Wives who grew taller than their man

PEOPLE, at times, face a funny plight, sounds like an oxymoron. I knew someone whose predicament was incomparable and tickling. The kind that would find it hard to get empathy. Barely 4 feet tall,  Vinod was the ubiquitous Chhotu in our office. His accessories — high- heeled shoes and puffed-up hair, Dev Anand style — aided what his bones failed at, giving him a vertical lift. It lent his slight frame a funny strut.   

But he outgrew the status of a Chhotu — no, not in terms of height. Before we knew, he was helping us in sorting out our troubles with our alien new friend, computer. Of course, he served us our teas and coffees. Most of us — the staff — was struggling to befriend the machines, not so for Vinod. He could have been a software engineer. But this was not the root of his troubles.

When no one was around, he would chat up with me in Awadhi. Our shared language gave me a peep into his troubled destiny. One Sunday, he asked me sheepishly to get an autograph of some Tulsi, of Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi fame. She was visiting Chandigarh and the misfortune of reporting on her visit fell on me. The celebrity reporter took her weekly off on Sundays, which happened to be my working day. It often landed me in awkward situations. 

Sadly, this pretty damsel Tulsi, felt terribly offended when I told her I didn’t know a thing about the serial that made her a star. Tulsi, happened to be Smriti Irani, now overgrown laterally and otherwise. Back then, our photographer was happy to see a pretty subject for his camera. I couldn’t flatter her celebrity ego. To her, my ignorance was unpardonable; I never had a flattery bone in my body. It was a disaster. I didn’t  get her autograph. Vinod was visibly upset.   

Then, a matching scene was enacted on visit Bipasha Basu’s visit, and Vinod stopped talking to me for my inability to get autographs of these dream girls. I was intrigued by his obsession. To quell my curiosity, I apologised for the slip on my part and asked him: “What will you do with their autographs?”

“I will paste them on their posters.” 

 “Well, well, why do you like women you’ll never meet?” I asked. 

“Because they are not my wives.” 

Now, this was really intriguing. 

“Why do you say so?”

Vinod took long to explain. He had been married thrice since his childhood. He was 22. Each time he went for  gauna (in child marriages, the bride stays back with her parents till she reaches puberty. Gauna is the ceremony when the bride joins her in-laws’ home), to his dismay, he found the bride had outgrown him. So, the marriage was broken by his family. 

“What’s wrong in having a taller wife?” I teased. 

“How is it possible?” he countered, “after all, I am a man; a wife can’t be taller than her man.”

His summer sojourns were spent in search of a shorter wife. Till that happened, he had his fantasy women’s posters — awaiting autograph.