Love Story

She was a young, vibrant, daring and vivacious college student, very active in politics and more active in building a life for her own self, taking charge of it totally.

He was a quiet, serious, struggling man with dreams in his eyes and the entire life packed in one small suitcase, moving around the suburbs of the City of Joy.

They belonged to families which had faced the blow of the Indo-Pakistan partition.  Their families had left everything in Bangladesh and arrived in India with their lives and little hopes tied in small bundles.  Both the families had crossed The Padma river with the hope to return to their motherland, only to soon realize that they had left behind the land, water and sky forever. 

His family arrived at a sleepy town in Tripura and her family settled in Kolkata and life went on.

Destiny had it this way, he went for a course at the IIT Kharagpur and befriended her brother and then he visited her house often. 

And that’s how Ma and Baba met.

Baba helped Ma with her college notes and Ma helped Baba in building secret dreams of a life with this chirpy young girl.  But the quiet and silent Baba was never able to voice his liking for her.

Ma was very sure of what she wants in life and empowered enough to get it.  So she proposed.  He reciprocated and they got married.  They were each other’s first love and now life partner.

Baba worked at Ranchi while Ma continued her Government school job in Kolkata.  Parenthood followed the marriage and soon they were proud Ma and Baba to a beautiful daughter. 

But life is not all roses throughout.  The dagger of the fate cut through their loving heart and they lost their daughter after six months of blissful parenthood.

Shattered and broken, they found solace in each other’s love.  Love had a new definition now.  They had seen one shade of love but now the love unfolded new colours.  Love is support, love is Being There.

They became parents again.  In four years time, they had a daughter and a son.  Ma had already left her job to join her husband after the birth of their daughter.

Not that Love is always sweet words and laughter.  They had their own share of disappointments, arguments and complaints but the various shades of love kept unfolding over them and life went on.  Baba was very busy in building the Cultural and Educational centre of his dreams and Ma, all the while, kept the household grounded and looked after all the needs of the family.  The family extended beyond these four people.  There were relatives to be looked after, there were people to be fended for and the two of them, as one, untiringly delivered all the duties.

They had almost forgotten their own needs; they did not even seem to be a ‘couple in love’ to the children.  For the children, they were two individuals with distinct roles and yet in unison as one: as parents.  They were the two pillars anchoring them to earth and bestowing the meaning to home, to childhood and to their dreams.

Years later, Ma and Baba were once again alone, when the two little birds learnt to fly. 

Love came around in full circle when they reached the twilight years.  It had a new definition, new implication and new shade. 

Soon after retiring from the services, Baba’s health weakened.  The children never imagined a sick Baba.  Ma had those surgeries, Ma had those ulcers and Baba always was there to take control of the situation.  Things turned to be entirely different when Baba, suffering from diabetes, leading to  partial loss of eyesight and kidney problems became dependent on his wife.   So much had changed in their life; only one thing had not changed.  The conviction that Love means support, love means Being There.

During his last few days on earth, Baba would often request Ma to put her hands on him and quietly lie down by his side.  He wanted to be re-assured of her presence, of her ‘Being there’.

That day, before leaving for his evening walk, he looked back at Ma and feebly uttered, “Aami Jaachchi,’ which is a very uncommon phrase in Bangla.  We do not usually say , “I am going”, we rather say, ‘I will go and come.”  Ma, very busy with her Laxmi Puja preparation hardly noticed that it was long past his arrival time.  Only a few minutes later the neighbours informed her that they had found him lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the staircase.

A hemorrhage and coma followed.  Ma spent the entire night like a guard, near him, refusing to move for even a moment.  She nursed him and pleaded with him to come back..to consciousness.

When the doctors revealed that there was absolutely no hope of coming back and it was only a matter of time, Ma took control again.  She re-lived the marriage vow of wishing the best and only the best for him, she prayed to the Almighty for the best judgment for her husband, she surrendered to the Almighty’s will and thus made their love immortal.

She let him go, he left..they are each other’s first love, they grew old together, they lived their love and wrote their story among many others, on the leaf of time.

