The Question Of A Lifetime

The art of proposing and why some women are still not dazzled.

- Sonali Acharjee

When Sumeet Mittal’s girlfriend didn’t accept his proposal right away, he decided to turn to literature for inspiration. Borrowing from Rhett Butler’s proposal to Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Mittal played a guitar and sung under his lover’s window every night for two weeks, till she finally agreed to marry him. “Sex is so easy today,” says Mittal’s new bride, Aashna. “A booty call is only an app, phone call, SMS or FB message away. Romance is what women crave for now. It’s the new ideal because it’s missing in today’s dating game. I would love to be courted in the same way Jamie wooed Aurélia in Love Actually or like how Darcy runs after Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. I don’t want just a ring. I want love. And I want a proposal that proves it.” Luckily, Mittal’s singing was enough to impress her.

Not every couple is as fortunate. At Dr Sanjay Saini’s stress clinic in Delhi, the 11 o’clock counselling session is reserved for a particular kind of patient—men who have been rejected because their proposals failed to impress. Aged between 25 and 40, these men now attend weekly group therapy sessions with Dr Saini to ‘feel better about themselves’.