Primalsoup

Five emails and a wedding invitation (to someone else)

But at least we’ll always have the Pilot pens.

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My family was full of wannabe economists who thought they understood currency markets. So when the proposal came for a boy in Japan, they got out their calculators.

“500,000 yen per month!” someone announced, after aggressive Googling. “Isn’t the yen like, basically a paisa?” my cousin speculated, confidently wrong. “How much in rupees?” “3 lakhs!” Nobody googled Tokyo rent prices.

The boy worked in Osaka, but my family rounded it off to Tokyo because precision was for other people. When I protested that I wanted to live by the sea – morning walks on Marina Beach, idli at the Elliot’s Beach stalls, maybe even Worli Sea Face at a stretch – Amma reassured me: “Don’t worry, Japan has seas and tsunamis galore.”

My father, who’d respected Japanese work ethic ever since reading about Hiroshima’s reconstruction, added his wisdom: “Work ethic, kannama. That’s what matters. Not geography.”

I said yes because I’d loved Pilot pens since school and this felt like destiny.

We met at his uncle’s 60th birthday party – the uncle who’d married mom’s best friend and started this whole thing. Progressive families don’t pressure you obviously. They just arrange casual meetings at family functions where everyone pretends you’re not being evaluated for marriage.

We spoke for exactly five minutes. The topic: how insane our families were.

Then came the emails. Five total. Him: Nice meeting you. Me: You too. (We were poets, clearly.) Him: [Something about work] Me: [Something about weather] (Soulmates in mediocrity.) Him: I’m getting married next month. You’re invited!

My mother attended the wedding. She came back with two observations:

1.     The catering was absolutely top-class

2.     Thank god we didn’t have to afford that caterer

And that’s how I didn’t meet your father, Tokyo edition. Turns out all that currency calculation was pointless. The only math that mattered was: 5 minutes + 5 emails = 1 wedding invitation.

To someone else.

All the exchange rates in the world couldn’t convert to actual compatibility.

But at least we’ll always have the Pilot pens.

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.