Today, as I write this story, his voice still echoes in my ears from the recent chat that we had earlier. I work in the merchant navy and had a chat with one of my officers when I came across his story. While on board, his beloved, to whom he was about to get married suffered from an ailment, a curable one, to which he could do nothing from the ship. This ailment, though certified by the doctors as not harmful for the couple’s wishes to have a baby was perceived by the rest of the world to be of disastrous consequences. He signed off, only to assume that his presence at home would make things better, but who knew that life had more tests to follow?
After reaching home, he came to know that a certain priest had advised their parents that the girl was a “manglik” and that death and destruction would befall on the family if the marriage was made. Disheartened by this, both the families decided to postpone the marriage until the “mahurat” was more appropriate. But the groom insisted and convinced his parents for the same date. But the bride’s parents had already cancelled the bookings for the marriage hall and had lost a lot of money in it. Anyhow, the groom gave them financial support and bookings were redone. Now, remember the priest that had godly powers of foreseeing the future? He predicted that the girl would die a week before marriage and due to some major coincidence, the bride did suffer from a major accident which broke both her ankles.
As tough as a human can be, there are certain circumstances which break you from the inside. So it happened with the bride. She had fleeting thoughts and at one point asked him not to marry her and as the man told me he himself had a moment of lapse in judgement too. But, he shrugged away the negativity and went on to marry the love of his life.
On the marriage day, as she was in a wheelchair and she could not take the seven vows by herself so as a grand gesture, he carried her in his arms around the fire god, pledging his life to her. This could have been a Bollywood ending to their story but life isn’t fair, is it?
She still faced problems at her new house, which was mostly due to the society aunties whispering in her mother-in-law’s ear how their daughters-in-law could do all the house chores so perfectly. Now, you would think that the new mother would be rational about it and think about the daughter’s present condition but there is this thing called social stigma which somehow reigns supreme when it comes to our society. Anyhow, this was comparatively short-lived and she moved on to study in a different place.
After all this, when I asked him about how he felt, he still replied with a smile, saying that this is what life is and no matter what happens you got to keep people whom you love around you.
But, is it fair? Is happiness of our loved ones more important or the norms that exist in our society and moreover is approval of the society more important than our own family? What are norms, if they don’t bring us peace and hurt our loved ones? For once, please let us think more about our family’s happiness and less about society. I don’t know whether this story should give you inspiration or it should make you happy/sad but it should at least open up your minds and make you think.
Submitted By – Sambhav Kumar
