Ritija Gupta - Like a Prayer

 

I thought my life was going pretty well until my grandmother called me and said, "Ritija, I know you've been having a hard time finding a man. So, I think it's time you talk to God." [audience chuckle] And I was like, “I've been paying my bills and I have a decent job, I didn't realize that my life was in need of divine intervention. But okay, Nani, please tell me, how do I talk to God?” And she said, "Well, there's Lord Shiva. And He's a very good man and God to help single women find their husbands." And I was like, "Nani, Lord Shiva, the God of Destruction? [audience laughter] Lord Shiva, you want Him to be my wingman?" And she said, "Yes. So, every Monday, if you fast, He will find you a husband." So, I thought about this, and I had a couple of issues.

 

The first, is that I'm actually not Hindu. [audience laughter] So, I was like, “Is Shiva even going to take my calls? No, He's going to listen to me.” But then, the other issue was I didn't feel like I wanted to give up food just to get a man. [audience laughter] But I did-- [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Thank you. But I did really want to make my grandmother happy. I loved her so much, and she loves me so much. Okay, maybe let's just see what happens. When this inevitably fails, we can go back to talking about what I like to talk about, like, Game of Thrones or cartoons. [audience laughter] So, the next Monday, I went into the office, walked right by the break room. Donuts. Like, no donuts for me, because Shiva is going to find me a man. I did great until about after lunch.

 

And then, I think my co-workers saw a look on my face and started to disengage with me. I realized that by dinner time, I needed to just put myself to bed, so I could wake up the next morning and have a meal, because I was starving. And then, something really weird and unexpected happened. I met a guy. [audience laughter] After literally years of not going on a single date, I met a guy who was really, really cute and funny. He had an interesting job. He worked as a White House correspondent. And he seemed to like me. 

 

We went on our first date walking around D.C., enjoying the cherry blossoms and the sights and liking each other's company. And I was like, “This is cool.” I just skipped my meals for a couple Mondays, and now I'm meeting this really awesome guy. Thanks, Shiva. [audience laughter] 

 

On our second date, we went to a restaurant. We're arm wrestling, because that's what you do on a second date. [audience laughter] I'm beating him. [audience laughter] And then, out of nowhere, he slams my arm to the table and beats me. And I was like, “Wait a second, I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that you just kicked my ass.” He looked me in the eye, and he said, "Aroused." [audience laughter] And he was right. [audience laughter] So, I was like, “This is a great story to tell my grandkids. This is going to be amazing.”

 

Now, he was also the type of person who would end friendships over Settlers of Catan, [audience laughter] and he got angry at waiters and he started getting angry at me. I felt like, maybe he's not the right one, because he seems really upset all the time. So, we broke up. I went back to my grandmother, and I was like, “So, I did meet somebody, but it didn't work out. I don't know, maybe I was really hungry and I broke the fast too early and I settled with the wrong guy. So, what am I supposed to do now? Now, maybe there's something to this.” 

 

She got excited, because now she could really sink her teeth into this advice and she goes, "Well, you know, Ritija, maybe what you need to do in addition to fasting is start wearing yellow, because yellow is Shiva's favorite color." I didn't have it in my heart to ask her how she knew that Shiva's favorite color was yellow. [audience laughter] She seemed really pretty convinced. I also didn't love that advice, because yellow's like-- it's not a good color on me. But okay, I'm already the weird one at work right now, so let's go ahead and throw some ugly yellow clothes on it. [audience laughter] 

 

So, I found an old sweater that somebody had given me in the back of my closet, and I put it on like, “All right, this is not an accident Shiva. This is 100% for You, so let's do this.” [audience laughter] And another few weeks went by, and I met another guy and he was really sweet. He was a lawyer. He went to the coolest protests. He was really woke. Like, when we would text, he would text me with brown thumbs up and brown emojis and I'm like, “Is that brown emoji for you or for me? Because you're white. [audience laughter] So, thank you for that.” [audience laughter] 

 

But I always felt like he was just really busy doing other things. He didn't really seem to have a lot of time for me. I felt like if I was a harp seal or a bottlenose dolphin, he'd be more interested in me. [audience laughter] And then, I was like, “Maybe I'm the one who's being really selfish, right? Like, this is how he wants to spend his time.” So, since I'm never going to be an endangered species, maybe we just aren't right for each other. So, we broke up. 

 

I was getting a little frustrated at this point, because now I was getting some volume, but I wasn't closing the deal. And I was also really weak on Monday nights [audience laughter] and really tired. So, I go back to my Nani and I'm like, “Is Shiva okay with something else where I actually get to eat?” Like, “Can I chant for Shiva?” Now, when I was born, my grandmother gave me the nickname Gudiya, which means dolly. She thought I was like her little doll. And she said, "Gudiya, you sound hungry. I think what you need to do is eat more on your fast." [audience laughter] And I was like, “That was an option? [audience laughter] We could have been doing this? Please tell me more. What do you mean, eat more on my fast?" 

