Of rooftops and marriages...

[P.S: This is an over-dramatized version of a real life incident, most of the things have been blown out of proportion, please take the details here with a pinch (or better yet a packet of) salt.]

In a time when (almost) everywhere everyone has a girlfriend(s), last weekend I was the firsthand witness of a unique and perhaps dying tradition. The 'chad dekhano'(literal translation 'roof viewing') incident where, in an arranged marriage, the guy and the girl talks to each other personally and finally decide if they want to be hitched (or screwed depending on your POV) for life.

It started like this, I was in my friend's house, the lady and her family were there. My friend had passed through all the filters; parents approval, her best friends approval, her grocer's, her maid's, her security guard's, her Rini Masi's and all other important peoples' approvals. Even the astrologer had confirmed that there was no fault in their stars.
So my friend flew in the day before. They had talked, they had skyped, the initial reactions were positive, but there was a catch, they have never met in real life.

The stage was set, both families are there, every one is fake laughing, every one is trying to impress everyone else. Her father, an angry old man with strong views on everything, was sitting in the sofa; her mother, a softspoken lady, was interviewing my friend.
I was eagerly waiting in the kitchen for my friend to come in and tell what's it going to be.

In walks my friend, sweating.

"What's wrong?"

" Re, I can't even look at her."

Sighing and thinking if he can't look into her face, what's he gonna do after marriage.

"What's the problem?"

"Every time I look at her, her father stares at me with big eyes."

" Wow, that's odd"

"Yeah, it is not like I am hitting on her, I am supposed to marry her. And I am not confirming any thing until I see her properly."

We were banging our naive heads, trying to figure out a way of getting her away from her parents.
If we go there and ask her to come alone, we felt that her father would kill us. We were figuring out how to ask someone senior to do this on our behalf. When his mother comes in.

That's the thing with mothers, they sense all the little things around them. It is as if the force is with them. Each one is a stalwart in family affairs and I somehow feel that they are way more sensitive in these than the fathers; I don't know what it is with the guys they always seem to find a common area of interest, if they are younger then girls or cars or games and if they are at the age of our fathers then they enjoy sitting together and cursing the shit out of their jobs.

So while the fathers were busy talking, she had noticed that her son was missing in action, and came searching for him.

Hearing our problem. She took him to the room and said
"Why don't you show this beautiful lady our roof?"

There are some dying cactus and bird droppings in the roof, but still at least they will have some privacy.

The girl asked her parents "Why don't you come with us"

What the hell is she doing, is she deliberately trying to be the spoilsport!
Her father was just starting to get up, my friend was starting to sweat, not again not her father.

But again swoops in another mother with response time rivalling that of our Yuvi,
"No beta, at this age we can't climb up all those stairs. You two go."
And this is from a lady who had completed a South India trip the week before.

Moms are clever!

Catching the blunt hint, her father sat down. They went, to the roof; I sat there in the kitchen, waiting for him.

Finally he comes down, walks slowly in the kitchen, gives a blush which puts our hybrid tomatoes to shame and nods YES!!