Love Marriage

 

 She could not believe that finally this day had come in her life. Truly life is so unpredictable. You can never imagine what is in store for you. How you meet people in unexpected circumstances and then they come into your life forever to change its course for good. The same thing had happened with her. Her life was already moving into another direction when things halted temporarily to take an altogether different route. She could have never imagined anything like this ever happening to her; not in her wildest of dreams.

Tomorrow she was going to get married! It was a very big day for her and above all getting married to someone she loved, was even more astonishing. A Love Marriage, was what it was; meeting someone all of a sudden and falling in love to end up as life partners. This was what was most astonishing about it. A Love Marriage had never been on her cards. She always thought that it was not her cup of tea. But look where she had landed herself today! She went through the course of events, of the last ten months, innumerable times in her mind and yet felt bedazzled by them again and again.

Just like any average Indian girl, Anam lived with her family and was focussing on completing her studies. Her PhD was at its final stage and very soon she would get her doctorate degree. This qualification was not only her aspiration but also a big wish of her mother. With the completion of her studies one thing was also becoming clear and that was about her marriage. Her parents had already started looking out for good proposals for her and she was preparing herself to take the plunge soon.

Every other day a new family was there at her place to meet her parents and see her. Such norms of the society were something that Anam did not agree with, but she had no choice but to dress up and sit amidst a group of curious, examining eyes that were scrutinizing her and trying to judge how well she fitted into their house and yes of course in their son’s stature as well (both financial and physical).

Looking at Indian standards Anam was definitely pretty. She was fair, slim and had straight golden coloured hair. Her eyes were small yet twinkling, a slightly broad nose with pink lips, made her quite a good bet for the suitors. Education wise too she was extraordinary (if that actually counted in the Indian marriage market). Her father was a doctor and mother a Professor that was another positive point on her side. But often all these points were a big problem with the suitors too. As the suitors did not qualify to her parent’s standards and were rejected, out-rightly. The ones that seemed accepted were refused for the reason that they did not want a working (read independent) wife. Of course after doing her masters and then doctorate Anam had no plans of sitting at home forever.  So most of the proposals just went down the drain.

The search continued for months and Anam suffered all along till Mustafa came to her place one day. A software engineer working with a multinational in Bangalore, Mustafa was both decent and good looking. His family was also well to do. Father was in the railways and mother was an educated house wife. All siblings were settled, Mustafa being the youngest. His family also liked Anam and the wedding was fixed.

Like any other couple Mustafa and Anam got talking on the phone at nights, in their courtship period. Things till date were moving smoothly.

In the meantime, Anam’s close friend, Tanu, was getting married and wanted Anam to be a part of all her wedding ceremonies. Anam was delighted to participate and saw this as a superb opportunity to chill out with friends. She attended all the functions with much fanfare and had a lot of fun. This was also the time when Anam met Ashar. Ashar was a family friend of Tanu and also Tanu’s rakhi brother. He often visited her place but had never met Anam before. It was love at first sight for Ashar, for he found in Anam the woman of his dreams!

But the happiness was short lived as Ashar soon came to know about Anam’s engagement and her approaching wedding. The young lad was heart-broken.  It was for the first time in his life that he had got so serious about any girl whom he ‘really’ wanted to marry. All his friends also sympathised with Ashar. The news also reached Anam soon.

Friends asked her to consider Ashar and take a decision if she liked him more than her current fiancé. Anam and Ashar had got friendly during the wedding ceremonies. To Anam, Ashar seemed a very decent guy; intelligent, tall, dark, and handsome with quite a pleasing personality. He was working in Delhi with a reputed company post his MBA and was from a well-known family of the city. But alas, it was too late. If only they had met earlier, Anam might have thought otherwise. Right now Mustafa was the guy for her. The wedding was within the next six months and she had no time to think of anything else. Plus a love marriage was completely out of question. She would not let her parents down. Thus, this romantic fantasy was not something which she wanted at this stage of her life. It was better to just let it go and move on. Hence, Anam was back to her regular life soon. Shopping and preparing for her marriage. Ashar would occasionally message her and they were also friends on Facebook. But there was nothing more to it. Anam never thought about the proposal anymore. She was over occupied with her wedding preparation. But, Ashar could not forget Anam. He always dreamt about her and a life with her. Anam was his biggest desire. If only they had met earlier, Ashar would have been the happiest person on this planet. Alas, he had no choice but to accept his fate!

