Kishore Singh: Will she, won't she?

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Some time last year when my niece in Jaipur "" perhaps after a particularly bad day at work, or a run-in with the boss "" let it be known to the family that she would like to get married, and the sooner the better, a host of meetings with potential suitors were lined up for her. Many of them took place unchaperoned at a coffee lounge close to home, where the staff must have wondered at her ability to string along so many men as she arrived every week with someone different in tow because, having worked off her huff, she seemed to get choosier with each blind date. She found the young lads who landed up to be unprepossessing, possessive or lacking in personality. "Really," she complained, "where are all the decent men in this country?"

It came to a point where she could go out nowhere without the risk of running into someone she'd had coffee with. At the neighbourhood grocery she chanced upon "the chipkoo who wouldn't stop talking"; the marketplace teemed with her rejects; she had to duck for cover close to her office to escape wannabes who wanted "another cup of coffee".

Having decided that she'd have to wait for a signal from heaven to end her bachelor spell, she got back to work with a vengeance. She may not yet have spotted husband material, but she could bully a client all right, and once she'd set her sights on me, there was no escaping her. I pleaded I had no more money to invest in savings, pensions plans or deposits whenever she'd courier ominous-looking forms to sign, to which she'd turn a deaf ear with the adjunct: "It'll help me with my salary appraisal and you in your old age."

I had just filled out one of these forms and signed a not inconsiderable cheque, when my mother called to say we must prepare for an emergency engagement, with wedding bells to ring soon after. Immediately the family was on conference call. "You mustn't have the wedding during my pre-board exams," pleaded my daughter. "If you do," said my sister, "I won't be able to come either" "" both her sons are doing their boards this session.

Dates, venues and menus were planned with a fierce intensity, all conversation, dissent and agreements strangely eliminating my brother and sister-in-law whose responsibility, of course, all of it would be. My sister went off on a shopping binge, my daughter wanted to order a new lehnga, I checked out the calendar for possible leave from office, my wife had her hair straightened, my brother agreed to arrange the transportation to and from Jaipur.

Through all this, I did not forget the cheque I ought to have mailed had my mother not rung at the opportune moment, and wondered now at the possibility of refraining from sending it altogether, since it would no longer affect my niece's fortunes. Accordingly, I called her but she was adamant I should courier it forthwith. "But if you get married and move away," I said, "it will make no difference to you, and I'd really rather spend my money than save it." "Married?" screeched my niece, "Me?"

"Well, isn't she?" snorted my wife, appearing miffed that all her excitement seemed to be over nothing after all. "A meeting has been arranged, both families seem keen, but naturally, nothing's decided yet," I nodded to her, "because my niece and the young man haven't even met yet." "I guess I'd better not order my lehnga then," said my daughter practically. "I wish I knew whether she was, or wasn't, getting married," I agreed, "so that I could tell my niece whether I was, or wasn't, mailing her office a cheque anytime soon."