One Offbeat Matrimonial Date

Whenever people use to talk with their old friends after a long time, they usually would inquire about their common friends. A couple of year’s back I was chatting with one of my college friends over the phone. When he asked me about Ashish, I was a bit confused, as I knew 2-3 Ashish's that time. It took me a while to realize that he was actually talking about G. Well, almost everyone of us used to call him G and even now a day’s also many of our friends prefer to call him with the same title, which was awarded to him during our college days. There could be hundreds of reasons why Ashish truly deserved his G tag name. About an year back I called him over the phone and casually greeted him as Gandu. Ashish got little sentimental and said "what dude? You guys still call me G. Now we are quite matured enough and we both have already become fathers, as well."

I think after that day I never called him G, even though his tag name immediately comes to my mind, whenever I meet him or whenever any other friend inquire about him.

There was a time when Ashish’s father wanted him to get married, but he wasn't prepared for the damage yet. His parents were settled out at Guwahati that time and they somehow managed to send him few Bangalore based profiles. Now it was entirely Ashish's responsibility how he could have proceeded further with those profiles. After a couple of fruitless attempts he got little pissed off. One day his father sent him one more profile, but the selection criteria was little different.  It seemed before Ashish could have directly met the girl, her father wanted to do a face to face first round with him. Ashish was not very much pleased with that and said to his father "no Papa, I don't think I would be able to meet him. These days I am not getting much time, as there’s too much of work pressure. I have to work even during the weekends."

His father replied "Aree Beta, Ek baar mil lo. Just meet him once, he is a good man"

Ashish replied "what Papa? what I would do meeting him? It would be better if I could directly meet the girl"

His father replied "things are not that simple, when you would grow up beta?"

Even though Ashish wasn't very happy, still he agreed to meet that person, but only nearby his office and that too during lunch time, in a working day. That day Ashish was really busy, as his project was at some critical stage and on top of that, he even received several phone calls from that uncle. It seemed the poor man was totally confused with the office address. Somehow the uncle arrived near his office and Ashish went out to meet him. It was already 2:30 PM and Ashish was damn hungry. He decided to take the uncle to a nearby restaurant. Ashish actually belongs to a vegetarian family, although it's a different matter that there are in fact, very few non vegetarian foods which Ashish didn’t try it out.  He was so hungry and without thinking much he went to a nearby Briyani House, along with that uncle. 

Uncle looked little uncomfortable with the mesmerizing smell of the chicken briyani out there. He asked Ashish "so, you consume non-veg food?" Ashish said yes and ordered one chicken briyani for himself and one vegetable briyani for him. Later, Ashish noticed that the man kept starring at him, while he struggled to finish every possible flesh of the large chicken piece. While having food, it seemed the uncle wanted to grasp some basic information out of Ashish. he casually asked "cigarette to pite hi hoge? You must have some smoking habit?"

Ashish replied "yes, I do have"

Uncle asked "so, how many cigarettes you use to smoke per day?"

Ashish replied "usually 10 cigarettes but a little more whenever I use to drink"

The uncle replied "Acha, daru bhi pete ho? Roj pite ho?  Wow! You have boozing habit too? So, do you drink daily?"

Ashish replied "usually in the weekends"

Uncle "that means Saturdays and Sundays"

Ashish replied "after so much of hard work, our weekend starts Friday night itself"

After their meal, they came out of the restaurant and the uncle looked little shy. He said to Ashish that it was nice meeting him and he would like to leave, as he had to go somewhere else. After he left, Ashish lighted a cigarette and later got busy with his work.