Читать книгу The Moaning of Life - Karl Pilkington - Страница 13

ARRANGED MARRIAGES

I left LA and headed to India, where finding somebody to marry is not so complicated. In a lot of cases the parents take control and help you find the right person for you to spend the rest of your life with. People always seem to be well against this idea, saying it should be up to the person to decide who they want to be with, but do we really know what’s best for ourselves? People don’t do anything for themselves any more. They need help from Phil and Kirstie on Relocation, Relocation just to find a bloody house.

I see this arranged marriage set-up a bit like a set menu in a restaurant – you try something new, as you have no choice, and end up liking it. This was how I ended up trying scallops. We’re sometimes not best left to decide everything for ourselves. There’s a woman in America called Linda Wolfe who’s been married twenty-three times. How mad is that? She could have fed a small village in the Congo if she’d thought to sponsor her walks up the aisle. I can understand making a mistake with one marriage, but twenty-three?! Apparently, two of her husbands were gay and two were homeless. Surely there should be a limit to how many times you’re allowed to get married? I mean, I get locked out of my online bank account after three wrong attempts at a password. Britney Spears got married at the Little White Wedding Chapel I visited in Vegas. Her marriage was annulled fifty-five hours later. Fifty-five hours! I’ve had longer relationships with bottles of milk. The problem these days is nobody works at fixing problems. Whether it’s a relationship or a toaster that’s broken, they just replace it. You’re bound to fall out and have arguments and you should work at getting the relationship back together, but nobody wants to any more.

My first stop in India was at A to Z Matchmaking Management to meet Gopal, a marriage broker. Gopal runs a matchmaking service for parents who want to find someone to marry their son or daughter. Seeing as my mam or dad weren’t there, I went to look for myself to see if anything took my fancy.

As soon as I arrived I had to fill out a form with information about me, and then information about what sort of wife I was looking for. They wanted to know my name, email address, height, weight, exam results, how much I earned, was I a meat-eater, what my mam and dad did for a living. They also wanted to know what my blood type was! What difference does that make? I’ve never heard someone say, ‘I’ve finished with Lesley.’ ‘That’s a shame. Why’s that then?’ ‘Oh, it just wasn’t working out. She didn’t have the right blood.’

Even though it wasn’t asked on the questionnaire I made a note that I was bald, as I think some women wouldn’t want a bald man and it’s best to be honest from the outset.

Then I filled in the part about the sort of person I was looking for. A woman, aged between thirty-five and forty-five. Not fussed about exam results, I just want someone with common sense. There’s no point in her having a degree in South American literature if she’s got no common sense. It would be handy if she was good with plumbing or electrics, though, as they’re not my strong points. Height at least five feet five but no more than six feet. Skin type? Just . . . nice. Smooth, I suppose. Don’t want bruised. Jesus, this is how I select a banana.

I ended up putting ‘skin – not too much’, as this was a polite way of saying I didn’t want a fat lump of flesh. I don’t want someone who’s been married. Non-smoker. She can drink but not too much. I took the questionnaire in to Gopal to input the information into his system.

GOPAL: So you know the meaning of an arranged marriage?

KARL: Not fully, no.

GOPAL: Actually, we seek here destined soulmates, not partners, so we are going to arrange the thing so we have everything that is important. We have to see social, financial, intellectual compatibility of the person and their families also.

KARL: Do you think education is important?

GOPAL: Education is very, very important. Intellectual compatibility should be there, obviously.

KARL: But it’s funny, with my girlfriend, she is quite intelligent, yet I didn’t do that well at school. But I learn from her.

GOPAL: Okay.

KARL: If you put two nutters together, it’s not good, is it?

GOPAL: It’s not good?

KARL: I don’t think so. I have changed my ways. I used to be a little bit dodgy when I was younger, but she’s keeping an eye on me and telling me not to do things. It’s interesting how sometimes education isn’t always the key to a relationship.

GOPAL: Yep.

I’m not sure he understood what I was getting at. He had hundreds of profiles on his system, so to speed things up he searched in the age category to narrow it down a bit. He read out details like an estate agent telling you about a property. ‘This one just in, fair-skinned, slim, charismatic, fashionable, classy, animated, social, lively, good size. Enjoys reading, current events, world politics, room for improvement.’

GOPAL: Shoma. She’s a doctor . . .

KARL: (reading from screen) Softly spoken, nice, slim, smart, sharp features, often mistaken for a student rather than a doctor because of her looks . . . Did you write that or did she tell you to write that?

GOPAL: No, she has written herself.

KARL: Umm. Bit big-headed then.

