“Ours was an arranged marriage as in those days one couldn’t even think of love marriage. I used to live in Ahmedabad and she was from Bombay. She used to live there with her family. At first, my father had went to Bombay to see her and meet her family. And then I had visited Bombay related to our business work and at that time, our first meeting was arranged. We did few meetings and then we both agreed for the marriage. But in those days, one wasn’t allowed to meet alone like her younger sister or brother would always accompany us in meetings. There was no concept of closed-door meetings during that time.
During those days, there were very less means of communication, so we used to write love letters to each other. We were expert in writing letters. Like today as you all wait for notifications on mobile screen, we at that time used to wait for the post man. Finally, we got engaged in the year 1964 and in 1967, we got married. There was three years of gap between our engagement and marriage. So it can be said that officially we have been in a relationship since 52 years and we have 49 years of marriage life. We went for our honeymoon at Matheran after one year of our marriage, and believe me, it was the best moment of our life. Almost after five years of marriage, I gave my first gift to her. I gifted her a saree. We used to live in a joint family so my mother said you can only buy gifts for your wife, can’t you see your mother, your sister in laws. So even gifting your wife in those days was complicated. His family has always supported me, they even allowed me to continue my education even after marriage, which in those days was very rare.
Living in joint family we never realised how our kids grew up. Even today our love is young and beautiful. When I see around, I feel that the biggest satisfaction I have in my life is that my marriage is very much successful compared to other couples of my age. We don’t have any ego issues, even today we give a lot of space to each other. We understand each other very well. Can you believe we have seen 52 valentines day together. We have traveled USA, Europe, and almost whole India together. Recently on my birthday, we two even went to Udaipur alone. Even at this age we to travel a lot with our friends.
I don’t have any problem with today’s generation, one has to change according to the time. Of course, love was way different 50 years ago, but we have to accept the changes. I just feel that today’s generation is too impatient, they don’t think once before breaking a relation. Love needs time to grow. You have to trust each other and be patient. Remember “Rome was not built in a day”.”
Submitted By – Pray Bavishi
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