An Indian Courtship
Once upon a time I was in love with an Indian man and lived with him and his family in Calcutta. He was a very sought after bachelor, got propositions from young ladies and their families all the time.
One particularly persistent one was a dancer who had two nieces in London. The girls had come to visit Calcutta in search for an appropriate husband, and their aunt was relentless in her pursuit for my boyfriend. She made it clear he could choose between either one of her nieces.
My boyfriend, I'll call him R, was furious. People constantly trying to fix him up drove him crazy. And he was worried all these approaches might offend me.
To the contrary.. Knowing that our relationship could not be threatened by anyone from the outside, I found it all rather amusing. Very culturally educational in fact.
One night at dinner time we got ambushed. As R kept refusing to meet them, the dancer just showed up to display her nieces. There we sat, R's whole family and I, over a cup of tea, this dancer enthusiastically pitching the girls - their education, sophistication, financial status, family pedigree...
It was like watching cinema unfold in our living room.
The girls did their best to be charming, tried to lure R into the conversation. He was just fuming, I could almost see smoke rising from his head.
Another person didn't leave it at fuming. R's grandmother had refused to come and meet our visitors at all, but as they didn't get the hint she took matters to her own hands, quite literally.
This little elderly lady walked into the room - everybody tried to touch her feet as is done to elders out of respect - and she refused them all. She came to me, took me by the hand and walked me to our dinner table.
We didn't speak a word of the same language but it wasn't needed. We sat by the table, she held my hand in hers and smiled at me. This little nonverbal gesture was the final word to that mating dance.
The way that dancer stared at me - if only looks could kill. This didn't fit into the equation at all - an unwed foreign woman staying with this highly respected, honorable family. And the grandmother choosing me... She didn't have a box for for me - well, in Calcutta there was no box I could fit into.
In brief, the text above says that life is a necklace of pearls - each pearl an experience. Whatever kinds of pearls you choose to gather, just make sure your necklace won't be too short.
Reading this made me relive this very special pearl of my necklace.
