I feel Dante's pain.

I wish i could call it a poem, but it's not even prose. It started a day after Friday, not even a Good one at that. I met S, her husband and children. After a hearty lunch of Biryani, i hung around for a bit and then, just when i was leaving, her mom goes, "Hey there's a proposal. Are you interested?"

It wasn't just my feet that froze mid-motion. While my tongue tried to unstick itself from the roof of my mouth, S picked up from where her mom left off: "Baba knows him really well. He's apparently not looking for a regular bride."

Yeah, okay, so i'm not like the other Muslim girls who get married when they're still in college (read Pre-university) and are grandmothers by 45, who wear burqas and pray five times a day, listen to the advice of elders, don't hang around with friends who're smoking chimneys and leaking wineries, or even wear salwar kameezes or jeans with salwar kameez tops and dupattas. But that doesn't mean i automatically fall under the category of the extreme, rebel non-conformists. Which is why i was quite taken aback by her statement. And, i must confess, a little interested: it's not everyday that a boy of my clan wants a 'non-regular' sort of bride.

Whirling on S, i asked her what she meant by 'not a regular bride', and while she explained, i saw myself sort of veering towards the other side, the taboo side. Justifying to myself that it was just the non-regular bit that caught my attention (fortunately for me it is the ONLY thing that got me interested, and now i think i'm a little bored with it all), i told my Dad about it the next morning.

The momentary smile of pure joy that broke through his face made me shrink within. I couldn't help but feel guilty (not a new feeling at all) about having deprived my parents of that little happiness. Immediately after, i couldn't help but feel overwhelmed, pretty much burdened by my past. (Sounds so ominous, 'my past'.) And then i felt guilty about having thought of forsaking it. Well okay, not so much forsaking it as i was marvelling at my healing abilities. Time does work wonders.

So anyway, now the thing is that i'm completely dying of curiosity about the guy - and it's only curiosity, trust me - and want to meet him for a cup of coffee or something to ask him what his idea of a 'non-regular' bride is. So far, i've checked out Google and found zilch. If perchance, Mister I-Don't-Want-A-Regular-Bride, you've been looking me up the same way i am you, then be kind enough to leave a comment specifying what you meant by it. I'm very, very interested in knowing what your answer will be.

P.S: I used non-regular everywhere on purpose. The proper opposite of regular makes me uncomfortable in this instance, with its plethora of implications.
P.P.S: One need only scratch the surface to see the pain.