Eloped and married

She was ready to leave home the next day.

 In India, leaving home is not about moving to your own place or starting out on your own. It is still about leaving your parents' house to elope and get married.The word 'elope' sounds so archaic,but we still use it in case of most love marriages. The marriages where parental approval is not there for a variety of reasons like social status, caste, money, society, same gotra or the guy is useless. In most cases keeping with the historical traditions, the girl steps out of the house on pretext of college and doesn't come back. The couple get married with the help of the groom's friends.
Its never ever a court marriage as in Indian courts, there is no instant marriage. The court requires one month's notice along with all details of the boy and the girl like names of parents, address proof, identity card etc. This notice is then put on the court walls for a month so that if anyone has any objection, they are welcome to object. The couple eloping get married in an obscure temple in an even more obscure village so as to maintain secrecy and avoid any obstacles like parents' or the girl's brother's goons coming over n hitting the groom.

The couple have a hushed two day honeymoon in an equally shady hotel and then reach the boy's house. The boy's parents accept or fight depending on whether they were clued in about the elopement or no. The girls side is all hurt and upset and swear never to look at their daughter who has put their name down. More melodrama follows. The newly married couple or their new families, no one experiences post marital bliss. Then after the dust settles down and the rumour mills stop working, does the girl get a breather. By that time well meaning adults have adviced her to have a baby. They have told her a grandchild is what is required to mend fences with parents on either side. The newly wed husband wife start living in this false hope which seems so real. The effort taken to please elders of both sides of the family start showing up as cracks in the relationship. This all happens in the urban middle class where you cannot kill the couple in the name of honour killing. If you are an industrialist or a politician and the girl's father, then it is easy to get the poor boy bumped off coz how dare he fall in love with a rich man's daughter. Eg Nitish Katara and Rizwanur Rehman died and no justice. The girl is usually married off abroad and I wonder how she lives each day knowing her family brutually killed her first husband.

When we were in school, one of my friends had eloped like that. She had left school because of poor results. She eloped for 15 days got married to a poor boy. Then her parents got her home as she was under eighteen. They took her to Bombay. Last we heard, she was married to another man living in a chawl and had a baby girl. Her parents would not tell anyone where the daughter was and neither did the child attend any social functions. Her mom made the best Dhoklas and Gharodas and I had spent many an afternoon at her place.

I had just seen her beautiful picture on the phone profile and had praised it. She had clicked it on her bed wearing a white dotted night suit bought by her mom. She was leaving home the next day to have her Nikaah. This was fourteen years back. Her mom used to come out to the balcony to watch her leave for college. That day the Mom did not come out as she was praying to God to give sense to her twenty three year old. That was the last time she saw home.

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