Book 4: Misguided Masala Matchmaker
Love at first sight is a myth. Easily explained by the sciences of physiology and psychology. First the adrenal glands, ovaries or testes produce testosterone that drive arousal, and then the brain produces dopamine and endorphins, giving your brain a rush of pleasure. There is no cosmic plan, no god or gods purposefully interfering in your life. That’s your conscience trash-talking and inflating its—your—importance. Your subconscious is directed by chemically laid-down memories in your hippocampus, creating a false causal relationship co-driven by hormones, which embarrassingly often kick our brain’s logic center out of the driver seat.
You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all been there, boys and girls.
***
“Do you think you’ll hang out your shingle for matchmaking for real?” Rani’s cousin Ridhi asked.
“Ooooh, are you interested?” Prisha teased her twin.
Rani paused, the chana she’d just scooped up with a hunk of naan tumbled out, splattering a little. Rani did a quick check and sighed in relief—no stain on what still felt like her sister, Shanti’s couch. Excitement swirled in her belly, and she rose up a little and leaned closer to Ridhi. “Are you interested in finding a match?” Rani was nearly giddy at her cousin’s change of heart.
Her phone buzzed with a message, but since she wasn’t on call this weekend for the her new job as head of Durga Ladder’s counseling program, Rani ignored it.
Ridhi shrugged staring instead at other family members eating and chatting in small groups in the great room. Rani saw her sisters, Asha and Shanti, sitting across the room with their husbands. Shanti’s husband Rakesh cradled baby Anshi in the crook of one arm, but his other arm was wrapped around Shanti, pulling her into his body as if he couldn’t stand any distance between them. Shanti looked relaxed. She played with her husband’s longish hair, a soft smile on her face, while she and Asha chatted. Occasionally, she would break off some naan, scoop up a little saag and chicken masala from her plate and feed Rake. Rake playfully nipped at her fingers.
Her sister Asha’s husband Dhruv sprawled on the couch next to Shanti and Rake, balancing a plate of food on one muscled thigh, while one of his large hands molded around his wife Asha’s growing baby bump. She smiled up at him, her eyes shining, and she tucked her bare feet under his butt.
“Maybe,” Ridhi said in a low voice. “If you could find me something like what Shanti and Asha have.”
Rani had never heard that kind of hollowness and longing in Ridhi’s tone. Ridhi had always oozed confidence and determination. She was the leader for the younger cousins, and Prisha—her younger fraternal twin—her adoring sidekick.
“Don’t you want to finish residency first?” Prisha demanded.
“Lots of people have relationships during residency,” Rani said, her excitement growing. “As I’ve been writing my dissertation and book, I’ve been refining my partner search parameters, and my questions. They are more steeped in science now. More focused.”
This she could do for her family. Find them love. Happiness. She’d stop being the screw up.
“Our mom is talking to the matchmaker, Mrs. Bukar. She has an appointment with her the night before Roham and Solei’s sangeet,” Ridhi said. “I’d like to fall in love more organically like Rohan and Solei did, but I just don’t have any time to focus on that. You helped Ro find Solei.”
All three of them looked at Rohan and Solei, who despite the chill in the clear December day, stood outside in one corner of the deck, angled so that Rani, feeling a bit like a voyeur, could see both of their expressions. Prisha leaned up, nearly on Rani’s lap, to see better. Rani quickly rescued her plate.
Rohan stood behind Solei, his arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on the crook of her shoulder. Every line of their body whispered contentment and intimacy. Solei’s golden hair streamed around them in the breeze, and she laughed, trying to gather it and keep it out of their faces.
Prisha sighed, and Solei turned around in Rohan’s arms and tilted her head back to look up at him. Her eyes sparkled green in the golden light of the late afternoon. Rohan pressed his forehead against Solei’s and any tension that had remained from his busy schedule, and the stress of the upcoming wedding with over five hundred guests, dissipated from his shoulders.
Solei and Rohan breathed each other in, clearly relishing the moment alone.
Prisha sighed. “I’m tired of dating randos,” she admitted. “I pretend it’s fun, but I feel like now each meet-up takes a piece of my soul.”
She stared moodily at Rohan and Solei, who now faced each other, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes as if they were totally alone, unwatched.
“I never…” Ridhi paused and then seemed to make an effort to break the hold the romantic scene had on her. “I never thought Rohan would fall for anyone and be besotted like that. And Shanti and Rake—never. All of them were always so smart, strong, independent. They were so confident and didn’t need anyone.”
“And Dhruv and Asha? No one ever saw that coming,” Priya said. “Except you, Rani.”
“Ahhhhhh…I…,” she broke off unnerved by the vote of confidence stamped on her younger cousin’s faces.
“You found Rohan, Shanti and Asha bone, deep soul love,” Ridhi said. “And I want that. You transformed their lives. Rohan and your sisters are stronger, better, happier, more at peace versions of themselves.”
“They got married,” Rani was beyond dismayed, and yet, she had been insisting all year that she brought the science to her siblings’ and beloved cousin’s matches. “They’re not founding a new civilization on an undiscovered planet.”