GOPAL: We match horoscope also. Horoscope matchmaking.

KARL: No, I don’t believe in all that. Next.

I wondered if he was trying to palm off some women who had been on his books for ages. Eight or nine profiles later he found Shivani.

GOPAL: Shivani.

KARL: Shivani.

GOPAL: She can marry with British guys. She can go abroad, there is no problem. Everything will suit you, and her parents will permit for you to settle over there . . . Should I show you that profile?

KARL: Yeah, let’s have a look. (reading from screen) Hmm . . . non-vegetarian, that’s alright. She’s never married.

GOPAL: Born . . . ’78. Her weight is around 47/48 . . .

KARL: How big is that?

GOPAL: She’s slim.

KARL: Yeah, er . . . swearing . . . She’s not loud and she wouldn’t swear?

GOPAL: Swear means?

KARL: Like effing and blinding . . . effing and jeffing . . . erm . . . cursing . . .

GOPAL: No, no. She’s not a loud person. She’s very calm and sweet. She doesn’t speak so much.

KARL: And how much jewellery? Does she wear a lot of jewellery?

GOPAL: No, no. Do you like jewellery?

KARL: No.

GOPAL: Okay, no, she is also not fond of jewellery.

KARL: Okay, let’s have a look at her again. Can we just see her head again . . . just a picture?

GOPAL: (showing photos) She’s slim girl. She’s not wearing any jewellery here. She’s a very simple person.

KARL: She has a phone there . . . She on her phone a lot? Do you know if she’s constantly speaking?

GOPAL: Everyone keeps phone. It’s mandatory nowadays.

KARL: I know, but can’t she put it down while she has a photo taken . . . (to director) Will I see her?

DIRECTOR: She sounds like quite a good match.

KARL: Yeah, alright, let’s go and see . . . Let’s have a look. And do you know if she’s happy being in an arranged marriage?

GOPAL: Yep. She needs this kind of marriage. It is in her blood, it is in her family. In arranged marriage she can get everything. She get happiness, for future. She will be happy because she has taken everyone’s view, everyone’s permission and everyone is with her for every decision.

KARL: But say I go along and meet her and she gets on with me and we’re really happy, but her dad isn’t keen on me. Who gets the final say?

GOPAL: If he is not agreeing, we will try to convince him. After all, he has to marry his daughter.

KARL: Alright, let’s go see her. Her name again?

GOPAL: Shivani. So we charge something for matchmaking you go through, we take something at once. When the ceremony is arranged we take lots of money.

KARL: Not very good at foreign currency . . . How much is this going to cost me, in pounds?

GOPAL: In pounds? Eighty . . . eighty pounds.

And that was that. After a few calls it was arranged for me to meet Shivani later that evening. I was nervous but looking forward to seeing how much we would get on. We’re two total strangers from different parts of the world who would never have met. But then again, this is what that chef Heston Blumenthal does: puts things together that shouldn’t work, like a fried egg and Viennetta ice cream as a main course, and people say it’s an odd match made in heaven. So who knows? At the end of the day, there are over 1.2 billion people in India, so you can hardly spend time searching for ‘the one’, can you? It’s hard enough finding a parking space in India, never mind ‘the one’.

After buying myself a suit for £30 we were on our way round to meet Shivani and her parents. I was knackered, as shopping in India isn’t a very pleasurable thing to do. I’m not a fan of shopping at home due to noise and crowds, but it’s fifty times worse here. Wherever you walk it seems everybody else is going in the opposite direction and it’s one big battle. Every space is taken up. You think you find a quiet alley to just get a moment’s peace, but a moped will come hurtling towards you driven by a man holding a pig. The shop I bought the suit from had very little room for customers due to the stock taking up so much space, so there was no changing room, which meant stripping off by the cash till.

We allowed plenty of time to get to Shivani’s place, but we were still late. You can never guess how long it’s going to take you to get anywhere in India, as the roads are chaos. It looks like when you disturb an ant nest. Two lanes are made into five lanes; one-way roads are definitely not one-way. An Indian sat nav probably just wishes you luck and tells you to go wherever you want. I suppose that’s what I find odd about arranged marriages: not that they exist, but the fact that they exist in India, a place where it seems nothing is properly arranged.

Luckily, my being late wasn’t too much of a problem, as Shivani’s dad, Harash, informed me she wasn’t ready yet, as she and her sister were struggling to decide what to wear. I wandered off to find a toilet in a nearby hotel, as even though I’d only been in India for just over twenty-four hours, the dreaded Delhi Belly had already hit me. About forty-five minutes later Harash took me through his rug shop and into his home. I’d decided that I wouldn’t tell them about Suzanne, as I wanted to see how far I could get and if I could pass the test.