Love stories may have an end but it is only the story which ends, love lives forever…………

How I met my would-(not)-be husbands!

We are about to step into the eleventh year of our married life and it seems just yesterday when I was scanning through the Matrimonial pages of the newspapers and highlighting and ticking those matches which I thought would be SUITABLE.

Yes friends, I went through all those…

The Photo-session in a studio, the Matrimonial pages, the ‘Ladki Dekhna’, I was spared of nothing.

I thought it is a good time to pen down my experiences from the past and thanks to my friend Meera for her recent blog-posts on similar subjects which triggered me.

Now, to begin with, I must say that my father was a super-cool guy or I must say that he just did not have those ideas of ‘How to get your daughter married’.  Poor dad, he had thought that his daughter would choose her life partner but then I was almost 28 and informed him that I do intend to marry but have not found a groom for self.  And he found that time is ticking away.

Father would often call me up at my office and instruct me, “While returning home, get clicked at the Roy Studio’.  I would shout, ‘Get clicked this way? In these clothes and with this tired face?’ My father certainly did not have the idea.  After all, he did not have to choose his bride this way.  His bride had chosen him and had proposed and  that’s how they had got married.

That was a dream match-making style for me.  My Ma proposed and led the two of them into matrimony.  But their daughter was not the one to get such a ROMANTIC chance in life.

So I, accompanied by my parents once visited a studio in all those fineries and got myself clicked.  The result was BAD.  We never sent those photographs to any family.  The one photo used by us was clicked by my mother, one fine morning when I was leaving for office.

My first experience of ENCOUNTERING those negotiations was one fine Sunday morning.  My mother and I were leaving for the vegetable market when two guys arrived on a bike, searching for our houses and happened to ask us for direction.  I understood that they were from the family where my father’s letter must have just reached but I acted ignorant.  I directed them to my house,  to the mercy of my cool father and proceeded to the market, much to the surprise of my mother.  But I had attained an age and earned the credibility when my parents believed that I was doing the right thing.  They hardly challenged my actions!  Thanks Ma and Baba!

The guys were still there when we returned.  They were the ‘BOY’s cousins and took a lot of pride in talking about him.  Well, somehow my father (and I) really were not keen on this and so my father asked them (after a week or so) to return my photograph.  This photograph was a very favourite one of mine clicked during one of my study visits but to my dismay, anger and shock, they announced that the photograph had been torn to pieces by their pet dog!

My father’s declining health status and our urgency to get me married followed parallel time line. So my brother and I practically had to take the responsibility of getting me married.  I would scan through newspapers, write letters on his behalf and actually had to coax him to follow up.  To that, my cool guy would say, “If they have the urgency, they will surely call”! My mother would gasp, “What about our urgency!” 

I sometimes felt bad for my parents.  Earlier when they had the age and good health and offered to search for a groom for me, I always stopped them;  sometimes, declining the idea of marriage itself and later assuring them that I would find my own life partner.  And then I suddenly announce that I have not found anyone and they can go ahead in fixing a ‘match’ for me.

But the search continued nevertheless.  Once there was a phone call from Bhubaneswar and my mother talked to the ‘BOY’s’ father.  My mother proudly narrated my education, my job, career, etc and then the (not-so)-gentleman on the other side asked, “Meyer chull aache?”  Which is, “Does your daughter have long hair?”  I was totally put off by this and I said, “Tell him yes she has long hair but is a vampire in disguise.  Would that be good?”

Needless to say, like all my friends, I was also angry and sometimes felt so helpless at people judging a girl by her height, skin colour and length of the hair.  Was there nobody who would  actually know or understand me as an individual?  Sometimes I wondered if I could see some astrologer to tell me what my life would be, ten years after.  Sometimes I wished my parents had married me off at the age of 18 before I had developed any logic, reason or preferences.

‘Meye Dekha’ or ‘Ladki Dekhna’ was a very humiliating exercise according to me.  It was something like buying a commodity and negotiating a business deal but then I ultimately gave way to this also.

