In this romantically corseted society, Ashish Chettri is as close as you get to a Don Juan.
He is an irrepressible flirt: a skirt chaser who claims to pursue three women at a time, a loquacious utterer of compliments, a ceaseless seeker of dates.
And that is just with his thumbs.
Like many Indians today, Chettri is a solely cellular Casanova: a suitor who flirts by text message, but rarely — if ever — in person.
Text messages have become an integral part of courtships in many countries. But the short messaging service, or SMS, is proving particularly revolutionary in India, where it is paving a way for the young to maneuver around deep-rooted barriers to premarital mingling.
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For young, middle-class men such as Chettri, the challenge is to interest women without most of the options available to Western men.
The Western flirt might banter with a woman at a crowded bar. Should closeness develop, he might soon invite her to his apartment to have a “drink.”
Good luck trying that routine in India.
Dating of any kind is minimal in the countryside, where two-thirds of Indians live. Much persuasion is required even to induce a woman to have coffee with you, and that may be as far as it goes.
If a text suitor makes it to the next step, say, an invitation to the movies, new challenges arise.
“She will come, but she will come with two, three friends,” said Vaibhav Shingre, 25, a co-worker of Chettri’s and his wingman of sorts. “You have to specify, ‘Please come alone.'”
Because many young Indians will marry only someone their parents approve of, and in some cases choose, much of this text-messaging is recreational.
Young Indians, girls especially, are taught not to show any interest in the opposite sex.
Most young, middle-class Indians live with their parents, leaving few opportunities for trips back to “my place.” They often share rooms with siblings into their late 20s, making it hard even to speak privately by telephone.
A result of such restrictions is an enduring awkwardness between many young, unmarried men and women. But communicating by text message seems to help them overcome their inhibitions.
“I’m not comfortable talking face-to-face with a woman,” said Chettri, 24, a chef at a hotel restaurant here.
Instead, when he goes out with groups of men and women, he makes mental notes about which women he would like to know better and later gets their numbers through friends. He approaches each target anonymously by text message for several days.
If a woman shows interest, Chettri discloses his identity and, in many instances, persuades her to meet him in person.
“I start with ‘I admire you,’ then I ask her for a movie, then I ask her what happened during the day, then we start teasing and all,” he said.
What kind of teasing?
“I may call her fat,” he elaborated. “They like it. That’s why they reply. Then they start teasing. Slowly, slowly it happens that you meet.”
In one recent episode, he fixed his gaze on a neighbor. He sent her a message anonymously. He said he admired her. Eventually, he unmasked his identity.
“thank u for admiring me!” she wrote back. “but u know wat i feel dnt u think dat instead of sending me msges like a thief y dnt u come up n speak 2 me openly. I mean (face 2 face) Dnt u think dat dis is a better idea? Afterall v r not strangers v r neighbours m i not right? Now the rest is upto u Ashish.”