When he waved his arrival to her O’Hare, didn’t he love-gait straight into my heart! As if guided by my enamored eyes, as he advanced towards me like a robot, was it not like a dream coming true? Oh, how I was impelled to grab his hand with both hands even as he was tentative in extending it to me! Was it not love at first sight? Did he lose any time to propose dating? Did I miss a date ever? Is there anything to better that in all fiction? They are not my words but of Shruti’s! Wonder how nascent love can make life so exciting! Won’t it in return seek copulation for its own fulfillment? Alas, why on its path of fruition, love has to contend with cultural hindrances? Won’t our culture hamper lovers’ route to the altar with caste hurdles besides status barriers. But then, living in the West, we could go west, and that’s what we did, didn’t we?
How adamant were our parents to tie us in a nuptial knot. Didn’t his mom say she would rather starve but not break bread with low caste lass? How did my dad dismiss my choice of a high-caste lowness; didn’t I tell him not to be mean being rich. But how naïve was Rahul about his mom’s turnaround? That’s in spite of my telling him that the waiting game suited her and not us. Didn’t we waste one youthful year for nothing! Wasn’t that enough for us to go west, but how ill at ease he was when I moved into his flat. Wasn’t he shocked as I broke the news back home? Well, it worked with my dad but Rahul’s mom was made of a sterner stuff, and that called for one-upmanship, didn’t it? What was my threat to display-ad our live-in in the Indian press but just that? Yet credit the scandal in the offing for turning that bully into a billie. Was it really so, as she had the last laugh, won’t it seem in hindsight that it’s a tactical retreat on her part.
What a wedding it was though? A designer wedding it was, all said so, didn’t they? Wouldn’t have dad splashed half his black money on it, but did I suffer from any qualms about it then? Having been a beneficiary all along, what’s the point in my becoming a moralist now? Maybe, the wounds of life open our minds to its profligacy; could be, but does a grand wedding guarantee a lasting marriage? No way, as it appears. Of what avail was that fanfare of a marriage for Rahul’s mom could readily fray at its rough edges? Why blame her when my own attitude, or lack of it, was the cause of my undoing? Oh, how I took Rahul for granted? Well, I was even callous to his needs? Wasn’t that enough to let her take the wind out of our marital sails?