HARASH: I’ll introduce you to my wife. Her name is Neena. And this is the younger sister of Shivani. Her name is Sakshi. And this is Shivani.

KARL: Shivani. Good to finally see you.

SHIVANI: Hi, how are you?

HARASH: Well, let us see if you are highly qualified and that you’ve got a good job.

Jesus. I hadn’t even sat down and he was already quizzing me. They have more chitchat before the questions start on Mastermind. I felt like I had to impress him more than the girl I was there to possibly marry. Shivani looked nice enough, though. Quite a smiley face. I thought it could work. I don’t understand when people say, ‘Oh, they don’t really match’ What are we, a pair of bloody socks? If people had to match, Quasimodo would have been knocking about with a camel and not Esmeralda.

HARASH: Tell me something about your parents to start with.

KARL: They’re just normal, you know, haven’t got much money. They’ve retired now, but me dad’s done all sorts of jobs from tiling, gardening, courier work . . . He’s been a taxi driver, he had a butty shop, erm, loads of stuff.

HARASH: Tell me something about your childhood and your schooling. What type of school were you in?

KARL: It was what you call a comprehensive, not like a grammar, just a normal school, erm . . . I wasn’t a bad bad kid, I tried me best.

HARASH: Can you tell me something about your education, please?

KARL: There’s not much to tell, they’re called GCSEs, the exams in England. Have you heard of them? Right. Well, I got one of them, in history.

HARASH: Did you pass?

KARL: I got an E, so it’s a pass.

HARASH: So what do you do now? For living, for job?

KARL: I write books, I do travel programmes.

HARASH: You write a book? You’re getting good amenity from books?

KARL: Yeah, not bad, they do alright. I mean it’s not Harry Potter, but I earn a wage. I don’t owe any money. I think that’s important.

HARASH: Tell me, are you living with your mother and father or are you living in apartment alone?

KARL: I’ve got a house.

HARASH: A complete house?

KARL: Full house, five bedrooms.

SHIVANI: Very big house.

SAKSHI: So he’s got space for us.

KARL: Well . . .

SHIVANI: So everyone can fit in then.

KARL: Yes, maybe . . . in time.

SAKSHI: That’s good.

KARL: So how old are you?

SHIVANI: I’m exactly thirty-three.

KARL: I’m forty. Isn’t forty quite old for you?

NEENA: I think that’s the maximum . . .

SHIVANI: Yeah, I would say about thirty-eight, thirty nine. But, obviously, if other qualifications, if other things are there . . . So if smartness is there, or you like working, then I think one could always just . . .

SAKSHI: Age is just a number. I think there are other qualities that matter more . . .

HARASH: Are you looking for a girl who is homely, somebody who is domesticated? Or would you like your would-be wife to work?

KARL: A little bit of both, if possible. Work, and a little bit of home duties sort of thing, but we’ll share that. I like cleaning, I’m very good. You’re asking about hobbies and things, I quite enjoy cleaning windows. I find it very relaxing.

HARASH: What is your income like? That’s very important, for us . . .

KARL: Yeah, but I don’t want that to sort of be the decision-maker.

HARASH: Well, I would like to know your income.

KARL: I know, but I don’t think that should matter. I’ve been honest about my age, and my exam results, and I’d like to be picked on whether she thinks I’m the man who could look after her. Money can cause a lot of problems, it doesn’t bring you any happiness.

HARASH: It’s not a question of happiness, I’d like to know whether you . . .

KARL: Put it this way, I don’t owe anyone any money.

SAKSHI: That’s good. That’s what matters.

KARL: You know, she won’t starve. She’ll have a roof over her head. At the end of the day, I could say I’m earning thousands, but then I might not tell you I’m a big gambler. There’s a lot of nutters out there earning fortunes, but they’re idiots.

SAKSHI: Yeah.

KARL: Just common sense, like I say. The exam results, I’m not proud that I’ve only got an E in history, but it was years ago. I’ve tried to do the best I can with what I’ve got. And you’ll struggle to find someone who I’ve really upset in life. I’ve not annoyed anyone or battered anyone. If we’re being really honest, I used to do a little bit of robbing when I was younger . . . nothing big . . . you know, toffees, chocolate.

SAKSHI: That’s okay.

SHIVANI: Yeah, that’s like when you were a kid, so it’s fine.

HARASH: For us, it’s important that we should have a meeting with your parents. You think that’s possible? Your parents, in the next meeting?

