Wooing a bride in the conservative 70s : The Tribune India

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Wooing a bride in the conservative 70s

The hall was packed to capacity. I was seated on the stage with the suave and soft-spoken college Principal as a guest speaker, getting increasingly nervous with each passing moment.

Wooing a bride in the conservative 70s


Subhash C. Sharma

The hall was packed to capacity. I was seated on the stage with the suave and soft-spoken college Principal as a guest speaker, getting increasingly nervous with each passing moment. The audience may have been a spectator’s delight but for me, a shy, self-conscious, self-invited speaker and a potential suitor, it was causing unease and awe. For it was an all-women college. Stage fright apart, the humming presence of these blithe and vivacious young ladies, brightly dressed, reflecting spring's hues of azure, red, purple and yellow on this brilliant sunlit day of early April, exaggerated further by a sudden, short burst of laughter emanating from one  corner or an occasional giggle from another was compounding my discomfort and misery manifold. I was now ruing the very idea of this self-invitation for this lecture out of sheer whim, thereby landing myself in the role of a knight errant of sorts.

Soon, a senior lady lecturer sitting to my left rose and introduced me to the assembly, and next, I was before the mike, a bundle of nerves. A sudden hush had already descended on the hall. After a hesitant start when words refused to exit my choked gullet and parched lips, I was beginning to find my voice, feet and heart. Perhaps my two-three years of apprenticeship as a biology teacher in a university college and some declamatory forays in my college days had come to my rescue in this hour of dire need. I spoke at length on the tricks and pranks of insects, fishes, birds and mammals employed to ward of danger, fool the enemy or entrap a prey and also to woo a bride or bridegroom. Examples for the last one had been most carefully chosen with a hidden agenda in mind to arouse more interest on the subject and convey a subtle message!

After initial heart-throbbing moments had passed and I had recovered my senses well enough, I was able to cast a roving, searching glance at the audience. To my great delight I was able to spot the girl — who during breezy chance brushes had stolen my fancy — in the middle rows rapt in attention. There she was draped in pristine firozi salwar-kameez and a chaste-white dupatta, looking coy and comely, and brimming with fullness and exuberance of youth. 

That for me was more than half the mission accomplished. For, honestly speaking, this lecture had been occasioned neither by any idealistic fervour nor any professional imperative but by a sheer impulsive whim and a ploy of sorts to win the favours of this girl. My intimate friends had wowed-wowed the idea. ‘An eloquent exposition on a good, interesting topic would be a sure way to the heart of a woman of your dreams’. This was the unanimous and unambiguous refrain of all my pals. Thus emboldened, I had made a formal request for delivering a popular science lecture to the Principal, though with a trembling heart, which had been readily accepted after a verification of my credentials.

My lecture was followed by a good round of applause and to my utmost delight I saw the lady in question too being amongst the applauders. The Principal thanked me for the lecture and was all praise for my initiative of sensitising the arts students to the beauty and wonders of the animal world.

After having thus fired the first salvo, I lost no time in formally introducing myself to the girl-in-firozi-suit on one of the many occasions when we happened to pass each other by on way to our respective colleges falling in the opposite directions. Soon more meetings followed and one fine day I proposed. And she accepted. In time, we became husband and wife and have remained happily so for the last 36-odd years.

That was wooing a woman in the staid and conservative 1970s when there were no cell phones, no text messages, emails or social networking sites to connect, and reaching out to the woman of your dreams was a hugely daunting task.

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