Time flies and it was already more than two months to the Ashar episode.

Anam was going through a phase of conflict. She had suddenly started having second thoughts about Mustafa.

This all began when Mustafa began behaving weirdly and talking absurdly to Anam. It got so erotic with each passing day that Anam began to doubt Mustafa, either he was mentally unstable or was under the influence of drugs. He always seemed to be in a financial crunch (inspite of a decent job and pay package). He often slept without eating anything and was borrowing money from friends. At times he would began laughing in between a conversation or would break down if Anam questioned him about his personal life.  Anam was going through a lot of stress. Only three months were left for the wedding, but Mustafa’s behaviour had left her perplexed. After much contemplation Anam shared all her doubts with her mother. Her mother discussed the issue with Anam’s father. The Parents then decided to pay a surprise visit to Bangalore, where Mustafa worked and find out more about the guy.

Anam waited anxiously till her parents return. All kinds of thoughts crossed her mind. What will happen now? The marriage was just round the corner. All the relatives and friends were aware of it. She just hoped that everything turned out to be fine and her doubts were baseless. But yes, deep down her, she knew that something was wrong. Mustafa had come across as a simple guy but there were some skeletons in his closet that had to be revealed before she committed herself to him forever.

Sadly, Anam’s instincts were true. Her parents were back and were really upset post the visit. Mustafa lived in a very shabby apartment and his behaviour also seemed odd. For a young educated guy from a decent family it was most uncanny. Anam’s parents also realised that either he was mentally disturbed or was under the influence of drugs. Though the entire trip had been really shocking for them, yet they were happy at heart, because their daughter’s life had been saved.

Naturally the first thing they did on their return was to break the engagement. The pretext they chose was Anam getting married to a cousin instead, who being a family guy was being given preference.  Mustafa’s parents tried to pursue Anam’s family for a few weeks before accepting their decision.

The news of Anam’s break-up reached Tanu too and she happily informed Ashar about it. Ashar felt delighted, as if all his prayers had been answered by the Almighty. He felt on the seventh sky. Since Anam was upset and was not socialising much, Ashar requested Tanu to devise a plan through which they may call Anam so that Ashar could propose to her.

Ashar was willing to plead, beg, get down on his knees and propose to her. He was not going to give up unless and until he won her over. This kind of opportunity was given to him by God and he would not let it go.

So the meeting was arranged on Tanu’s birthday. Ashar had come all prepared with flowers, chocolates, a teddy bear and a beautiful diamond ring. Anam was caught off guard. She had never thought that something so big was going to happen at the party.

Ashar got down on his knees in front of everyone and proposed to her, most romantically. Anam had no choice but to accept, though she had one condition. She wanted to get to know Ashar properly before suggesting the match to her parents. She did not want to repeat ‘the Mustafa’ mistake. Ashar happily agreed to the condition, as this was going to give him a lot of time with Anam and he was prepared to enjoy every moment of it.

With the passing of days, Anam began to realise that Ashar was the one for her. Whatever had happened in her life, had happened for a good reason. She was going to get a much better person and hence the previous engagement had broken. God was on her side. Today, she was madly in love with Ashar, just like Ashar was in love with her.

The families met soon and got the wedding date settled.

It was all like a dream come true for Anam. A lovely one indeed. She had never imagined that she would get married after falling in Love.

Oh Yes, it was a Love Marriage, which she had least expected, but was going to cherish for life!