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To swipe or not to swipe, that is the question! Modern dating is a mess, that’s a point hardly worth debating, and honing the skills needed to breach these treacherous waters is a serious business. For Khushnuma Daruwala, this complicated world became a source of inspiration for her hilariously honest debut novel, 50 Cups Of Coffee. Through her anecdotes she shares not only tales that will have you in splits of laughter but insight into India’s baffling dating etiquette.
Finding a partner over the internet is hardly a new phenomenon in this country. For years, matrimonial sites have been booming and arranging your life partner over a screen was more than acceptable. But somehow when portals became about dating rather than marriage, society’s judgment radar went haywire. Bad enough that the younger generation has the gall to date before they wed, but now they have access to total strangers and have much more adventurous sexual agendas. For shame!
Anyone who’s ever tried to navigate Tinder will assure you that no two experiences are ever the same, in her novel, Khushnuma has chronicled the zaniest, strangest and most though provoking dates that people have shared with her. So whether you want to test the waters before putting yourself out there, or if you’re a veteran online dater looking for a relatable read, or perhaps you’re just looking for the perfect book for a rainy afternoon, this could be the book for you. Grab your very own cup of coffee and prepare for a delightful journey through the inexplicable maze that is Indian dating.
Homegrown caught up with Khushnuma to find out more about her thoughts on life, love and the intricacies of internet dating.
Homegrown: When did you first decide to write 50 Cups Of Coffee? Was it always your plan to author a novel?
Khushnuma Daruwala: The idea was born on Marine Drive, an accidental by-product of idyllic banter and a very brave friend who I discovered had met, not 10 or 15, but 50 potential grooms. Highly amused by her stories, the magical 50 and the fact that I had nothing else to do by virtue of my sabbatical I excitedly offered to write about it. After exciting childhood dreams that vacillated between astronomy, zoo keeping and diving with great white sharks, I eventually settled for something a tad tamer—advertising. Writing a novel had never been a consideration until then. Even in that moment of enthusiasm I didn’t have any inkling of how seriously I would pursue it.
HG: After immersing yourself in other peoples’ experiences, what are your concerns about internet dating?
KD: My concern would be one often ends up rigorously screening strangers with a metaphoric scanner and hoping for ‘till the end of time’ kind of love. At some level it’s understandable because this is a stranger but people want to gauge potential as fast as possible with minimal emotional investment, which is a bit of an impossible situation.
HG: How do you think the dynamics of being in a new relationship have changed now that the internet plays such a big role in everyday life?
KD: New or old, the Internet and social media have redefined various relationship milestones and facets. Why is the relation status still ‘single’? Where’s the anniversary ode to my awesomeness? Willing to share passwords? Why talk when we can WhatsApp? – are some of the life-defining questions pertinent to dating and romance today.
HG: What about these experiences piqued your interest? Did you ever worry about the subject matter being too intimate to share?
KD: Many stories seemed to be straight out of Ripley’s Believe it Or Not which only meant one thing - a higher humour quotient. And not sharing the laughter would have been simply criminal.
Most of the stories were early ‘arranged-dates’ [Modern dating expressly for the purpose of finding a spouse.] and quite platonic, devoid of much intimacy. The idea was to recreate situations other people could relate to rather than tell personal stories, so all names have been suitably masked.
HG: Having explored this world, what are your thoughts on modern dating? Do you think it’s changed for the better or the worse?
KD: Modern dating is definitely quite fascinating. It is increasingly fluid, casual, transparent and less dramatic (relatively). There are just so many more options out there, not just in terms of the quantum of people or the means of connecting but also how you as a couple want to define the relationship.
The conventional notion of romance is being busted at a rapid pace and couples are welcoming the fact that there may be more than just one way to define relationships. We seem headed towards ‘to each his (or her) own’.
Read on for an excerpt from the novel and if you want to get a copy of your own, click here.
It’s Not Me, It’s You
After years of self-flagellation, a short span of six months in the arranged marriage market, made me come to the irrefutable conclusion—it’s not me, it’s them.
All these years I had bravely shouldered the accusations hurled at me by every journal article for my failed relationships. ‘Unconscious choice patterns’, ‘abysmal self-esteem’, ‘latent masochism’, screamed every psychologist and agony aunt. The pattern continued in my forays in the world of arranged marriage. Having burnt my fingers so often nothing remained of my digits but mere stubs, I stopped protesting long ago. Maybe my forehead was, unbeknownst to me, flashing a neon ‘WELCOME’ sign that only losers could see. Maybe I enjoyed the pain of being kicked in the gut. Maybe I was a psychiatrist’s dream case.
The only one who understood me was Roxette. It was comforting to know in this world of 7 billion, at least one was as messed up as me. I sang along to what seemed like a perfect summation of my life.
Cos every time I seem to fall in love
Crash! Boom! Bang!
I find the heart but then I hit the wall
Crash! Boom! Bang!
That’s my real middle-name . . .
Marriage, like driving, was my frailty. I no longer admired people with great academic or sporting achievements. My unabashed admiration these days was reserved for those who could control and manoeuvre a large piece of metal (aka cars, buses, freight trucks) and for those who had managed the biggest coup of all, marriage; which of course meant pretty much everyone around me. These days, in any given room I was in, the majority could drive and were no longer single.
While I’m wandering the dating maze like a headless chicken, people are not only getting married, they are getting married for the second and even the third time. Obviously, it must be supremely easy. And obviously I was missing a trick. It sounds horribly vain (actually just plain horrible), but there have been times when on spotting a not-so-pleasant looking woman I have silently sighed—‘Even she is married’ or ‘How did she land a husband?’ Shameful to say the least, but it wasn’t so much about putting them down as it was a self-pity trip. While I know love and marriage are not a function of looks, I’m not that terrible on the character scale, if I may say so myself.
They say epiphany often strikes when you reach a cul de sac or the edge of the precipice. Or when you are downing caffeine by the gallons. As I vigorously stirred my caramel chip cold coffee wondering why the chips refused to dissolve into the frothy liquid, a hazy thought blurb materialized; maybe, just maybe, I was an alien. Part of a secret convoy of alien-scientists who had committed their entire life to the study of the primitive mating and dating rituals on planet earth. Maybe our memories had been neutralized by Men in Black–style neutralizers.
Farfetched as it may sound, this theory could well explain a lot—my absolute inability to detect when a man is flirting with me; why I couldn’t ever be like the women who proudly claimed ‘we can get men to do anything we want’ when I couldn’t even get my date to part with his beloved baseball cap while attending a fancy soiree; or my bewilderment at the gazillion odd concoctions one could prepare from a humble coffee bean. I never seem to run out of new beverages to try on these dates.
Maybe it was my superior alien sensibilities that were refusing to let me downgrade to the earth 2.0 male version. Maybe the humans, despite their basic olfactory senses, could sense my alieny wiles. Partly mollified by this hypothesis and partly by the rich caramelly beverage, I decided I was ready to throw down the gauntlet. Alien or human, I would carry on with my mission.
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