#idoido

From when I was a young girl, marriage was a thing for fantasy. Life was all about how a prince charming rode on a white horse (which I am pretty much sure turned like charcoal by now with all this dust pollution!) and came to rescue his princess from the dreaded four wall room where she is living with pretty much all the facilities a human soul can be offered. Marriage was something celestial and a divine ritual. So, from my childhood, like any typical Bengali girl, I fantasized about being married, eagerly waiting for my prince charming, who, rather than riding on a white horse, will at least come on a rent-a-car white Toyota!

By the time, I was ready for marriage, my life went through a roller coaster of reality. My so-called fantasy Toyota white knight already got run over by a public bus called reality somewhere in Dhaka *sigh*. So, when I was told to choose a suitor, I thought “আল্লাহ যা করবে, ভালোর জন্যই করবে” (whatever God wills, will be well for me) and left this grand responsibility upon my mother’s capable hand, who is an expert in that field as my sisters, by the grace of Almighty, is leading a great married life. So, my mother did not waste a second and jumped right into her duty. It is safe to say that she was quite relieved that I finally agreed to get married as my age was leaping by a year every day after my graduation, I think. I don't blame her though, after my father's departure, she was in a very delicate place. Anyway, she did manage to dig out this guy whom I knew from a forgotten past and like bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, we got married.

I must say, unlike any Bengali girl, I did not have to go through a torturous process of choosing the suitor or the suitor choosing me. You got to be all “tall and tanning, young and lovely”, no matter how Godzilla type the husband be. The endless parade of question-answer session, catwalk, general knowledge, medical session, beauty session, kitchen session goes on and after a careful judgment under a microscope, she is rejected mercilessly because the nail of the pinkie of her left foot is slightly tilted for 35 degrees on the right side, bad omen! Exaggeration? Not at all! I have seen this happen in the real.

When I was in class 2-3, I had a lady tutor name Bobby, who was of a dark complexion and had 5 more sisters who were fair. I saw her dragged through numbers of proposals and get rejected because she is not the typical “fair & lovely” type. Fortunately, she got married during my final exams (fun fact: she left her younger sister, Moni madam as my tutor. Soon she also got married. Let’s just say our house was marriage blessed!). You can say that it was in an ancient time, but, honey boo-boo, it is still lurking at present. My own best friend faced such an awkward situation that I was almost certain that she will bang her head open if by any chance that proposal went any further. She faced such weird question which was really weirder than what Priyanka Chopra had on Met Gala this year. For example 1. Do you pray? Don't lie! (like how on earth she will lie about religion), 2. Do you know how to speak in English? (Uh, excuse me, do you think she passed her entire 4 years of studying B.A in English playing ludo star?! Read the bio attentively sir!) Well, my son could have talked in English if he was here (Mother, they took away my voice!), 3. What is your height? Taller than my daughter? Ma (to his daughter), go stand beside her. (and they literally measured her height with their daughter!), 4. My son is a software engineer, earns in the dollar also got his degree from Malaysia in Journalism. (I almost choked myself in tears that how brilliant this guy is and clapped in amazement but we discovered later that he is a freelancer, not an engineer. Disappointment!). etc. I can’t remember the rest because it was too much to take. Yes, such circus still goes on and there are some families which actually behaves as if they have come to purchase a cow for slaughter so they must judge carefully otherwise they might end up with an ox, bad investment!

Happy Monday, all! This week's Musical Monday post highlights another Best Musical loser among the four nominees from the 1967 Awards. Cabaret was the winner, and last week The Apple Tree received its due time on the blog. Now, we move on to one of those rarely-written two-person musicals. Here we go!