KARL: So would they come here, or would you come to theirs . . . ?

SAKSHI: Either way. Whatever suits you better.

KARL: Right. And it’s the same sort of questioning to them?

HARASH: No, no, no questioning . . . Just so we know.

SAKSHI: We like when the family is involved. Since we are also very family-oriented, we would like to meet your extended family.

Extended family?! Even I’ve never met them. My mam and dad have never met Suzanne’s mam and dad either. I don’t see the point. I chose her and she chose me, so why drag other people into it? Research shows that arranged marriages last longer, and I wonder if it’s down to the fact that it’s other people putting you together, like when a family member buys you a gift it’s not easy to throw it away, as there’s a chance they’ll come to visit and ask where it is and get upset when you say you’ve binned it.

HARASH: How marriage do you want to take? English-style marriage, or church-style marriage?

KARL: Now, this is an important bit cos . . .

SAKSHI: In the Indian culture, you know, you just get married once in a lifetime . . . hopefully. So a lot of people like to go all-out, and they’re very extravagant about it, and it’s not a one-day affair, it’s like a couple of days.

KARL: Well, I’ve never even had a birthday party. Ever. I don’t really go out in big groups. You know how people go out, sort of seven or eight people . . .

HARASH: Then marriage will be like this. You can invite your parents from England, and a few people from our family, ten to fifteen people, then we go to the temple, church, whatever it may be. And let the priest announce, both of you husband and wife and . . .

It had all got a bit out of hand. It was too late now to announce I had Suzanne at home. I’d only spoken to her a few hours ago about a problem with the boiler. I might have a five-bedroomed house, but no matter where I live I always end up with boiler problems. She has no idea that I’m with some woman and we’re talking about getting married. It’s madness how quick they decide. I’ve waited at the doctors longer than this. I can’t believe how easy it is too. I didn’t even have to use any of Vinnie’s chat-up lines, not once have I had to chant ‘It’s not gonna suck itself’. I kind of agree that meeting a potential life partner shouldn’t be as difficult as we make it at home, but I really didn’t know anything about her. No wonder Bollywood love stories have all the singing and dancing. It’s to pad it out, otherwise they’d meet, get married and have kids in twenty minutes flat.

HARASH: So, now, before you leave would you like to fix up a time with her for tomorrow for lunch or dinner, so that you spend a couple of hours together to know each other better?

KARL: I’ll have a chat with . . . erm . . . because I’m not sure where I’m meant to be tomorrow, so I’ll find out . . .

If we did go for a coffee I think I would have taken longer deciding which coffee I wanted than Shivani did to decide what man she wants to spend the rest of her life with. I agree that too much choice can be a bad thing. Coffee, for example, we used to be able to just ask for a coffee and get one, whereas now it’s latte, cappuccino, frappuccino, decaf, espresso, mocha flat white and all that. There’s even a coffee now that is fed to some kind of monkey, digested and then pooed out for a richer flavour. What is going on? Honestly, just give me a Nescafé instant. I left and thanked everyone for a nice evening. Shivani said I should text if I wanted that coffee.

Because so many couples get together without really knowing each other in India, detective agencies are a thriving enterprise. It’s common practice for the family to pay someone to follow the potential partner to check if everything they said was legit. As mad as it sounds, I guess because marriage is talked about so early, this is a bit of quick research. I’d like the locals to record their version of the Craig David song ‘7 Days’; they’d be singing about moving the gran-in-law in by Friday.

I met with the boss of one of these agencies and was told I was going to spend the day with a detective following a guy who was supposed to be getting married soon. He gave me a photo of the fella and a profile similar to the one I had filled out the day before. It said that he was on a wage of 35,000 rupees, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink and was vegetarian. It was my mission to follow him for a while to see if he was true to his word. I was looking forward to my little job, as I like people-watching. I prefer watching people to actually having to deal with them. I’ve always been like that. I was never one for having loads of mates when I was younger. I think that’s why I didn’t do that well at school. If I’d had more mates I could have copied their work and got better grades. My teacher always accused me of not thinking before I spoke, but looking back I wonder if I did this cos I spent a lot of time alone and it made my own company more interesting when I didn’t know what I was going to say next.

