Chapter 21 – Impact Of Twisted Unusual Love Story

The Eternal Wait

The black and white tiled floor, reverberating soulful sufi music, hordes of people with heads bowed in faith and prayer, the dargah at Ajmer Sharif is quintessentially God’s abode. It is believed that if you tie a thread here with your heart full of faith then your wish will come true, and in that case you must come back to untie the thread. Tanvi prayed for Major Dalbir’s safety and tied a thread. She then sat down to listen to sufi devotional songs. These songs let you connect with your inner self causing a divine transformation.

Tanvi was immersed in the mystical ambience when a girl who was sitting next to her fainted and fell on her shoulders. Startled Tanvi, opened the Bisleri bottle kept besides her and sprinkled a few drops of water on her luminous face. The girl came back to senses. Tanvi helped her gulp down a few drops of water. “Are you alright?” she asked once the girl was back in her senses. The girl sat upright, adjusting her dupatta said, “So sorry to trouble you. It just blacked out”.

“Is there someone with you here whom I call to help you? You look quite pale”, Tanvi was concerned.

“No. I am alone here.I am waiting for someone”, the girl said and turned her head towards the main entrance. The girl then nonchalantly began narrating her unusual love story to Tanvi as if she just wanted to hold on to someone. Tanvi was in no hurry so she gave a sympathetic ear.

The girl’s name was Suhasini and she was from Lucknow. She had a proper arranged marriage through Times of India matrimonial with a guy of same caste. She had just met her would be husband once and that too amidst a room full of hyper-active relatives. As it is customary in India, would be bride and groom were given 10 minutes to chat and decide if they were compatible to lead the next 40 or 50 odd years together. Suhasini was just 23 years old.

Though she had a boyfriend but she knew that their love story was meant to end inconclusive. It was her first love and it would remain close to her heart always. She wanted to study further but didn’t have the guts to speak out her mind in front of her dad who was the archetypical patriarchal head of the family. His father believed that he sent her daughters to English medium school so that he can find them good groom and not because he was interested in making their career. Well, Suhasini did meekly confided in her mom about her desire to pursue education to build career.

And, then somehow a distant cousin saw her roaming with a guy after college hours when she was supposedly attending extra classes. That was the end of all her dreams. Dad was reasonably upset, even faked a heart attack, and commanded her to stop going to college till she got married as per the groom standards found suitable by him. Obviously, there was no question of even considering the guy she was in love with for marriage as he was not only from a different caste but he was studying and still 2-3 years away from a job. She tried to be logical and pleaded to give them two years. Meanwhile both of them will get good jobs and settle financially but then this was never the core issue. CASTE was the reason, Period.

She eventually got married to this guy (acceptable caste) with the love of her boyfriend (non-acceptable caste) in her heart.

Read the previous post here – Chapter 20 – The Impact Of Journey – From Being a Tourist To A Traveller

Read the next post here – Chapter 22 – Expected Fantastico Honeymoon Becomes The Game Changer

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.