'Morning Nats,' I volunteered, cheerily, but with some trepidation, as I rang her doorbell
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Natasha aka Nats, my young neighbour with the red streaks in her hair, was back in Mumbai after a longish sojourn; her grimace was deep seated.
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I could judge her mood by the music that permeated through the wall—when Nats was happy she cranked it up with Metallica, when she was angry, it was Eminem, but when she was angsty, or full of aggression it was death metal—this morning it was death metal.
“Morning Nats,” I volunteered, cheerily, but with some trepidation, as I rang her doorbell.
“Hey uhm… uh hi… uncle… sorry Rahul uncle... (eye roll)… sorry… uhm Mr daCunha… apologies, I’m not a morning person like you, uncle.”
“Why not just call me Rahul,” I suggested.
“My parents don’t like us to call older peeps by their first name, my mom would threaten me with, ‘Tameez naal gal varna chaped payegi tennu!’ So how do I address you… oh respected retrosexual?” (Eye roll)
“I leave it to you, Natasha,” I suggested warily.
“Duh dude… you’re the coolest middle-aged man I know… think ‘Rahul bruh’ sums you up,” she stated. “Want me to turn down the volume?”
“No, it’s ‘awes’,” I said, eliciting a mini smile that momentarily replaced her aforementioned grimace.
As she extended her arm to accept an Espresso, I noticed that she had ‘mehendi’ extending from her palm, merging with the tattoos that adorned her forearm leading to her shoulder.
“Nice… your mehendi merging with your ‘tats’, cool… you were at a wedding, I’m guessing?”
“My sister’s ‘roka’ ceremony in Hoshiarpur,” she said, darkly.
“Arranged... ?” I asked.
“Yes, sort of… Shaadi.com types,” she answered.
“That’s a marriage site, where two single people can find each other, right?”
“Not in Hoshiarpur… over there, relatives on both sides find suitable ‘matches’ and then it moves forward [eye roll]. In this case, my aunts were deputed by my dad to find my sister Namrata a spouse.”
“She couldn’t find her own man?”
“Namrata would have had guys lining up, if she lived here, Rahul bruh! But in Hoshiarpur …no way (eye roll). She’s a serious software nerd, she’s the brains and the beauty in the family… she is my poster girl, my party girl, my paver of the way of all things. I begged her to come to Mumbai, stay with me, after she finished her studies in Delhi. Every possible corporate would have been lucky to have picked her up, she’s a Kamala Harris type without the aggro and all the ambition. I hoped she would fly out of here, out of the clutches of parental pressure, instead she’s marrying at 24… grrrrrr!”
“So uhm your generation… millennials, uhm, don’t approve of marriage?”
“No bruh Rahul… nothing like that… marriage is great, but I won’t take shit… got it?”
“You don’t seem happy Nats,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“But she’s your only sister.”
“I want her to marry, but not now. There’s a time for that! For starters, she wants to keep her surname, their side is adamant that she changes it … dude, she’s been Namrata Sood for 24 years…why change now, plus it’s a pain, changing the name in your Aadhaar card, passport, bank particulars… all her documents! She should be Namrata Sood or max, Namrata Sood-Gupta. Instead soon she’ll be Mrs Samrat Gupta, taking the guys name.”
(Eye roll)
“What are you really pissed off about, Nats?”
“She didn’t want to leave my parents alone, that’s why she stayed back in Hoshiarpur… and now they’ve left her to the mercy of a new home!”
Nats paused for breath.
“So when you marry how do you see this whole name thing working out, Natasha?”
“Rahul bruh, I believe firmly in the concept of IKMNYKY….!”
“Uhm wanna tell me what that acronym stands for?”
“I Keep My Name You Keep Yours!” she concluded.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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