Of course, like most ethnic folks born and raised in the U.S., my siblings and I didn’t speak our mother tongue, although we understood every bit. However, we managed to carry on stilted conversations in Konkani with elderly relatives during our rare trips to India.

Shabari’s birthday gift to me had been a book titled Score a Hit before your Ovaries Quit. It wasn’t a gag gift. My aunt’s sense of humor didn’t extend to witty presents. I hadn’t read beyond the first chapter yet, but it was a primer for women on the art of landing a man.

At this point, my aunt wasn’t dropping hints; she was grabbing me by the scruff of my neck like she would a recalcitrant puppy and dragging me toward matrimony. A thirty-something, unmarried niece could diminish her own young daughters’ marriage prospects. In fact, the ripple effect of one black sheep’s deficient image could potentially taint the entire clan.

Pinky wiggled her eyebrows at me suggestively. “Is that suit in honor of your meeting with Prajay Nayak today?”

“No.” What was Pinky thinking? That I was out to bat my eyelashes at our CEO? Besides, I was nowhere near that significant chapter in my Score a Hit book yet and wouldn’t know how to go about flirting the right way. The book said there was a method to everything. But I had to master the subtle art of seduction first, before I ventured into practicing it.

“After all, he is your jaathwalla. He’s a good catch, right?” Pinky meant he belonged to my Gowd Saraswat Brahmin sub-caste—GSB for short. But as far as I knew, that was all the CEO and I had in common. He was a genius, a wealthy man with a corporation of his own, with all the surrounding power and trappings, while I was a nobody with an ordinary job.

To some extent Pinky was right, though. I did want to impress Mr. Nayak, but for entirely different reasons.

First of all, it was important to my career. I firmly believed in setting the right tone. And I was ambitious.

Second, since he and I both belonged to the tiny community of GSB-Americans, his family and mine had several common acquaintances. My mother had filled me in on some names. If I made a poor impression, word would spread through the gossip mill like red wine on a white sheet. I’d worked too hard to attain the image of a bright and hard-working professional to end up with a “loser” reputation.

Third, jobs like mine were rare. I wanted to keep it for a long time.

And last but not least, a dumb image would ruin my chances of finding a decent husband. Who would want a dunce for a wife, especially the cerebral Indian guys with advanced degrees and 4.0 GPAs that my parents introduced me to?

My mother on the other hand, after she’d discovered who Nayak was, and that he was single and unattached, had hinted that I should try to charm him.

“One never knows when and where fate will strike, and it is up to an individual to give it a slight nudge in the right direction,” she’d declared with a hopeful edge to her voice. She had apparently heard good things about Prajay Nayak from a number of her friends. In the Konkani book of matrimonial prospects, Nayak was a superb catch.