As such, our average twenty-something single Indian man has one primary objective in the context of women — find one to take home to Mommy. Which brings me to my next observation — elsewhere in the world, calling a man “Mama’s boy” would be considered as an insult. Not our young Indian man! Call him a Mama’s boy and his lips will form the biggest smile he can conjure. It’s an honor — Mama’s boy. You will find him pleased beyond words — looking at you through proud, teary eyes. Now, I love my mother as much as anyone loves theirs. But this whole Mother (Maaa) thing is overrated in India. Particularly, Indian men. I think it has something to do with the way in which mainstream cinema glorifies this relationship. Another post.

So, back to our original topic, the average Indian man is on a constant lookout for a woman who he can imagine pleasing Mommy dearest. Of course she should have the goods and know how to carry them. But she should also be able to be please Maa aur Papa by her extraordinary exhibition of virtue and respect. She should also have the ability to double as a maid — do the housework and cook lunch & dinner. It doesn’t matter if she works 9-5 just like her husband.

The “lookout” begins when our dear Indian man X hits 24. By now, he has a steady job and earns enough to think about marriage. All pretty women at work are a potential “match”. Many succumb early to “knee-jerk-love”. “I’m in love with her, yaar!”,  you’ll hear him confide to you at the water cooler. Dumbass! Have you talked to her? Does she know you exist? Do you fucking even know her name??

“No. No and Yes, Rohit from accounting told me her name is Pushpa!”

After a period of this senseless “romance”, somehow X sprouts balls and asks Pushpa out. And all Indian men are in a fucking hurry to profess their undying love. On the first date, X proposes marriage! Yes. On the first fucking date.

“X, you dumb fucktard. You dont know if she is a psycho serial killer. You generally find out on date #2.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before. Arrgh!”

Too late.

And most of these relationships break up shortly afterward, as hastily as they began. When Pushpa realizes that X snores loudly or has high blood pressure or “What the fuck?! You have a  third nipple?!” That’s how most of the romantic endeavors of our average Indian man in early-mid twenties end.

We suck.

When I glance into a stranger’s window and see a pretty girl curled up on a couch reading Elliots’s Middlemarch, I try to imagine what kind of a person she is and what her life is like. Is she a purist like Dorothea or an idealist like Tertius — or maybe she is both.

Or when I see an old man, deeply engrossed in his cigarette, I try to imagine what he is thinking about and how old he is and almost instantly — how long he has been smoking (for most smokers or ex-smokers, an old man holding a cigarette instantly evokes their long buried hope that one can continue smoking and live to be old)

A window offers the owner and an observer many insights. To an owner, it offers a view of the world outside and all the hues and depths it has to offer. To an observer, it offers the opportunity to judge — without fear of rebuke.

For an instant, the observer and the subject (through the window) are connected by some invisible karmic bond. The subject is, of course, unaware of this intrusion of privacy while the observer’s mind gleefully soaks in details –  constructs hypothetical structures around the subject. This “spell” is broken, if the observer loses perspective or if the subject realizes that he or she is being observed.

Such “intellectual” eavesdropping is generally different from “recreational” eavesdropping. However, that does not make it any less intrusive. Or rude.