Primalsoup

The one who found me emotionally underqualified

Dadar station, behind the grill. Like every near-miss, framed but unfinished.

Image Credit

Yes, he aspired to be a singer.
Yes, which was a strange choice of profession for a good Indian boy.

But the real surprise was this: my parents were the ones who set me up with him.

I’d expected a steady stream of engineers and investment bankers (the hottest professions of my generation, before they went on to ruin the economy and everything else, basically). But to their credit, my parents understood me better than I did. They thought an artist husband might be what I needed.

I wasn’t so sure.

At the time, I was living in Bombay, sharing a one-room studio with two others. I’d run out of savings by the 10th of every month and had a weakness for overpriced Fabindia kurtas. Who was going to bring the bacon?
(Yes, I know. I’m not proud of myself.)

Still, Artist Boy piqued my curiosity.
I wasn’t an artist by any stretch, but I liked to imagine that if I hadn’t been misguided into studying economics, maybe I could have been.

At the time, I’d just declared I was going to follow in Amartya Sen’s footsteps, he’d won the Nobel, after all. Arundhati Roy had won the Booker too, but I discovered her late, already neck-deep in econometrics and regret.

We agreed to meet somewhere midway – where Mumbai’s Western and Central lines converge.
Chaotic, over-functioning, unapologetically loud Dadar.

I took a fast train from the western suburbs. He took a slow from the central line.
We met at Kamat’s, the kind of place where you don’t need to check the menu. He ordered filter coffee. I, in an act of reckless fusion-loving optimism, ordered a Spring Masala Dosa.

Already, we were not off to a good start.

We made small talk, monsoons, train betrayals, the emotional architecture of the Bombay commute.
He told me about his music. He was classically trained, but also into fusion. (Why is it always fusion?) He was building a career, which meant cultural festival gigs and uploading songs to YouTube, if his cousin had time to help edit.

He spoke softly, like someone used to explaining himself to skeptical relatives. He held his coffee with both hands. His fingers tapped out the rhythm of a raga I didn’t recognize. At one point, he said, “I think we live in a world that doesn’t let men feel much.”
It was the kind of line that could be either very deep or very manipulative, depending on the mood.

I smiled and nodded, curious – not so much about the music, but about his confidence. That boldness it takes to say: this is my voice, listen.
I don’t think I had that kind of clarity about anything.

When he asked what I did for fun, I told him, truthfully, that I wrote sad poems in my Hotmail drafts.
He laughed. Not unkindly. More like ah, this girl thinks she’s deep.
To be fair, I probably did.

Eventually, we made our way up to the bridge above Dadar station, him heading east to his home, me west to mine. It was rush hour, all elbows and urgency, and we stood still for just a second in that strange in-between space — between trains, between decisions — before we shook hands.
Not a hug. Not a see-you-later. Just a handshake.

“All the best,” he said.

I smiled. I already knew.
This wasn’t going to be our meet-cute.
Just another story with a clear ending and no twist. Which, in hindsight, was probably for the best.

A few days later, my parents called.
He didn’t want to take it forward. He said we weren’t well matched, that maybe I didn’t really understand the soul of an artist.

It didn’t devastate me. But any rejection stings.
There’s something quietly humiliating about being told you’re emotionally underqualified for someone else’s imagined depth.

I did the adult thing: opened my secret Tumblr account and posted some free verse about storms and silences.
Then got distracted by gifs from a Pakistani TV soap I secretly hate-watched.

Years later, I looked him up on LinkedIn.
(Not to see if he’d made it big, just to assess his current level of LinkedIn insufferability. It always helps me slot people into one of two categories: the long book of tiny regrets, or the slightly smug binder of blessings titled The Bullet I Dodged.)

Turns out, he’s still at his corporate job.
The artist soul seems to have been… quietly archived.

Which, oddly enough, left me a little let down.

Because in spite of everything: the awkward dosa, the polite laugh at my poems, the soft rejection, I think I kind of rooted for him.
I fully expected him to show up on Indian Idol, and I was prepared to vote for his rival out of spite.
(I can be generous and petty simultaneously. I contain multitudes.)

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This is part of How I Did Not Meet Your Father, a recurring series in which I mine my non-existent love life for content , gently, and with context.