 I had already built this distinct image of ‘Ladki dekhna’ (the phrase itself puts me off).  I imagined a crowd of pompous  people (they are ladka-waalas you see) surrounding the girl and the ladies in the family rubbing her hands on the pretext of befriending her, to check whether the girl had applied make up or is she truly fair.  A crowd watching her walk, a crowd watching her ‘Not-Talk’.  A crowd asking her, “Ma…gaan gaao toh’ (Dear, please sing a song) and the girl singing, “Aami jaar nupur- ero chhondo”….Uff! if only I could run away from all these.....

The day arrived.  At my brother’s rented house in Kolkata, some people were about to arrive the next morning to meet me.  By then I had instructed my mother never to use the word, “Ladki Dekhna’. 

My brother was very excited and that drove me all the more crazy.  This was about to be my first experience of its own kind and I distinctly remember, how, walking on the terrace, under the moonlit sky, I had my mind all cluttered, with shades of nervousness, anxiety, disgust.  I also mentally listed some of my (guy) friends who were possibly single/ unmarried/ un-betrothed etc and for once, thought of just calling up and asking, “Hey, care to marry me?”.  Somehow, I just wanted to escape.

The next morning, my pleading of letting me be in my salwar-kurta fell on deaf years; so there I was, in a sari, waiting in the neighbour’s house when they arrived:  the ‘boy’s” elder brother and sister-in-law.

 I must mention that the interaction with them was a nice one.  The elder brother suggested me, “Do not plan your life around marriage.  Decide on being independent; marriage or no marriage”.  How nice of him! Later the ‘boy’ in question met me at our residence at Ranchi.  I had to avail half a day’s Casual Leave and return home and was totally put off by this idea of meeting him.  I was not at all prepared.

This person called my father to inform that he had lost his way and would be arriving in some time.  How I wished he never found the way but I did not have to have my way.  He arrived and the goodies were served.  My parents and my neighbour chatted with him and I was waiting at the kitchen.  Thankfully I did not have to wear a sari this time.  My ‘film-influenced’ Ma asked me if I should carry the tea-tray (obviously she had never faced such situations).  I refused.  So once the snacks and tea was served and savoured (I am sure the person must have started wondering if he could meet me at all, it took so long), I was ushered into the room and to my utter disgust, all others left us alone.  I asked the neighborhood little girl to stay back and she obliged.  I do not remember what we talked except that I was totally at al loss of idea and ended up in 1. Grudgingly informing that I had to avail a leave and  2. Ask him his ‘job description’.  I am sure that was enough to bore him.  We never heard from them until my wedding reception day.   The elder sister in law called to ask if we were still interested and my neighbor informed them that the girl in question is already married.

Another ENCOUNTER was from a family from nearby Chaibasa.  As per my own rules, I again wished that this family would lose the way to my house but they did arrive.  A Crowd.  The ‘BOY’, his brother, sister-in-law, sister and brother-in-law and father.  UFF! One ought to have SOME courtesy as a guest.  Do you arrive at somebody’s place with such a big crowd?

Me, again in a sari, sat with a solemn face (rather nice way of putting it), refusing to help myself to any of the goodies offered.  I did not even see how the guy looked.  Then the ‘sister’ asked me to sing a song and my mother asked me if I needed the harmonium.  I wanted to bite their heads off...of both these ladies.  Thankfully the brother-in-law intervened, “No, no…don’t make her uncomfortable.” Thanks to the gentleman.  I could only see from the corner of my eyes that this ‘boy’ was triple my height and wore a dark pair of goggles.

I was relieved when they left and was not very happy when the next day they called to say that they were interested.  My cool guy, my father unknowingly rescued me.  Some doubt triggered in his mind considering that the prospective groom had being sporting dark gogs during evening hours.  My father demanded a photograph without the gogs on ;).  That put off the guy’s father and he refused.  So there was a mutual refusal.

Small incidences like these continued but I am thankful that I am past those times.  I am thankfully married.  Did I propose? NO.  Did he propose? NO!  How did we get married then?  Well, someday that story will find its due space on the blogosphere......