An Ode to a ‘A Suitable Boy’

A Suitable Boy, how I fell for thee!
You have come to mean the world to me.
For the past three days, I have been numb
to the world outside - been deaf and dumb.

A bewitching universe contained within your pages,
1379 leaves that would normally take ages -
captured me in a way I could not resist,
and I breathlessly gulped with every turn and twist.

Delightfully enchanted by all the poetry in the words,
poems, couplets, ghazals, bhajans, and 'The fever bird'-
I am stirred to write a rhyming ode to you-
The book that has consumed me, through and through.

Every character, I recognise; every family- I adore,
even the politics and law courts were not a bore!
You had something for all my esoteric tastes!
and every small detail, I wished for to haste.

The travails of the suitors too, I read with pain and joy,
for sometimes I too wonder of my own suitable boy.
I recognise on me too, the same familial bonds and bounds,
and the compromises made for what there is no getting around.

How many times did I fall in love throughout the yarn?
Kabir the dashing cricketer! Lovable, wastrel Maan!
Malati of the green eyes! Kuku Kakoli! Though my heart's ultimate repose
would be the gorgeous, sensitive, achingly lovely lawyer Firoz...

The parts in the last left me gasping and weeping,
and in suspense, there was no question of sleeping!
Till 3 am, I sat up with you. A lump in my throat rose
with the ache in my heart, as the last page came close.

I suppose I must thank for your loan, xania88
And of course, the great inimitable Mr Vikram Seth!
If I do turn out a novel someday, as is my heart's wish,
I hope it is as breathtaking and life-overtaking as this.