“I’m going into family medicine—well we are.” Prisha smiled and nudged her sister. “Because we want to open a clinic in a smaller, underserved area, but we want to have lives beyond work. Families. Hobbies. Asha was lucky to get pregnant so quickly at thirty-seven with Dhruv, even if it was an oops, but I don’t want to rely on luck, and I don’t want to have to lower my standards because I wait too long,” she uttered the last center in a whisper.
Rani battled the urge to pinch her cousin. The celebrated matchmaker Mrs. Bukar had chided Asha and her family for leaving it too long. But thank all the gods Asha had waited otherwise she never would have been reunited with Dhruv.
“Five of our classmates have taken the arranged marriage route, and it saved time and hassle and seems to be working out,” Ridhi said.
“Wait, you both aren’t giving your mom the green light with Mrs. Bukar?” Rani demanded.
“It can’t hurt,” Ridhi said. Priya nodded, and it felt like a betrayal.
“No, no, no. I can match you. I can find your perfect partner,” Rani vowed “but…..”
“No qualifiers,” Ridhi said, just as the three of them saw Rohan and Solei, whom he was marrying in about a week, smile at each other and mouth “I love you.” At the same time.
Ridhi and Priya both sighed, and Rani saw her assistant Sparkle and producer Gemma look at each other and try to win the ‘who has the most juvenile eye roll’ game. recklessly.
“I want love. Deep, spiritual, bone-deep love.” Ridhi asserted.
“Yeah,” Prisha sighed dreamily. “I want that too, Rani.”
Rani felt a frisson of alarm. She had science and experience now and a database of answered questionnaires, but not a magic wand.
“I want love at first sight like Rohan and Solei,” Ridhi added stubbornly.
“Ahhhh, didn’t you just listen to my last podcast? Love at first sight is not a real thing.” Rani’s indignant alarm launched her off the couch. “It doesn’t exist.”
“Ha! That is not what you said last March, less than a year ago, Doctor,” Rohan said, opening up the sliding glass door and bringing Solei with him.
“I’m not a doctor yet.” Rani stuck her tongue out at Rohan. “Don’t jinx me.”
“So you believe in jinxes but not love at first sight?” Solei teased.
“Love at first sight does not exist,” she said gravely. “Is any of my family would listen to my podcast…”
“Oh we listened,” Rohan scoffed. “But less than a year ago you sat around the fire pit at Uncle and Auntie’s house last March, nursing a whiskey and threatening to puke on a cigar while you vociferously argued the existence of true love, trashing my original hypothesis that true love was merely a rush of happy human hormones.”
“Is that a medical term?” Dhruv teased.
“Just saying that now that Rani is about to finish her dissertation….”
At least he didn’t say ‘finally.’
“You’re getting all ‘believe the science’ on us?”
“My thinking has evolved,” she explained. “With research, and data analysis and….”
“You made a passionate for soulmates that night.” Rohan stated and smiled in a gotcha way and took another bite of the satay. “I was the cynic.”
“I just take a more scientific approach to love and partnerships now,” Rani said her palms out, as she pleaded her case. “I was more impulsive then. Slapdash in my approach.”
“Ready, fire, aim,” Ridhi reminisced.
“It was less than a year ago,” Rohan reminded her. “Not a decade. And in less than a year, with your constant interference, Asha, Shanti and I have all found our life partners.”
“You always claimed I had nothing to do with it—that it was all because I kept messing up,” she reminded him hotly. She was not the only one who’d had a change of world view.
“You definitely had a hand.” Rohan laughed. “I’m just not sure what magic you worked. Maybe we need another round—more test subjects?” Rohan raised his perfect eyebrows and waved a pad-thai-noodle-wrapped fork at his five single cousins. “Maybe another control group, for research purposes.” He smirked. “The Misguided Masala Matchmaker can take on Mrs Bukar. Science versus magic.”
“I hardly think Mrs. Bukar would classify her services and excellent reputation on magic,” Rani said, still the challenge had quickened her blood.
“Fine,” Rohan allowed. “West meets East. Rani’s more scholarly approach to matchmaking versus Mrs. Bukar’s traditional methods with a dash of magic.”
“Magic?” Solei clarified.
“C’mon, she read my Mount of Venus in front of everybody, and I felt like I was naked and demoing a lap dance.” Rohan reminded to much laughter and more than a few thrown napkins.
The text buzzed in again, but she ignored it.
“Who’s in? Who will work with Rani?”
Ridhi and Priya jumped to their feet.
Rohan’s shock was comical. “Wait, seriously?”
Rani laughed. Hardly anyone ever called Rohan’s bluffs. “Serves you right.”
“Me?” He continued to eat. “You’re the one who’s going to be putting in overtime before my wedding.”
“Ajooni and Padmalaya, you will be working with Mrs. Bukar.” Rohan commandeered.
“You can’t decide that,” Rani complained. I can find them a match.”
