Bangalore is far away from Kodaikanal and Kodaikanal is far away from Ooty.

The South India Trip was more exhausting. Based on our experience of earlier trips, Me and my friends had decided that we would take it easy. But we spent more time travelling than visiting the places.

Somewhere in the trip, just after new year, I got a call from Amu’s family again. I was totally lost who was calling. A couple of angry Phone calls from office had completely ruined my mood.

I told them again that I would be out of Mumbai and would be coming later that month. Finally when the trip was completed, I was back in Mumbai. I opened my email to find one more Proposal from a matrimonial site. There was another mail from my colleague in office who had sent a proposal from his neighbour’s acquaintance.

It was not like that I was getting proposals every week and it had so happened that there was no proposal for months putting my Mother in panic mode and now in January 2011, I had got three proposal to choose from.

My mother always insisted that I match the Horoscope so I sent my complete details with my horoscope to all the three girls. The first to reject was the one recommended by my friend. They probably did not like my photo because out of 36 supposed to be matched points in the horoscope, we matched 28. We did not even meet.

Meanwhile Amu’s brother-in-law called me again. I had not forgotten about it but then I had not followed it either and I couldn’t recall that they had sent me the mail. It was from her brother’s id and I said “I don’t remember”

Later Amu told me that she was angry when I said that I don’t remember. She snatched the phone from her brother-in-law and told me to look again. I apologised and promise to look again. She had decided that if I did not remember, she would not pursue the proposal further.

Thankfully she did not take the harsh decision.

The second was a girl (girl no.2) from far-away suburbs on the Central line of Mumbai local trains. She worked in the other end of the town, Churchgate. Compared to that, my travel to office was luxurious. I asked her to meet me in Dadar. She came with her brother and father.

We talked for sometime but then I did not feel it clicked. The girl looked good but she was the person I could say “hi” to someday but not one I would like to spend my life with. I still gave it a “50-50” chance with the promise of Meeting again.

Meanwhile Amu’s horoscope was shown to our astrologer and apparently it did not match much. Going ahead was out of question now. I got a call from Amu’s brother-in-law enquiring about going ahead. I told them about the horoscope thing but they said that they had shown their astrologer too and he said it matched to the minimum points. Coincidently her mother and my mother believed in astrology.

I did not have answer to her brother-in-law’s query. I told them to talk to my mother because she had the horoscope checked. They called my mother and asked for a meeting. My mother told them the same thing but they said that it matched on the border and it didn’t harm if we met each other. My mother suggested to have a meeting in the temple again. The date was fixed to 16th January 2011 which was a Sunday.

Meanwhile after thinking it over, I was ready to say “no” to girl no 2 irrespective of what would happen with Amu. I decided to meet her again to see if meeting her alone would make me change my mind.

I met her 4-5 days before meeting Amu and we talked. It did not click again. Although saying no is very difficult task and I have said it a couple of times if not always, it stills difficult. Getting a negative response is quite easy and expected.It became more difficult when the girl was keen on the proposal.

I tried calling her to say no but she did not pick up her phone. Finally I SMSed her my answer. SMSing a critical decision like that on phone is not a good thing to do but I do agree its the easiest.

And just like that I was down from 3 to 1. With the horoscope going against us, I really did not have any hope for the Sunday meeting. But I was not keen on meeting them in the temple because of my earlier experience a month ago. I suggested that we meet in our home which was a walking distance from the temple.

And then without any expectation, I waited to meet her family on Sunday!

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………………..To Be Continued