I love you, Maria(?)

When I switched on the Yahoo Messenger, Maria was on line. A pleasant shiver of thrill ran over my body. “Hi…” came the message. I was getting in touch with Maria again after a gap of three long days- 3 precious days of communication with her lost due to a snag in my computer.

 “Hi! How are you? Did you miss me?” -  I typed.

“Yea, of course. Why did you abscond without a notice? Did you elope with yr GF (Girl Friend)?”

I typed out the reason. Since the matter of  GF came up, I thought of baring my long felt frustration on the matter to Maria.

“Dear Maria, This is an uneasy confession. You will be surprised. I feel extremely shy in moving with girls. Somehow I am just not comfortable or confident enough to move with them. I am not perhaps endowed with the gift of wooing the opposite sex. Surprisingly, no girl ever comes to move with me freely! They simply seem to reflect my nature! While some of my friends who have no particular merit, either in looks or in brilliance seem to be quite comfortable and even capable of playing hide and seek with more than one girl friend, I am simply left to running around with guys!”

I was very eager to know Maria’s reaction. It came. “LOL! If what you say is really true, it is so sweet to know of it. How lucky your would-be partner be! A man’s shoulders unblemished by the embrace of any woman; A man’s heart unpolluted by the intrusion of a woman! So pure! “

My heart jumped up. ‘Does it mean Maria perhaps thinks that she would be lucky if she happens to marry me? Is it going to be a reality, at last, that I will also be successful in getting married to a girl from abroad, as it has been the trend in our family?’

The trend started right from Grandpa’s period. My grandpa, a Tamil employed in a Merchant Ship those days married a Gujarati Girl whose family was in England. But his marriage was not accepted by the family and he ran back to the country to marry  a girl distantly related to him! My father who was in Indian Foreign Service married a French woman; The marriage broke up and he settled for my mother who was from the same caste of ours. My elder brother married a Japanese two years ago and he is well settled in Nagoya.

And I am here, not gifted with good academic record, and consequently not employed with any fat salary to boast off, not endowed with a prowess of wooing local girls, searching desperately for some way, some magical way, to get hooked to a foreign girl; a shortcut to settling at abroad and to keep up the family pride of getting married to a foreigner!

I have no doubt that I have fallen head over heels in love with Maria. It is obvious because my mind refuses to heed to logic; It refuses to accept dark possibilities: Miss Maria Benson of Cincinnati, USA, need not be a female at all; need not be a young Technical Executive aged twenty four working in the machine tool firm at Cincinnati as she claims herself to be; need not be the only daughter of a filthy rich billionaire as she had hinted to be; need not be in USA at all. In the worst case scenario, Maria could be the pen-name (rather mouse-name?) of the Computer Savvy Old Man next doors, who spends most of the day glued to his computer gifted by his NRI son!

‘When it comes to the matter of sound judgment about relationships,  go by your heart rather than your intellect’ – this is what I have heard. This is what I am inclined to follow.

But the intellect does tend to analyze facts to find support for the heart’s yearnings.

How did I come across Maria? 6 months ago, when I was logged into my Orkut account, I was going through various Orkut communities; I was a member of “I love Backstreet Boys” community. To share my dream, I joined another community “I love to live in USA” (!).

By a strange coincidence, I saw a member by Name Maria appearing in both the communities. There was a cute looking photo of a blond girl of about 8 years old appearing in the home-page picture of Maria. I sent a ‘scrap’ to her; she responded; we were regularly exchanging notes. Fortunately, my English is quite good; I am capable of writing a couple of lines of poetry-like ramblings, with which I could impress her. Soon we started chatting through Yahoo messenger; It became addictively regular.

I had posted my latest photo already in my Home page of Orkut. So Maria knows how I look (and I must say with some modesty that I do look quite smart in it!).  But, Maria? If I extrapolate her looks from her 8-year-old girl’s photo, she definitely stands on a good footing. But how does she look NOW? After a couple of persuasive and impressive dialogs while chatting, I somehow judiciously managed to convey my true intent, though not blatantly, and I requested for her photo.

The next day, a photo appeared in her Album at Orkut. But she was very mischievous. It was a only a group photo. There were 4 girls and 4 boys together; 4 boys hugging shoulder to shoulder standing and 4 girls shoulder to shoulder sitting. It looked to be a photo taken on a trekking trip. All looked very cheerful and naughty. I looked eagerly at the girls. Two of them were blonds and two, brunettes. I was very curious to look for matching features of the 8-year old Maria (that I was familiar with) with the two blond girls, but I was not too sure. Nevertheless, both the girls looked reasonably cute and attractive. The boys were wearing T-shirts with a picture of Pink Triangle in the chest. Two of them were blacks, and the other two were whites.

