Why my friend blames Modi for calling off the wedding

"No, Modi did not! I mean, I know he’s capable of many things, but not breaking up marriages," I said.

"Yes, he did too!" @trollslayer retorted. "Meet me at Toto’s. Will tell all. Oh, and as those ads say, make it large if you get there before me."

I arrived at the pub to find her sipping a rather ornamental cocktail.

"What’s with the umbrella?" I asked.

"To shove it up. In case he’s here."

"Ooh, I so hope he’s here, in that case. Right, so tell me. Don’t leave out a single detail."

"Yeah, so we’d met a couple of times before with parents and he seemed okay. Not that we had a private chat or anything."

"And you didn’t have an inkling?"

"How could I have had? It’s not like matrimonial ads give Twitter bios," she said rather bitterly. "But wait a minute – his family did reschedule one of those meetings the day a surprise Mann ki Baat was announced. I should have cottoned on then, I guess."

I squeezed her hand sympathetically. "Better late than never," I said with feeling.

"Cheers to that!" she said and downed her drink in one large gulp.

"So here goes. There we were with our families at the temple. Once we'd got the auspicious dates and other important things out of the way, the priest told us how much his services cost. There was a collective gasp. The priest was adamant and reminded us about the exorbitant price of dal, tomatoes and other vegetables. Plus Swachh Bharat and Krishi Kalyan cess. That’s when it happened."

“Don’t worry about the price of dal,” my former fiancé pompously assured the priest. “Modiji’s gone to Mozambique to sort that out.”

“Modiji goes everywhere and comes back with nothing but selfies, souvenirs and first class toilet bags. He has enough of those eyepatch freebies to keep his eyes closed to the goings on of his cabinet members. Look at the sorry state of our economy and those fudged GDP figures, for goshsakes,” I sneered. He totally lost it then.

 “Dynasty bootlicker!” he snarled. I sweetly called him a kambakt bhakt in return.

There was another collective gasp from the parents. The priest joined in too. Our parents urged us to calm down. In fact the priest assured us that our horoscopes matched perfectly and I would be the ideal wife. I attacked the poor priest, then.

“Ideal in what way? Like that notorious troll chick who switched from being a dynasty bootlicker to a kambakt bhakt so that her husband could get a job in the Modi sarkar, a sinecure or a Padma award at the very least for over the top sycophancy? Forget it – I’m not the sati savitri type.”

“You bet you’re not sati savitri material, you’re a loose leftie woman who deserves to be raped,” my former fiancé agreed.

“Now look here,” my father began to stutter.

“You stay out of this,” I told Dad. “And you, say that again,” I dared my former fiancé.

He defiantly repeated it. And called me a fat, ugly sickular bitch too.

See, I knew that sounded familiar. “You’re that @viratbhakt who can’t spell for peanuts. I reported you for abuse to Twitter last week."

“Oh, so you’re that fat ugly telltale bitch @trollslayer!”

That’s when I informed him that the marriage was off. “Wait and see,” I told all assembled there, “if I’m lucky he will be in jail for sexual harassment on our auspicious wedding date.”

The priest, seeing this marriage breaking up and his money vanishing, tried to pour oil on troubled waters.

“Let’s say prayers together and then talk calmly,” the priest urged.

“That,” I said, pointing to the temple idol, “is not his God.”

“Beta, this is the only God,” the priest assured him.

“Oh go to Pakistan and take her with you!” @viratbhakt yelled and showed the priest the finger. Not the engagement one, the other one. "And that’s that," her voice trailed away.

"So how are you feeling now," I asked tenderly.

"You know what? He looked just like his DP. A large, white hardboiled egg."

We couldn’t stop giggling till the next round was served.

[Inspired by a report in ToI.]