Being a detective reminded me of some school homework I was given to keep me busy over the Christmas break one year. We were asked to observe an activity and then make a pie chart from the information collected. Some kids counted the cars that passed their house between certain hours and then presented the most popular colour of car in a chart. Someone else did something about how many different meals were made from one bag of potatoes. I gave myself a little mission of tracking a neighbour called Mrs Knowles. She was an old woman who lived alone and didn’t go out much, so I thought I’d make a pie chart showing how many minutes a week she was away from her home. I also took note of any visitors. She only ever wore two cardigans, pink and blue, and my research showed she wore the blue one more often. On one day when I hadn’t seen much movement for a while, I pushed a newspaper through her letterbox but left it hanging out a bit, so if she pulled it through I’d know she was okay. In all my time in school this was one of the only things I ever got a good mark for. After that, my teacher used to ask how Mrs Knowles was keeping and if she was getting out more. I like to think I came up with Neighbourhood Watch well before it had been created.

The boss of the agency said I would be partner to Detective Aakash. He looked like a detective from Miami Vice: smart-casual jacket, jeans, shoes and shades. I got some coffee and cake from the café next door to the detective agency to keep our energy up during the case. It’s also the sort of thing you see detectives do in films when they’re on a mission.

Trying to find a person in such a heavily populated place was not going to be easy. I thought I’d seen the bloke we had to find about seven times just on the walk to Aakash’s car. Luckily, one of the other detectives from the agency was already tracking him and said he had been seen at a local shopping mall, so we made our way over there.

KARL: Do you change your look so people don’t notice you following them?

AAKASH: Yes, yes. Just yesterday I visited a hair salon, and he just changed the shape, so that I can change my look. I mean, these are very small assignments. We also go on some very, very big assignments, some corporate assignments also. Glasses are the biggest friend of a detective. We can judge anybody by looking into the eyes of someone, but when we are with the glasses – you cannot read the mind of anybody.

This would be a problem for me. I can’t change my look. If you’re bald you can’t change which side your hair is parted. So I popped on some shades to help mask my face. I looked really gormless. Aakash must have looked like he was driving a bluebottle about.

We pulled up and waited. You can pull up where you want in India. Maybe this is why the roads are so busy. They’re full of detectives following people and blocking up roads. I had the photo of the man and was looking for him. It’s a game of patience, which I think I’m pretty good at. When Suzanne goes shopping she dawdles too much and I just wait in the car, so I think I’d quite like this type of job. You’re your own boss in a way, and you don’t have to be too brainy either. A lot of TV detectives are simple people. Columbo is my favourite detective and he had a glass eye, and the criminals always thought he was slow. Ironside was in a wheelchair. Miss Marple was an old woman. My weakness could be getting one GCSE in history.

KARL: So is he working today?

AAKASH: He is working, but he’s on the field today.

KARL: On the field? What does that mean?

AAKASH: Field, I mean work that’s outside the office.

KARL: So that would be a good time to see a woman if he had someone else on the go?

AAKASH: Exactly, exactly, exactly.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, the man we were after turned up. It was quite exciting. The shop he came out of was next to a McDonald’s. Was he going to go in? ‘He’s supposed to be a vegetarian,’ I said. Aakash pointed out that they do sell veggie burgers. You could tell he’d been in this game for a while. I suggested that it might be quicker if I get out and walk up to him and ask if I could borrow a cigarette as a test, but he told me that we should stay back in the car for now. I think we could have found out some useful things about the person if we’d got more involved. We could have checked his temper by nicking his parking space before he had a chance to pull in. That always gets a reaction from people. Surely living with someone with a bad temper is more dangerous than someone who eats burgers?

I made notes of what I saw. He had a rucksack, which I thought was an odd bag to take to a work meeting. I suggested he could be having an affair and have a change of clothes in there. He was smiling a lot while talking on his phone. Could be another woman. It didn’t look like a business call. But none of this was any use, as we needed evidence. He just kept walking around a car park. I don’t know what he was up to. Never mind his future wife, I felt like telling his boss he was wasting time hanging round car parks all bloody day when he should have been seeing a client.

As he left the car park we slowly kerb-crawled, keeping on his tail. I was just having some of my cake when Aakash jumped out the car and ran across the road, as it looked like we may have lost him in the crowd. I stayed and ate the cake. It was good stuff. Chocolate with an Oreo biscuit crunch. Five minutes later Aakash came running back. He had managed to get a really clear photo on his phone of the bloke buying a drink from a stall while smoking a fag. Caught red-handed.

Aakash’s phone was constantly ringing. I asked him if it was to do with this case, and he told me he was also working on another assignment looking for a lady who had been missing since the night before. It seemed odd to me that there was a woman missing and we were chasing a bloke to check that he didn’t eat burgers or smoke fags. It was fun for a bit, but it was all quite silly, really. I’m not sure someone lying about smoking is enough of a reason to end a relationship.