Maria’s message was naughty. “My Dear Shyam, find out who is me in the photo and I will be yours! Promise!”  My heart started pounding! Yes! She has read my heart! She too likes me! She just wants to tease me for a while!

I enlarged the pictures of the 4 girls and started intently comparing each of them with the 8-year-old Maria’s photo. I spend hours in comparing nose to nose, eyes to eyes and so on. It was baffling. I could not confidently come to a conclusion. Actually, none of them seemed to compare reasonably well with the little Maria. After lot of deliberations, I finally decided to send the message:

“Dear Maria, I have a strong doubt; either your 8-year-old photo is a fake; or none of the girls in the photo is you. Correct me if I am wrong!”

“Oh, I love you Shyam! You are so brilliant! You are right! The 8-year old girl is actually my twin-sister; We lost her in a gruesome road accident 16 years ago. In fond memory of her, I had kept her photo in my home page. Strange it may seem, though she is my twin sister, our looks are not too similar. Well! My offer is still open to you; Find out who I am in the group photo and I will be yours. Love, Maria…”

If looks are not too similar, it means I am back to selecting one out of the four girls! Which one? I was frantic. I was getting mad. I did not want to miss my greatest opportunity in my life. I tried by writing to her in so many ways, begging, cajoling, teasing – but she was unrelenting. “Find me, and I am yours” was her rhetoric.

One night as I was sleeping restlessly pondering over the matter, a sudden idea flashed! Could it be that one of the boys is actually Maria, purposely hiding with a disguise of a boy?

I immediately got up, switched on the computer at midnight and started looking at the boys in the photo! But there were tell tale features that confirmed that all were only boys! Except that the shape of the chin and the lips of  one of the boys somewhat had a similarity with the 8-year old Maria’s sister’s photo, the boy, extremely tall and well built,  had a growth of thick hair at his chest and hands and his strong cheek bones and athletic chest showed that he was a male, hundred percent! I felt dejected.

Out of frustration I sent a message to Maria. “Are the boys to be taken into account?”

“ha…ha…haa!  Why not !!!!!!”  was the message. I was not in a mood to laugh with Maria. She is teasing me for sure. Perhaps, she has really no interest in me. She has no intention what so ever to marry the Dirty Indian Boy, who has no skill to woo young girls!

I decided to play the role of a dumb. Let me keep away from communicating with Maria for a while. If she has any interest in me, she will definitely stop playing pranks and come around. I stopped responding to her e-mails; I stopped chatting with her. This went on for about 2 weeks. I could now observe a change of tone in her one-sided e-mails. “Are you angry with me? …. Have I teased you too much? ….Do you want me to say sorry?...I think you feel, whether it is India or USA, the girls are alike; they are hopeless, Right?”

I thought it is now the appropriate time to resume communication with her. As I was pondering how to beautifully phrase a verse with which I can bowl over her, there was an e-mail: “Dear Shyam! I am really sorry for teasing you so much. Your wait is over; The suspense is going to end. I am coming to India – to Bangalore; My company is sending me there as a rep to participate in IMTEX machine tool exhibition. Will you come and meet me there?”

I was excited! I felt like flying. But, there an irresistible urge in me that wanted to make her long after me! I mailed “Oh, Maria! At last you have understood; Yes. I felt hurt; I thought if you had really loved me, you would not have insisted in my finding who you are in the group photo. If I were you, I would be bold enough to send my photo straight away and reveal my identity. Any way, I am glad that you are coming. I f you can come down to Chennai and meet me, I will be yours!!”

I am waiting at the reception lounge of Hotel Taj Coromandel. I am nervous. Even in the air-conditioned atmosphere, I feel sweating. I have come half an hour earlier to the scheduled meeting time with Maria, who had consented to come and meet me at Chennai. I am virtually staring at every white woman passing the reception area.

“Hi Shyam…” a shrill male voice calls out; I jump up and turn back. There he is, standing, very tall, well built, with a T-shirt showing a pink Triangle – undoubtedly the person whom I had seen in the photo, the one whose lips and chin looked like Maria’s younger-sister!

As I stand there mouth agape, frantically searching for words, he continues: “Hey! I know you will come. I know, you will not disappoint me…”. He comes close and hugs me. I do not expect the hug; It is strange; it is uncomfortable; it is different – more like a passionate embrace and less of a hug. I am at his chest height and he bends down and whispers at my ears, “Darling; the moment you sent the message that you are not comfortable with girls, I understood; I understood. I knew this is what we are destined for…!” My throat becomes dry; My heart starts pounding. Oh God! Oh God! What an idiot I have been! I should have guessed; That pink triangle! I want to shout, ‘Help, help’. I want to untangle from him and run away. Hello, Can anybody help?

-=o0o=-

(CVRajan)