Life In A Suitcase

A compulsion to get married echoed in my ears, disturbing my morning sleep. A notification on my phone came in from the matrimonial site, which whirred an alert from one of the current overtures. I pulled the phone from the charger, inquisitive, to check the nagging buzz. It was Sanket Rai, my prospective alliance. He had been sending me several messages, and I panicked. He didn’t interest me in any way at all, and he had sent several emails, clearly waiting for my reply. I left a polite message about my busy schedule and flipped to an unusual profile.

“My life is in a suitcase,” a very peculiar caption read, catching my eye, and I clicked to view Roshan’s profile in more detail on the website. A monochromatic profile photograph shot from a long distance covering the white Alps made him look lean and tall, with a slightly angular face, wheatish tone, and deep, still eyes. Roshan wore a hat that read, “The Alps.” He didn’t seem active on the matrimonial site, but I drained my precious morning time browsing an inactive profile on a beautiful Saturday morning.

I flipped again from his profile to check out others. Then I received a message: “What’s your life like?” It was Roshan.

Ignore this “bot,” as he isn’t active on the website, I thought.

“Well, you glanced at my profile to talk to me, didn’t you?” Roshan buzzed again.

“Yes, errr, no, I am sorry, I was browsing thoughtlessly,” I said.

“You spent twenty minutes on my picture, which doesn’t seem thoughtless.”

“Aimless Saturday morning—I was just looking at the Alps,” I politely messaged.

“Hmm, okay. What’s your expectation for your prospective alliance? You need to be more mindful of what you are doing,” Roshan messaged.

“Single, looking for someone who has a cozy family, a stable job, and someone who would grow old with me.”

“Well, I am nomadic. What kind of stable job?” Roshan pinged.

“Not my type!” I shrieked aloud and messaged back, not wanting a nomadic guy in my life—let alone one who was holding me responsible for looking at an inactive profile.

This guy made me curious, though: How did he know what I had been looking at? But I told myself I was not interested in continuing this conversation; our goals were very different, and we had totally different mindsets. “I am not the girl for you,” I messaged back.

“I know! Haha, but when you hear my side of the story, you will want to be in my shoes.”

“I would like to hear your side of the story. Anthropology interests me, though I would not consider you for marriage,” I replied.

“Might someday, but today ain’t that day. I have loads of work,” he said.

“Talk to you later, I have a long day of things to catch up on, and I kicked myself out of bed,” I said and closed the matrimonial website.

My exercise routine switched from strength training, yoga, and pilates to jazzercise, along with my Sunday specials of treating myself to a massage and a relaxing sauna.

In the latter part of my day, I would spin through my regular drills of work, errands, meeting friends, music, shopping, and answering my troubled mom’s phone calls.

Mom’s calls were the most painful to answer. A voice that echoed in my head with ever-circulating questions about why her daughter wasn’t yet married. The biological clock was ticking, but I was clueless as to where I would be in the next year. I was bored with most of my regular activities and seldom had to push myself hard out of bed. I had to contend with lots of work and less free time, and in that little time, I had to make way for these new people in my life whom I never even thought of.

My mundane routine kept me busy, and I had no time for checking the matrimonial site or messaging Sanket Rai. However, after six months, I got a buzz from Roshan. My friend had my phone, and she started talking to him as me. I had no clue about the several interactions that transpired between the two of them. The more he spoke to her, the more he became certain that this girl wasn’t me.

“Ira, this nomadic guy, Roshan, knows it’s not you,” Arna said.

How’s that possible? In just two interactions, he knows the person whom he is chatting with is not the person on the profile? Dejavu . . . I thought.

“Did you say your name is Arna?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“This guy is indeed bizarre. Let’s continue with this? What say you—let’s switch phones for a day or two,” I told her.

We switched phones.

The phone traveled with Arna from salad and ice cream bars to art museums and art classes. Arna kept dropping him messages in her free time.

“Hey! Ira, Roshan is not responding to any of my messages, or his phone is not with him, so why don’t you take your phone back. Let’s switch back,” she texted me.

“Yes, I am heading to explore a new place for a day or two, so I need my phone back anyway,” I replied.

“Where are you going?” Arna asked inquisitively.

“The first bus I see in the depot, I’ll just board and go wherever it’s headed. I want it all to be unplanned.”

“That’s crazy, Ira—you don’t know where you are heading? Are you drunk?” she exclaimed.

“I am fed up! I was notified that I will be bumped from my current project, and that may mean I will be out of my job soon. I found a new project in another country, and I have to relocate. My work, my attempt at marriage, everything is hitting a roadblock. Looks like I have to sit somewhere alone and think about how to fix my life. I made so many mistakes in my work last week that I wept on my work table. But it’s the fear of dying alone that haunts me,” I moaned.

“We will die together—don’t worry! Let me join you in going to your unknown destination; we will hitchhike and do some crazy stuff,” Arna said.

“It could be a meditation center, Arna.”

“You hitchhike, they will throw you out of the gate. You get drunk, they will put you in a rehabilitation center. Are you sure you want to try something as sinful as meditation? They serve raw vegetables cut up in small pieces for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Silence is the keyword, and are you willing to be silent?” I continued.

“Well, if you are doing it, let me also do it. I have nothing else to do. Where is it?” she asked, pausing. “Wait, I thought it’s some unknown destination,” she added sharply. “Why meditation? You could just hitchhike somewhere instead. Get drunk and walk, plod along and fall in some dungeon. It’s just another destination.”

“I’m really not sure of the destination. Multiple bus tours are starting at nine p.m., and I am just boarding one of them,” I assured her.

“That’s a neat idea, Ira. You come to my home at six and we will go together,” Arna said firmly, hurrying to pack her bags.