it was just another casual friday night.

"sunny", for the record thats my white name, my family named me sunil; "i think we should take some time off." that was christine my uber white girl friend.

to the best of my knowledge she isnt that white.

her family came from russia not too long ago.

she was the only one who went to high school here.

who can blame her.

she looks way whiter than us any way.

that faint touch of nasal russia was there but hey she was blonde.

"you serious abour it." what more can i ask.

"yeah, i think its the right thing to do."

how could i argue with her. she sounded more bush than putin. i am not sure but i think thats what bush said when he went after bin laden, or something like that.

"so, what happened to your white girlfriend?" shristi would ask.

"same,what ever happened to your bengali boyfriend." i quipped.

i knews she would again call me an insensitive pig but hey what the hell. i went through whatever happened to her and who is to say her emotions are more precious than mine.

deep down i would like to believe, however, no body cares, that i am a sensitive guy, i think.

long story short, we went through similar situations and her so called bengali shahjada is married to one of his cousin who happened to be from a very very rich family or so. thats all i could recall.

bottom line, he broke her heart.....thats what she used to say when we were drunk anyway.

this is few years later, we were about to graduate in may. it must have been january, the snow outside was too high. we would get drunk like most of the week nights and one of the nights it just so happened that we decided to count number of people we went out with since our last serious realtionships almost three years ago.

first, there was helena. she was a beautiful, bodacious international student from venezuela and whom i was rather fond of. shristi would constantly refer to her as a slut. i thought she was just jealous.

then there was maria, who was again a pride of latin america. i dont recall where she was actually from, could be guatemala, el salvador, doesnt really matter. she used to be great cook. " so you are looking for a maid?" that was shristi's exact quote.

then there were some more.

oh, lets not forget. yugen or nuygen something from combodia. i really liked her a lot too.one night shristi came back from her work and enlightened her with our own maoist atrocities and how it compares to what khmer rouge did in combodia and how we actually are almost refugees here. least to say she wasnt very excited by the idea of living with somebody who might have to go through all the pain her parents had to go through when they started in america. needless to say she never called back again.

its her turn now.

she started to talk about henry or anry, whatever they pronounce it in france. i told her he is gay for sure. no guy that feminine would ever go for a girl. she would always tell me i was just getting jealous coz he was so cultured and all. all the girly things i never understood or cared too understand labeled me as a pig as i mentioned before. it wasn't till the night that she had to call me to pick her up outside a gay club when her cultered henry abondened her for some other dude name steve or somerthing that she stopped arguing about him. she still defends him. as far as she is concerned henry had some unfinished job with steve so they had to leave early. whatever makes her happy.

we shouldnt forget prasanna. he was like a big brother to us when we got here. he was two years senior to us. he was all helpful and all. he was quite alrite fellow actually. until shristi told me that she was seeing him. i wished her all the happiness in life but prasanna never deserved her. i could never get this across to her. it was a guy thing. we may not like to admit it but we all are bound by the code of brotherhood, aint we? we never discussed him much. she seemed happy. as far as i was concerned she spent most of her time at his place so i had all our place for myself. he went to seattle for job after his graduation. i heard he got his H-1 and got married in Nepal. I dont think shristi ever forgave him but she just laughed when he came up in our conversation.

It was almost past midnight.

hey what about your shahjada?

i must have been drunk already. she got up from her couch and with a pillow in one hand and a glass of chardonny in other she just stared at me lying carelessly on the floor.

it was that one look that she gave me which convinced me i must be an asshole alot of time.

it was a hectic time before graduation. we would seldom eat together at home. our major differed so our assignments were different too. we would be busy most of the time at our own department blocks.

coincidentally, both our parents were coming on the same flight for our graduation.we went together to the airport to pick them up. there wasnt much conversation on the way there. they all got off on the same time. i greeted my parents. she greeted hers. i introduced her to my parents. before she could introduce me, rather chatty Mr. shristi's father said " you must be prasanna?"

i didnt know what to say. i looked at shristi and she was all flustered.

" Haina uncle ma sunil, shristi ko room mate."

there was a moment of silence but we all got collected and went back to the apartments.

for couple of days we both took our parents for visits around the city individually. then me and my parents went for the whole tour of east coast where we were supposedly to catch up with relatives my parents deeply cared about who didnt as much as call me or mail me when i was alone here for four years.

my parents caught flight from dulles international and went back to nepal and i came back here to find an empty apartment. at least half empty. ramesh told me shristi went back to nepal with her parents.

to cut to the chase. i decided i would go back to nepal in couple of days.

just wanted to ask you all

How does a pig asks a princess' hand in marriage?

thank you

pearljam