A Love Marriage

Continued from here

The boy’s mother calls after an hour or two and my mum talks with her. After just 2-3 sentences about the previous evening they went on to discuss the weather and the neighbour’s sick dog. I loiter around in the background wondering what the heck was going on. Mum keeps the phone and looks at me sympathetically. It seems like the boy was not saying yes or no. The boy’s mother also was in a quandary here. But I knew what was going on. The boy didn’t want to make a scene by saying a straight No and so was hoping the situation would somehow resolve itself.

Boy’s mother calls the next day. She invites us for dinner the same night. The poor thing was quite keen to see it through and was making every effort towards it. I told my parents I was not interested[huh I too had my pride didn’t I] in going anywhere. Mum asked me to give it another chance. And I relented after making sure they knew I was least interested.

And so the 4 of us trooped into their house with a lovely bunch of flowers. The boy & family ushered us in graciously and we all sat down in the living room. While my father was making his apologies for not being there the previous day I picked up a magazine and was idly flicking through the pages. I was determined not to open my mouth until somebody spoke to me.

And then I hear my father say “Nancy was very disappointed that you didn’t speak to her before leaving yesterday. She is under the impression you are not interested in this proposal”. My father may look like a thin and frail old man but at his original best is like a bull in a china shop.

If the boy had been in the process of drinking something I’m sure he would have choked on it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think my father would embarrass me in this fashion. The magazine which I was holding automatically went up to cover my face and stayed there as I fervently wished for the earth to open up and embrace me into her kind depths. There was an awfully eerie silence which resounded thru the room[it could have been a nano second but it sure felt like eons to me].

When I didn’t hear anything I slowly lowered the magazine to peek over it and find the Boy looking at me with a wry expression. I guess everybody in the room must have been looking at me and laughing but I saw only his eyes. I have no clue what explanation he gave to defend his behaviour the previous evening coz I only heard the part where he asked to speak with me alone.

And so we walk out of the front door into the open parking space beside the house. He leaned casually against the gate and I on a bike and faced each other. I thought the farce went on long enough and was determined to clear the air.

“My parents and yours have the best of intentions but don’t let them force you into any kind of decision. Its ok if you want to back out” I say quietly.

There was a silence before he spoke. He seemed to weigh his words before speaking.

“If I had any kind of reservations I doubt this dinner would have taken place. I apologize for yesterday, it was a very tiring day.”
Then after a pause “I did ask my mother if your voice sounded like that all the time and she told me that you were not feeling well.” He said with a tiny smile playing around his lips. We did speak some more before going back in, some details about where he worked and the kind of role he played in his company.

He was leaving the next day, and I wondered if he’d call before leaving. He didn’t but I perked up when I was asked to drive him to the airport but alas no chance whatsoever to talk freely with the 2 mothers sitting at the back of the car listening avidly to whatever we were saying;-/. And so we exchanged email id’s and did small talk. Oh did I say he was arrogant……..nah….what’s a man without a bit of pride in his bearing:-).

The wedding was arranged for the last week of August and the engagement one week before that. He was busy with a project he had to complete before coming for the wedding and I was busy with my MA exams. He called me once a week and we mailed each other whenever we could. I still remember the 1st mail I got from him. It was a reply to the 1st mail I wrote to him 2-3 days before. At that point in time the internet & email were a big deal, we didn’t have a computer at home & there were no internet cafés at every corner like now. I had an exam the next day & couldn’t get out of the house.
My friend Sharitha was so thrilled about my first mail from would-be husband that she took my password from me and accessed my mail. She carefully took a printout and called me every 2 hours for the rest of the day to read it out to me. The mail itself was nothing special but for a sentence which hoped that the wedding would happen as soon as possible and the ‘love, Biju’ attached at the end[you see my 1st mail to him did not display any such feelings]. Sharitha would read out the last bit dramatically and both of us were so tickled for different reasons. Gosh I’m smiling now thinking about it but my eyes are stinging.

Our conversations through the phone were very casual but our mails were more intimate….not like intimate intimate but still very personal. He wrote 1 paragraph or two with great difficulty and I would send him 2 pages or more. Once I got really mad that he was not writing more & sent him a dry mail with just 1 para. He immediately understood and wrote back saying how much he loved what I wrote to him but unfortunately words didn’t come so easily to him. He called me twice that week to pacify me. I ofcourse melted like chocolate and resumed my lengthy letters.

