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DOES GEN Z ALSO FACE THE DILEMMA OF BEING CHOSEN, LIKE RIA?

What happens when you want to marry, find a companion and build a life with someone, but no one seems willing to choose you?

That is the question at the heart of One to Tango: Ria’s Odyssey, a story that begins with Ria’s search for a life partner but gradually becomes a much larger exploration of rejection, self worth, relationships and the search for meaning.

Ria wants to marry. She wants a companion with whom she can build a life. Yet one prospective suitor after another rejects her. The writer brings the arranged marriage process vividly to life through Ria’s encounters with prospective matches. Some of these meetings are amusing, even awkwardly hilarious, because of the questions asked and the expectations placed on a prospective bride. But beneath the humour lies an uncomfortable reality. A woman is placed before strangers, observed, questioned and assessed, sometimes as though her entire future depends on marriage and on being accepted.

For Ria, the repeated rejection is not merely disappointing. It slowly begins to affect the way she sees herself. The question changes from “Why did they reject me?” to the far more painful, “Why does nobody choose me? Am I not worth anything?”

And this is where Ria’s story becomes surprisingly relevant to Gen Z. The generation that speaks more openly about independence, personal choice, compatibility and self worth may approach relationships very differently from earlier generations. Yet beneath these changing attitudes lies a very old human desire: to be loved, accepted and chosen by someone.

Many women today consciously choose singlehood and create independent, fulfilling lives. Ria’s predicament is different. She wanted marriage, but circumstances gradually push her towards a life she had never imagined for herself.

Interestingly, the book places another kind of loneliness alongside hers. Viren is married, has a daughter and holds a high profile corporate position, yet his personal life leaves him emotionally unsettled. His troubled marriage, marked by conflict, hysterical tirades and emotional turbulence, raises another uncomfortable question: can a person have a family and still feel profoundly alone?

Ria and Viren therefore enter the story from very different circumstances, yet their lives begin to intersect in ways that make the reader look beyond the simple labels of married and unmarried.

One of the most powerful sentences in the book captures this paradox:

“There are some on this planet who never get to live with someone they love, and there are many who keep kicking their partners and don’t realise the bliss of God in making them life partners.”

It is a striking thought because it turns the familiar conversation about marriage on its head. Having someone beside you does not automatically mean having companionship, just as being alone does not necessarily mean living an incomplete life.

What follows takes Ria somewhere she could never have anticipated. Her encounters with Viren become an important part of her journey, but the real transformation happens within her. Slowly, the woman who once measured her worth through the eyes of prospective partners begins to look at her life differently. Rejection starts losing its power over her, and new possibilities begin to emerge.

This is where the book becomes more than a story about finding a husband. It becomes a story about finding oneself.

The language is fluid and easy, making the book accessible without making its questions simplistic. There are moments that make you smile, moments that make you uncomfortable and moments that make you reconsider what we casually call a “settled life.”

For Gen Z and for those who came before them, the book raises a timeless question. Relationships may have changed. The way we meet people has changed. Our expectations of marriage have changed. But has the fundamental human need for companionship really changed?

And then there is the title.
Tango is traditionally a dance for two. Ria begins her journey believing that certain dances in life require another person. But what happens when the other dancer does not appear? Does the music stop?

Perhaps that is the question readers should carry into the final pages.
Because One to Tango is not simply about whether Ria finds the person she has been waiting for. It is about what she discovers along the way.

And the final turn in Ria’s journey is beautiful. It is unexpected, deeply moving and best left for the reader to experience. Revealing it would take away from the pleasure of discovering how Ria’s journey finally comes together.

Sometimes the most beautiful endings are the ones we never see coming