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“Didi will I know my husband’s name before I get married,” 7-year-old Indu asked Maya.
“Of course! Why are you asking that?” said Maya.
“See didi, in Cinderella, the prince danced with her. When she was leaving, he says I don’t know your name but didi how can he dance with her without asking her name and then he is going to marry her?”
“It’s just a story Indu! You and your parents will definitely know the boy’s name before you marry him. Go play something. Don’t worry about it.” Maya hugged the child and she scampered away with her friends. Maya picked up all the storybooks the kids had strewn around the carpet. Her mother used to lend all their old books to the neighbourhood kids. She loved to have them over and feed them. She was in the kitchen right now making some fryums.
Just a story? Her great grandmother was married at 14, would she have known her husband’s name or he her name before they got married? She vaguely remembered them, they were still around when she was small. They had been together for half a century. They made it work, didn’t they but then they had to make it work, she thought. Her grandmother would be financially dependant on her grandfather’s family, leaving was not an option and if he abandoned her, he would be ostracised in his own community. Not necessarily of course, there were plenty of abandoned wives in those days.
She went to her room and checked her phone. She scrolled through the photos as she had been doing over the past two days. Did anything like that bind her and Ved together? They had known each other all their lives, He was her cousin Megha’s cousin, someone she had played with during many summer vacations and family functions. They had not met for many years until Megha’s wedding last month. She had been so busy helping out Megha that she had barely spoken to him. Yet some match making aunty had seen the two of them together, clicked a photo together and convinced their families to pair them off. Megha looked at the photograph, yes they were standing next to each other but they were both on their phones, she was sending a message to her office and he was watching the cricket score,
Her parents were trying to convince her, “he’s a good boy.” How did they know? He could be a creep behind that shy, smiling face. “But you’ve played with him,” they said. They had been children, ok he wasn’t mean or a bully, at least not to her, but was he kind and generous or mean and controlling? She knew he was an engineer who had just completed his MBA from a good college and so was she. One more reason for their relatives to pair them. Was he looking for a campus placement or was he looking to start something on his own like her?
Maya jumped as the phone started ringing in her hands. Ved was calling her.
“Hi Maya, it’s Ved? How are you? Listen I just heard from my mother, is it true? I mean they are talking about a proposal? I mean our families… See Maya I’m sorry, I…see my parents, they have planned this life for me which I don’t want. I never wanted to do this MBA. I just went with it to get them off my back, I wanted to join a film school and my father told me I had to finish this first. I’ve been working and saving and we are finally moving to LA.”
“Hi Maya, it’s Ved? How are you? Listen I just heard from my mother, is it true? I mean they are talking about a proposal? I mean our families… See Maya I’m sorry, I…see my parents, they have planned this life for me which I don’t want. I never wanted to do this MBA. I just went with it to get them off my back, I wanted to join a film school and my father told me I had to finish this first. I’ve been working and saving and we are finally moving to LA.”
“We? Your parents are going with you?” said Maya
“No, I’m going with Iram, my girlfriend. She is a US citizen; we are planning to get married there. My parents will never agree anyway. I’m so sorry Maya, I didn’t know Charu aunty would create all this mess,” said Ved
“It’s ok Ved, it’s not your fault. All the best to you and Iram and do send your wedding pics.” As Maya was saying these words, she felt a strange weight lifting from her. She had meant every one of those words. She felt nothing towards him.
Maya looked at herself in the mirror, shaking herself. She was an educated, independent woman who could live on her own terms and yet thousands of years of social conditioning had made her no different from her grandmother or even Cinderella for that matter. When everyone had told her that he was the one for her, she had been ready to marry a man about whom all she knew was his name.
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