We met again on the day of the engagement and smiled tentatively at eachother. The engagement which was held on a Sunday went off without incident & the wedding was scheduled for the next Sunday. That one week between the engagement and the wedding are days which I will remember vividly for the rest of my life. Everyday we would get off early in the morning from home on pretext of some work or the other and spend the day together doing all the jobs on our list. Somedays his sister tagged along acting like a kebab mein haddi……..ummm actually we tagged along behind her while she strode ahead and got everything organized. She logically and methodically prearranged everything taking more than half the burden upon herself giving us time to spend with eachother though I doubt she was aware of that. Bins,…..thanks, once again:-))!!!!!

Those 6 days were some of the best days of my life. I had finally fallen in love. An emotion I had seen almost all my friends succumb to, an emotion which I thought was quite over-rated and a feeling I wondered if I would ever experience. We spoke a lot, at times were quiet too, sometimes gently teased each other….he thought I drove too fast, I thought he spoke too less, he ordered apple pie for me I called the waiter back and changed it to chocolate milkshake. My heart stopped whenever his hands brushed against mine, much as I wanted the hand to remain there I would move away after a few seconds not quite sure why I feared the feelings when I was technically not doing anything wrong. I was engaged, right!!!! Anyways he didn’t push me at all, was just content to spend time with me and I loved him all the more for that.

On the last day before the wedding ie Saturday we had to go to church together for a small counseling session and confession before we entered into Holy matrimony. It was a very solemn occasion which brought home to me that my life was going to be changed forever from the next day. A new home, a different life-style, adjustments, and responsibilities were just the beginning to a role which was going to last for a life-time.

It was raining while I was driving back towards his house to drop him off. Very little conversation happened with each of us involved in our own thoughts. Around 1/2 way home we decided it was pouring too heavily and parked on a lonely stretch for the rain to ease off. An uneasy silence followed:

“Will you let me kiss u” asks boy quietly.

I looked at him stunned. Bloody hell, here I was thinking that he too was shaken after the session we had with the priest, about how we were bound to eachother for the rest of our lives, how we were going to responsible for eachother and all this while he was plotting to kiss me.

I looked away and stared straight out of the windshield refusing to look at him. I was so scared that I could hear my heartbeats reverberating inside the car.

“How about on the cheek then” he didn’t give up.

I didn’t give any indication that I heard him at all. In my mind I was contemplating opening the car door and running all the way back home in the rain. Only the fact that my father would not let me into the house without his precious car kept me there.

There was a heavy sigh from beside me “Ok, let’s just hold hands then”. And my lips started quivering.........I suddenly saw the funny side to the whole incident. I looked sideways at him and found his eyes dancing with amusement. And we burst out laughing.

Drawing confidence from the moment I bravely put my hand out palm up. He also puts his hand out palm up and tells me that a woman must first allow the man to hold his hand out and then place her hand palm down and accept it. Feeling like an idiot I withdraw my hand and place it carefully palm down in his large hand. And we sat quietly hand in hand waiting for the rain to stop.

Its been 10 years now and there’s never a day when I don’t thank the good Lord for my companion. We may have our differences and everything may not be hunky-dory all the time but the Love thankfully has deepened and is stronger than ever. Many of you wondered whether my anniversary was coming up as a reason for this unusually soppy post..….nope my anniversary was in August and I remember trying to post something special but the words wouldn’t come.

After 2 years of blogging I’ve realized that I have no real control over what I post..….I could be planning to put up a post about the moon but after 2 pages I delete the whole post retaining only the parts where I mention the sun & end up posting that. Even here I was planning to do a post about arranged marriages in India intending to mention my marriage as an example on Christian marriages and it ended up like this.

Leaving you with a picture which was taken a few days after the wedding. With this I have kept my promise to all of you who wanted a face to associate with Reflections:-).
Though I have to warn you that there is a world of difference between the way I looked then and how I look now. The better-half has managed to age very gracefully whereas I have literally gone to pot. The very reason I took so long is I had this ambitious plan wherein I was hoping to lose around 10kgs of weight and display an attractive picture of a slimmer me……..but now I realise pigs will fly faster.
So if you see a short, fat and unsightly woman waddling upto u at some bloggers meet don’t complain you weren’t adequately warned.

I do hope u realise how much thinking happened before I decided to post this picture but a promise is a promise. Now I will hold you to your word[u know who u r]…..if you are hesitant about putting it up on your blog, send it to me by mail. It will be great to see the face behind the blogs I read:-).