Sunday Morning Amusement

'The Examiner' is a magazine published by the Bombay Catholic Sabha (indeed, such a thing exists). Every Sunday, we pick up our copy after mass and spend about a hour leafing through it over breakfast.

While most of the news consists of the latest announcements from the Vatican, the Pope's views on birth control, the plight of the dwindling Catholic community in India and so on, there are two pages devoted to my favourite part - The Matrimonials.

Since I was ten years old and first discovered this feature in the magazine, I looked forward to reading it every week. The Examiner Matrimonials provided me with a week's worth of entertainment in just ten minutes of reading time - For a mere ten rupees, this was money well spent as far as I was concerned.

The descriptions for brides always involved the following characteristics - good, God-fearing, homely, family-oriented, wheatish-complexion, under 30 years of age. For men it was usually much of the same, except the age limit was probably upped to 35 years and 'professionally qualified' was added to the list.

Apart from seeing which people I could actually identify by the few facts or email ids mentioned, I was amused by how each ad asked for more or less the same thing. If everyone indeed got what they wanted as advertised, I imagine they all married carbon copies of each other. So I'm on the lookout for the real Roman Catholic matrimonial ad. One that says exactly what the prospective bride/groom wants; no more, no less and forget all the frills of 'wheatish complexion'!

Then again, as a fellow cynic and I have concluded, the Examiner editor would probably go nuts with something that read as, " Groom wanted. Should fall under 'decent human being' category, preferably not an only child (i.e. no sharing issues), no Oedipus-complex, comes with own friend circle, has a decent job or ability to support himself (i.e. not be a moocher) and of course - is not butt-ugly. Being taller than the prospective bride (i.e. over 5'4") is an added advantage.

ONLY interested parties that fall under all these categories may write in. If you hear from me, kudos to you. If not, good luck with your wheatish complexioned homely God-fearing wife."

I'm pretty sure that would be over the word-limit and terribly out of line from what the good mamas are looking for, but at least I'd have a good laugh for ten bucks!