The segment ‘I Love Thane’ in the new anthology series Modern Love Mumbai opens with Masaba Gupta’s protagonist Saiba skeptically looking at her work—the fake plants she’s installed to beautify an otherwise painfully sterile, antiseptic art gallery in Mumbai. She’s a landscape designer. She’s 34. She’s single. But doesn’t want to be.
The first guy we see her meet through a dating app is the usual first on every woman’s list. Meeting them is a rite of passage every girl must endure. You know the type. Good-looking. Successful. Entitled. Overconfident. In this case, he is the founder of a crypto startup, one of India’s 30 under 30. By the time Saiba shows up, he’s already ordered food for them both. When she compliments the man serving their table on his shirt, he’s surprised at her unwarranted kindness. When she asks him what kind of a girl he is looking for, he has a memo ready. He recites it with such ease, you wonder if he can hear himself at all.
“She should be OK with going on family trips but not wake up too late,” he starts. And then effortlessly moves on to “Aisa nahi hai ki drink nahi karti ho. Do beer tak theek hai. Par teen beer waali nahi chalegi.”
Sure.
A guy I met through my parents, after finding out about my stellar academic record, told me laughingly, “Mai toh neeche se last aata tha.” Then added, “There is no way I could have got a girl like you in school. Thank god, I am rich.” I asked him if he thought that was enough. He said for him, it was. I didn’t feel the need to say anything anymore after that.
Another came with a 26-point list. All of it was meticulously written down on his smartphone. Lest he should forget anything crucial. I am not kidding. A distant relative suggested that my parents and I consider this guy seriously. The younger son of a prominent Marwari Jain family in Kathmandu. One of his 26 points was that we should both be OK with snooping into each other’s phones whenever, wherever. “Itni closeness, itna trust toh hona hi chahiye,” he told me.
One of his other points was that since his business involved a lot of travel, I should be OK with leaving my job whenever his work demanded relocation.
Then there was this one I met through a dating app. He told me I was “too sorted”—pretty, smart, independent, mature. That there was nothing “wrong” with me. I had no unresolved childhood traumas. I was emotionally available too. It disconcerted him. So much so that he felt unimpressed, almost cheated.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes wearily when Saiba gets ghosted by a cute, much older guy she swiped right, after having chatted with him for days. Come on, girl. Don’t you know? Fuckboys are the cutest. The wittiest. The most charming. I once dated a “poet.” A JNU graduate much older than me, we connected through Facebook, where he was a star. I was studying in Bengaluru then. We’d talk at length about poetry, writers, existential angst, art, and all things but ourselves or what was brewing between us. As I was hoping, I landed my first job in Delhi. The first three months were heady. We were inseparable. We’d go out to scenic spots, chat for hours, stroll, eat sometimes, and just be. It was too soon for me to give any kind of name to our fondness for each other. He didn’t feel like he was in a rush either. Then one evening, he asked me if I’d want to watch a film in his apartment. I refused politely. He persisted. I refused again. This time without politeness. He just left. I didn’t bother to follow up. He didn’t either.
I have a fairly long list of such incidents with men who pride themselves in being uber-cool, metrosexual, sapiosexual, or whatever the new popular form of -sexual is these days. It is inevitable if you’re a young woman living on her own in a big city. These men, they are polished products of premier colleges and posh jobs, with eclectic taste and immaculate soft skills. Most of them are on dating apps, mindlessly swiping, ghosting, gaslighting, and mansplaining, ensuring the innocuous spread of casual misogyny.
In retrospect, I’m glad I met these men and had those experiences. Because otherwise, I’d never have come to appreciate the people and the things that I do now.
Saiba got an excuse to revisit Thane, where she grew up, because of a work project. I returned to Jaipur, my hometown, out of utter exhaustion, burnout, and disillusionment.
With the façade of the big city and its glimmer. I’d lived in several of them long enough to be able to see through. One day, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw a hamster running on a wheel. This hamster was 27 years old but felt 60. I turned away, packed my bags, and left.
Saiba found Parth while working together to build a park for the residents of Thane. I found A in Jaipur as I was convalescing, too tired to even care for love or want a partner. He is two years my junior too, like Saiba and Parth. We went to the same school. He was my younger sister’s classmate. He’d visited our home once on her birthday but I don’t remember seeing him that day. I didn’t have the eyes then. I was too intoxicated, too smitten by the thrill, the promise of the life that waited for me outside the proverbial walls of my home and my quaint, conservative hometown.
Growing up, I always thought of myself as a big-city girl like most small-town children with privileged, sheltered lives often tend to. I couldn’t wait to get out of Jaipur and make a life for myself far, far away. And I did. Worked in fancy offices, dated fancier people, and lived in a way that felt straight out of a movie. Actually, several movies. But such lives and relationships aren’t sustainable, I figured the hard way. It took me seven years to feel homesick. But once I did, it was absolute.
When a curious Saiba asks Parth why he never left Thane, he simply says, “Thane achha hai. Wide roads, national park hai. Lake hai. Natak hota hai yaha pe. Good missal. I like it here.” At 16, I never thought I’d say this. But today, as I am a few months away from turning 30, I must. I like it here in Jaipur too, enough to want to stay. It has the best of all the worlds there are. Big parks, short commutes, the traffic isn’t as bad yet. It is one of the few Indian cities that has been able to retain its old-world charm. Everyone I love is here—my parents, A. Also, the locals seem to have time. Enough to care, indulge in elaborate hobbies, enjoy a siesta, a leisurely meal, or spend an evening chatting away. And boyfriends? They kiss you on the forehead.
What is it that I love the most about A? His unflinching small-town solidity. Like Parth, he is attractive in an everyday, unassuming, reassuring way. And much like Saiba, I could drive from Bandra to Thane at 6:30 in the morning just to say hi to him and not feel the distance. Some men are like that. They have the fragrance of the city you grew up in. I fell for the same quiet virtues as Saiba did. What’s there not to like about self-assurance, straight-talk, rootedness, and emotional maturity? It’s quite simple really. I like hanging out with him. When he is around, I judge myself less. Also, he makes me laugh. A lot.
You don’t find boys like Parth or A on dating apps, matrimonial sites, or even on social media. They are too real for it. Too balanced. Too secure. Too plain. As a culture, we’ve got so accustomed to filters and frills, that anything without it offends us. It’s too jarring. But try redirecting your lens a bit for once. Or just shift focus. As an experiment. You’d be surprised.
In the opening scene, when Saiba—eager to work with real greens—is looking at the fake plants, her project manager consoles her, “Nobody cares if it’s real or synthetic. Looks great, trust me.” To her, they didn’t. To me, they didn’t either. My mother, who tends a huge lawn in our home, and is nurturing over 500 potted plants in our precincts, would have scowled at the mere idea of all the pretense. Maybe Mumbai can no longer afford the time and the experimentation needed for real life. Thank heavens, cities like Thane and Jaipur still can.
Modern Love Mumbai is streaming on Amazon Prime Video
When not reading books or watching films, Sneha Bengani writes about them. She tweets at @benganiwrites.
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