You Could also do it wrong.. That works too!!!

My parents' approval in many respects seemed to be "a piece of cake", quite frankly because I literally put in zero efforts into it. In fact, while my mom was groom hunting by her various means, my brother did one day come up to me worried and asked," You do know mom is looking for other guys don't you?" I replied I did, he then grew more tense and asked, "Fir Sid ka kya hoga, usko pata hai??". I just couldn't help but smile, even though he's my brother he couldn't see a fellow trooper fall prey to a woman's indecisiveness, even if that woman was his own sister! That moment was really heart warming, and then I assured him that I knew what I was doing. And while that did work for me a little sooner than expected, that spelled trouble for Sid, as in a land not so far away, were the completely clueless Bong parents!

But before we get to that, a little context: Now this is no secret that once parents have given their approval, they want things to move fast. Wait a minute not just fast but at the speed of light! So you can imagine the scene at my house, after the Dusshera conversation.

So for the next one month this was the typical scene waiting for me when I got back from office:

(With anticipating eyes) sooo... when do we meet his parents?
(With suppressed irritation) Next Month
(Slightly satisfied) What date?
(Visibly irritated) Don't know yet!

The month passed, no parents' meet happened, my understandably worried Mom asks if there's a problem. Has he changed his mind ( At this point I just rolled my eyes and thought, Ya! Right! As if that's ever going to happen!). I had to tell her the truth (There was no easy way to tell it though), "Mom, the deal is.. his parents have no clue about this!" And then to back him up, I gave all the nonsense like he's not had the chance to break it to them, he's not that open with them, he's been living away for too long and all that. When the truth was that he had chickened out (He's going to kill me if he reads this). As already established, I have a cool set of parents ;), Mom understands and says " As long as you promise he's going to talk some day, and that day is coming soon.. I'll give him time!"

Now that I've laid the base for justifying why I did what I did. Here's the age old tip to get a chicken to "Man Up", ladies take note ;) :

After days of coaxing him, cajoling him, pampering him, pleading I gave in to what I'm best at - "Threatening him!" ( You can't call me the devil here, you have no idea how difficult it was to handle uncomfortable questions that came from my dad after he was told about the "Guy").

Now how did I threaten him, first they were perfectly harmless threats, you don't tell them till this weekend I won't share my food with you ( I take my food very seriously :| ) or won't wish you good night. No prizes for guessing, that didn't help at all!

My patience wore thin and finally I just woke up one Sunday, called him up and asked, "Have you talked to your Mom yet?" The expected answer. Wasting no time for chit chat, I said, " Do not call me till you have spoken at home!". Having said that I went back to sleep, and by the time I sat down for lunch I had got the call. My heart was in melt mode already for I thought I had been to harsh on him, so I had thought I'll be rude only for one question and then give him more time. So I asked, "So.. You told?" He said "Yes I did". Let me be honest, I hadn't expected this one would work either :P leave it working so fast!! That really did make me feel awesome and evil both at the same time, Awesome, because he couldn't bear the idea of me not talking to him. Evil, that I had to stoop to this level to get my work done.

Anyway, breaking the news was only the start of the battle for him. See here's how he got it wrong, you cant expect to just bring up a girl in a random conversation and expect your parents to accept her! Right? Of course there is going to be disapproval, disappointment. It was totally understandable that his parents weren't all Gung-ho about it, only because they hadn't known at that time how awesome I am :D!

But this did have one desirable outcome, his parents did decide to come over to Delhi albeit to talk sense into their "Only Son", who had by that time Manned Up enough to stand by his words ( Was super impressed then, still am when I think back!!, still think he could have opened up earlier though..). But this way or that, he did convince his parents too, they agreed to meet me, loved me :D and I loved them too!! ( A little more than I love him :P )        

And my world was rosy again!! Long story short.. tell your folks early or tell them when a sword's dangling on your neck, they love you enough to see your happiness and let you have it :)