My copy of Shanta Gokhale's autobiography, One Foot On The Ground: A Life Told Through The Body (Speaking Tiger) is on its way. Meanwhile, the preview excerpts were so charming and insightful, and cut close to the bone: "I guess I was also looking for a mate. It was not a powerful, insuperable urge; but I would not look away if a suitable man swam into my ken." A mentor and friend, Shanta Tai could well have been describing my worldview, when I was in my twenties. I laughed a déjà vu laugh when she described the namunas, who flitted in and out of her life. My favourite was the suitor who played Yeh mera prem patra padhkar, on the jukebox at a seaside café, by way of a proposal. "Sorry yaar. Really sorry," she told him. I promptly went into flashback mode, recalling the parade of namunas I have known and rejected.

When I was in my twenties, my parents, both liberal chaps, really, made humming and hawing noises about 'settling down,' that deadweight Indian phrase. I also hummed and hawed in reply; I was having too much fun in life already, with a great job, fun friends and more. 'Chalti gadi ka bonnet nahin kholneka' is my general motto (never open the bonnet of a car that's running fine). Eventually, my parents busied themselves inserting a matrimonial ad on my behalf in the papers and answering others' matrimonial ads on my behalf as well, while all this was beneath me. I commandeered a Shabari-like system, where the poor things would trawl through scores of letters, and proffer, maybe two, for consideration of Her Majesty. I was able to despatch the blokes pretty swiftly over a single coffee in swish suburban hotels (Hotel Centaur was a favourite; it was close to home, and you could get back in time to dissect the latest namuna over dinner). A dissection-slash-giggle seemed to take the blunt off rejection for both parties.