A different kind of don’t ask, don’t tell

Don’t assume every unattached person you meet is desperate. Unless asked, refrain from suggesting pilgrimages or rituals they can try

When I heard this story from a 37-year-old that I am coaching, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. There is a temple she was taken to, she says, where the prayers of single women are heard, so that they can finally, finally, be married.

The woman must pray, of course, with all the desperation that you’re assumed to feel if you are single at anything considered an advanced age. There is also a set of prescribed offerings to be made, and then you are guaranteed to be married “in six months”.

My client narrated, with rather good humour, how she was taken to this temple on an empty stomach (one of the prerequisites). The fact that she hadn’t eaten was giving her a migraine and as she and her mother arrived and attended the puja, she was in a haze of pain.

Things were made worse by the fact that word soon spread that a famous actress was at the temple (my client shares her surname with a star). And so she had to sit there, praying for a husband, as an entire village gathered — hoping to see a famous actress and rather less than delighted to arrive and find her there and no movie star at all.

She ended up fainting from the exhaustion and stress, and awoke at a local hospital, with a saline drip in her arm. When we spoke it had been three years since the incident. My client, incidentally, is still single.

As I coach her through her journey towards finding a partner, she supplements my advice with a Monday fast. She’s been advised that this might help her in her predicament, and she laughs it off as helpful anyway, since it’s a great way to detox.

Her experience reminded me of my own. Unmarried at the “critical” age of 29, I was told to feed nine tandoori rotis to cows over nine Tuesdays. My mother said this would remove all the “obstacles” in the way of me getting married. I was in the Mumbai suburb of Bandra at the time, and the tandoori rotis were not hard to find. The problems began when it came to finding the cows. I walked in the sultry May heat for 40 minutes with no success. Exhausted, I finally flagged down an auto-rickshaw, but then stood there tonguetied when he asked where I wanted to go.

“Bhaiyya mujhe gaay dhoondni hai,” I heard myself saying. He saw the rotis, probably put it all together and sprung into action.

“Sabzi mandi ke paas 100% mil jayegi,” he responded. (One thing that must be said about Mumbai’s auto and taxi drivers — if they commit to your cause, you have found a true ally).

Sure enough, we sighted a cow at the vegetable market. I pulled out a roti and offered it to her, but she turned her face away. I went around her and offered it again; she turned her face back the other away. I looked at my co-conspirator, who was stifling laughs now, probably convinced that I really wasn’t marriage material. I eventually did marry, eight years later.

Now, I understand why men, women and their loved ones try to read the stars and propitiate the gods when a wish to be married goes unmet. But perhaps the loved ones ought to remember that this is a time of such frustration and helplessness for the person concerned, that endless advice on whacky last-ditch efforts really doesn’t help.

When you’re unwillingly single, the last thing you want to hear is: eat this, go there, feed a cow, stand upside-down on a fullmoon night. Because what you’re saying, in effect, is: look, the normal route isn’t going to work for you, so get moving because it’s going to take divine intervention and extraordinary measures to find someone to take you on now.

And that’s not what you want to hear when you’re walking around heavy-hearted and lonely. If we want to beseech the heavens, we’ll ask you how. If we want to try and read the stars — and who’s to say that’s not a good idea; it very well might be — then let us come to you.

Don’t come at us instead. Because it may seem like a funny story years later, but the hurt and bewilderment linger. Try another tack instead. How about: You’re fine, you’ll be fine, and there is someone out there for you.