “You know I cannot marry you, right?” she said.
“Of course not,” Prem said. “I work in a gas station.”
“No, no, that is not the reason. Because you are too young and too not Bengali. But let’s become friends, okay? Good. Settled. Now let’s go on the merry-go-round.”
That night, Prem made an entry in his ledger:
I went to Woodbridge Mall with someone named Suchitra. It was nice. It did not mean anything.
21
After Salman Khan burst shirtless onto the Hindi movie scene in 1989, nothing was quite the same. His debut as a leading man in Maine Pyar Kiya broke all box-office records, eschewing the standard revenge-justice-long-lost-twin-brother storylines for a simple love story. Romance was the central issue rather than a side distraction, and it was exactly what India—and Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Peru, plus Edison—wanted. It was the story of an innocent village girl and a worldly America-return boy from a prosperous family who fall for each other when she stays with his family as a houseguest. Their forbidden love, combined with exceptionally catchy songs—one a rip-off of the theme from Love Story, another a full-blown antakshari session, and still another sung to a pigeon—captured the hearts of millions.
It wasn’t so much that Salman Khan himself changed everything, but his movie signaled a shift in the Indian film zeitgeist. In the 1990s, movies would no longer be dominated by angry men doing angry things to get back at someone; instead, films about love, individual growth, and family relationships would predominate, often with heroines gaining (almost) equal billing with heroes. Aashiqui, Dil, and Deewana Mujh Sa Nahin followed Maine Pyar Kiya, heralding the dawn of a new, gentler Hindi movie that Prem had no trouble getting on board with.
After his date with Suchitra, Prem, embracing the romantic lifestyle espoused by these new movies, took out a new, slightly unwanted heroine each week. All summer long, he charmed and comforted them, making the women feel special, like a handsome, therapeutic escort, an anti-Lothario. By September, it was an open secret in Edison that Prem was the go-to guy if you wanted someone to entertain your old-maid cousin or divorced aunt. He started getting invitations from all corners of the town and the surrounding areas, and he gladly accepted them as they offered him some relief from his daily stress.
