The Marriage Clock

Dedication

Dedicated to every woman who’s ever been told she wasn’t enough.

Epigraph

She hasn’t a single moon

to worship her

or to cloud her judgment.

She is alone.

And oh

how brilliantly she shines.

—FROM “VENUS” BY NIKITA GILL

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

A Bollywood State of Mind

Arrange This

Never Say Never

The Marriage Clock

Set in Motion

Mr. Bollywood

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

Cyber Suitor

Mr. Catfish

Mr. Smoky

Mr. Busybody

Ambushed

Speed Dating

Summer Lovin’

Take Two

Ghosted

Family Dinner

Departure

Motherland

Family Reunion

Meena

Seeing Double

Mehendi Nights

An Unexpected Hero

Guilt Trip

Sari Not Sorry

Bombshell

Revelations

Deadline

Prayers Answered

Final Toast

Acknowledgments

P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

About the Author

About the Book

Copyright

About the Publisher

A Bollywood State of Mind

As a young girl, when I thought about life in my mid-twenties, I envisioned a glamorous profession like being a principal dancer for a prestigious New York ballet company, living in a fabulous penthouse apartment overlooking a city skyline, and being married to a tall, dark, and mysterious musician whose beautifully written love songs were the inner soundtrack to my beating heart. If I had known that my mid-twenties would actually consist of a less-than-desirable career working as an underpaid English teacher, a modest-sized room in my parents’ suburban home, and a total sense of ambivalence regarding the notion of love, I probably would have signed up for someone else’s life.

Growing up in a semitraditional Muslim household, I believed in love wholeheartedly. Love, after all, was Shah Jahan’s inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Love was the underlying theme in every Urdu ghazal or shayari ever written. Love was the reason my mother left behind her entire life in India to start afresh with my father—a man she barely knew—in America. Love was the sole reason the world turned; why bluebirds sang and fireworks shot into the warm summer sky. It was not just an idea; it was something tangible—felt within my grasp. A whimsical notion looming in the distant future, anxiously waiting to be discovered, like a present still wrapped.

My years of dissecting on-screen Bollywood romances provided me with enough insight to know exactly what to look for when it would finally happen. I was desperately waiting for that random run-in with a total stranger with unbelievably good hair with whom I could slow-motion run through a meadow as we dramatically proclaimed our love for each other through nonsensical lyrical metaphors and perfectly synchronized dance routines—with multiple colorful outfit changes. In my mind, that was what was supposed to happen. You meet someone, fall in love (in the aforementioned fashion), get married, and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, the screenplay written for my life was not quite as predictable as I had hoped. There were no meadows in close proximity to Los Angeles, and my lack of coordination limited my dance moves to the Robot and the Inebriated Baby. The only random run-ins I had were with nosy South Asian aunties inquiring about my marital status. Finally, after twenty-two delusional years and a brief yet eye-opening conversation with my college roommate, I was temporarily plucked out of my Bollywood fantasy and brought back to harsh reality.