Tale of a painting and a matrimonial quest

THE painting adorning my bedroom wall shows three horsemen, their faces barely visible as their heads are bent forward with the horses’ high speed. A young woman painted it with broad strokes about 40 years ago. What happened to that girl, and how did this painting end up on my wall? Thereby hangs a fateful tale!

I took up a bank job in a small, sleepy Himachal town in 1973. Bankers were considered a sought-after commodity in the matrimonial market at the time. Stray marriage proposals kept coming my way as well. I ignored them all as I had a few priorities regarding my prospective life partner. But one offer came through a close friend. One of his acquaintances, an apple orchardist, was looking for a match for his sister, and my name had been suggested. I felt vaguely interested.

A meeting was arranged one evening to discuss the matter. The ice was broken after the first round of drinks. The orchardist talked about his sister. She was an architect, doing a government job in Shimla — homely, talented, not beautiful, but understanding and compassionate. I also placed all my cards on the table. Then I asked for permission to meet the girl so that we could get to know each other and take a decision. Her brother’s response was a point-blank refusal. Theirs was a traditional family; they could not allow such a meeting. Thus, we reached a deadlock and the matter was dropped.

One year rolled by. I was transferred to Shimla, and my freewheeling bachelor existence and the hunt for a life partner continued as usual. Some offers did come my way, but nothing clicked. In one instance, I did meet a girl closest to the one in my dreams. Her parents had approached me and arranged a date for us. We talked for almost three hours, sipping coffee in a popular restaurant. Almost all my boxes for an ideal match got ticked. But at the end, she coyly told me that her romantic interest lay somewhere else and hesitantly requested me to turn down the proposal. In another case, I went all the way to Dehradun in response to a matrimonial advertisement. The girl had her own list of priorities and found me woefully inadequate.

I was on the verge of exasperation when, one evening, a friend took me to a painting exhibition at the Gaiety Theatre. Soon, I found myself standing before the painting depicting the three horsemen. I wanted to buy it, but the organisers told me that it was not for sale. I made enquiries about the artist. She was a girl from an orchardist family working in a government department. The name also sounded slightly familiar. All pieces of the jigsaw fitted. I rang up my friend and asked him to contact the orchardist.

So, that is how the painting and its creator landed in my life, the former being my most prized possession and the latter the luckiest thing that happened to me. This entire episode made me realise that we do not have any freedom of choice. Everything seems to be preordained — our birth, our death, our spouse too!