 

And she said, "Well, you know that Shiva's favorite color is yellow." “Yes, I know that.” "So, you need to start eating yellow food." So, I was like, “Okay. So, I'm going to just be eating bananas at work all day on Monday, is what you're saying?” And she said, "No, no, just eat other yellow foods, like squash and corn and pumpkin pie." And I was like, “What? Pumpkin pie? [audience laughter] How did pumpkin pie suddenly become sacred food? [audience laughter] Okay, I will sacrifice my body, and eat tons of pumpkin pie to find the love of my life, [audience laughter] if that's what it will take for Shiva.” 

 

Luckily, now we were around fall and pumpkin pie was plentiful. [audience laughter] And a few weeks go by and I've eaten a pilgrim's folly of pumpkin pie. [audience laughter] I meet a guy. And this guy is so sweet. He works at an academic journal. He's just really lovely. We laugh at the same cartoons. I just felt like, “This feels nice.” 

 

And on Thanksgiving itself, I got to meet his family. I did not eat pumpkin pie at that meal. We were downstairs and I was watching Paul and his cousins play ping pong. I was just tooling around on my phone. And out of nowhere a ping pong ball comes flying at my face. And he, like a ninja, jumps and swats it out of the air to protect me. [audience laughter] And I realized at that moment I was in love with him. [audience laughter] And I thanked Shiva for somehow bringing me this amazing man. 

 

We dated. I told my grandmother about him. And on our one-year anniversary, we decided we were going to go to Chicago, so that she could meet Paul. I got there a couple days before him and I said, "Nani, I'm so glad you get to meet him. This is really exciting for me." And she said, "Ritija, I can't wait to meet him. I'm so glad, I want to give him a gift. Either I can give him some Indian sweets or I can give him $1,000.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “Don't do that. Don't give him $1,000. That's going to be really weird. That's not a thing that we do. [audience laughter] Why don't you give me $1,000 [audience laughter] and give him the sweets?” So, she did that. [audience laughter] 

 

He came and visited. I didn't tell him, [audience laughter] and we ended up going out to dinner at a place that my grandmother chose. I think she thought that I had been feeding him Indian food, so we went to this spicy Indian restaurant. As he was sweating and crying through the meal [audience laughter] and she was just talking at him, I could see that she was falling in love with him just as much as I had been.

 

A few weeks after we came back to D.C., we decided that we were going to move in together. We went to Ikea. He's picking out these huge byrå and whatever. [audience laughter] We're moving into my 400-square-foot studio, and I was like, “Joanna Gaines couldn't figure out what to do with this. This is insane. What are you doing? Where's all the rest of your stuff going to go? You're taking over my apartment with all this junk, and then where's the rest of your stuff going to go?” And Paul said, "I didn't realize that you thought I was taking over your apartment, and I was just planning on keeping mine and keeping some of my stuff there." And I was like, “Oh, so you were going to keep your apartment too?” 

 

We hadn't talked about anything. We hadn't talked about the future. I didn't know if he wanted kids. I knew that I really did. I didn't know what he wanted to do with his career. He thought maybe he would move, and I was pretty committed to staying in D.C. I realized that I had been doing this fasting and this sacrifice, because I really saw this great future, and he found somebody that he fell in love with and that's where he was. 

 

We weren't on the same page and we broke up. And as much as I was heartbroken, I was really worried about my grandmother too, because she had so loved meeting him and really cared about him. I called her and I said, "You know, Nani, I have some really bad news. Paul and I broke up. It's okay, but we're not getting back together. But don't worry, I am going to get back to the fasting on Monday. I am going to find your grandson-in-law. I'm going to weird out my co-workers again, you know, can't explain what's going on to them, but I'm going to do it, okay?" And she said, "Ritija, I don't need a grandson-in-law. I just want you to be happy, because Nani loves you and Nani wants you to be happy." 

 

I realized that my grandmother had been just giving me advice that, even though I might have thought it was superstitious, it was no weirder than the advice I had gotten from dating books on waiting three days before you text somebody you like or making a focus group out of your ex-boyfriends. [audience laughter] She had raised these three kids during the Raj in India, and she'd done an amazing job. And also what she had been doing was giving me hope through this process. 

 

And now that my grandmother has passed away, what I really miss, as much as I miss her love and as much as I miss her, just her advice and I'd love to be able to ask her if a margarita counts as yellow food. [audience laughter] But I do sometimes still fast on Mondays, even though I don't know what's going to happen in my future, because it does remind me of her and her love for me and the fact that she believed that I deserve love. Thank you, guys.