“We want soul mates,” Ajooni said, and she and Prisha looked rather pleased to be assigned to Mrs. Bukar—if she agreed to take her two younger cousins on. They were way too young in her view, but they were already in medical school, and she had already been informed many times at the Hindu Center, that she was leaving it a little late, though she wasn’t yet thirty.
“It’s just a friendly competition, Rani,” Ajooni reassured. “Our mom already hired Mrs. Bukar. We will meet with her during Rohan and Solei’s wedding.
“Wait, why?” It was a slap of betrayal. “I matched Rohan, Shanti, and Asha. Uncle and Auntie should…”
“You know them, Rani,” Prisha said. “They want the top shelf.”
I could be the top.
The doubt she’d been experienced was washed away by a burst of optimistic determination. She just had to build her brand—and she had been. Podcast, book deal, party game, dissertation next month. Finding two more love matches for her prominent, extended family would build her budding matchmaker business in Charlotte and beyond.
“Challenge accepted,” Rani affirmed to Rohan’s surprise and delight.
“This can be part of the podcast,” her assistant Sparkle spoke up surprising them all and looking at her producer, Gemma Reese, who was taking notes.
“Like an episodic process as you work your magic…I mean science,” Gemma added, her green eyes, shining.
“Y’all got a wedding coming up in two weeks. Weddings are good for hooking up, right?” Sparkle demanded.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily the purpose of them for anyone other than the bride or groom,” Rohan said dryly, but his face lit with humor. “However Solei and I notice none of you have plus ones for our wedding. Perhaps Rani or Mrs. Bukar can get a jump on this contest.”
“We’re in.” Prisha linked her arms with Ridhi, who pulled Padmayla and Ajooni to standing. Our matches,” Ridhi said. “We want to meet our soul mates at the wedding.”
“Science VS tradition and magic,” Ajooni said.
“Challenge accepted,” Sparkle was all excitement and attitude.
“Wait, what? You can’t decide that for me.” Rani’s head reeled.
“I thought we were a team,” Sparkle reminded her belligerently.
“We are,” Rani said quickly, her lips already moving to form the B in but.
“Then I’m Team Rani, and I’m in charge of the social media, and this soul mate show is going to generate a shit-ton of clicks and new followers.”
“But…”
“Who are you?” Shanti demanded. “You’ve never had a moment of doubt in your life.”
What? Rani stared at her sister. She was full of doubt, more now than ever, even though she did not ostensibly know what she was doing and why.
But seeing the way her family was looking at her—like she was special, accomplished, one of them, she knew she couldn’t confess that.
“You always rush in, ready, fire, aim,” Shanti said. “And Sparkle is correct—with buzz building about your book and game release next holiday season, you want to keep growing your social media profile and presence. Having a matchmaking competition on your podcast could be compelling.”
“But I have to create a plan,” Rani objected. “I don’t even have a full two weeks. I don’t want to mess up Ridhi or Prisha’s future.”
“A plan?” Rohan said. “When did you ever let lack of a plan stop you? Name one time.”
Rohan wasn’t wrong. She always flung herself into each new Why was she so freaked out? Where was her mojo?
Reaching for a pitcher of liquid courage, she poured herself a small cocktail and wandered out onto the balcony alone to regroup. She knew her cousins. They’d participated in more than a few of her late night chats and survey questions. But now she had to find Mr. Right.
Needing a distraction, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
It was a message in her professional Instagram from someone named Punjabi in Exile.
She clicked on the message. Picture. Black, roiling ocean. Lights in the distance. Slightly blurry reflection of a man and…was that a pool behind him or in front of him, but reflecting back? The man had a swim cap, goggles and what looked like a very toned, dark chest. That much was obvious even though the lighting and reflections in the picture hid more than they revealed.
“Stop perving,” she muttered. Then she noticed the question under it.
‘And yet what?’
Rani blinked, and then her imagination caught fire, and her breath feathered in her throat. A listener. This had to be a response to her Oscar Wilde quote.
But why was he in exile?
And what was the meaning behind his photo—all the darkness and water?
And no followers. None?
Her heart pinched. Punjabi in Exile. Another person alone in a crowd. Rani immediately identified with him. And maybe…wait, was this a sign?
Rani looked down at her phone.
Why was this man alone? Why did he take a picture of himself surrounded by water? Was he emotionally drowning? Was he reaching out for a lifeline? Was he steeped in metaphor or did he have a more linear and literal mindset?
Rani quickly typed.
Exile is a state of mind. Own yourself and your choices. ‘Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind’ —origin of quote unknown but sometimes attributed to Dr. Seuss.
Rani posted her comment and knew she had to take her own advice. Then after a moment of hesitation, she went back into the condo and posed as if she were part of an Edvard Munch painting. Her eyes framed at the bottom and her favorite dancing Ganesh icon that perched on a shelf on the cocktail bar.
Ganesh is a source of power for change. A remover of obstacles. Prayer is powerful, but you still have to push yourself and drive the change.
“Tag, you’re it, Exile.”