"Appa please...this is not a joke. I will even eat amma's upma but will never eat chappathi for the rest of my life" she screamed at her father as she walked across the room to sit by the window. Her face contorted in a range of emotions as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Geet ithu nichayam (It's done)...I have decided and stop using analogies...I'm not your amma. You are marrying Gaurav's son" Her father, the brainy IIT professor retorted in frustration. Hoping to convince her he further added "BBC selected him to shoot a documentary, above all he graduated from MIT in nuclear physics. A pure gem I say...I have never seen a more intelligent and admirable student in my teaching career"
"If you like him so much, then write off your property...don't marry him to your daughter" she cried softly, almost wanting to jump off the ledge and catch a train to nowhere as she heard the electric train race past her house.
Her father had calmly come into the house as any other day that evening, but little did she know that her life was to change forever. A marriage proposal had come for her and an Nth one too.
Coming from a normal, boring middle class family, her life had mostly been around Adyar and Vanavani campus. Her father's genes had obviously been dominant in her chromosomes that came to pass on brilliance and his stubbornness to another generation in the family. He had slaved his youth and all his old age into nuclear research at IIT, leaving her and her mom to be self-sufficient at running their small campus provided quarters. She was used to his assignments, paper presentations, thesis and the nerdy students who stormed their peaceful home quite often, but her father had never failed to make time for her when she had needed him. It was quite safe to state there had been no complaints from either sides, up until today.
It had only been two months after she had completed her Masters and was coming to believe in financial freedom and the small luxuries that an additional income can provide with, when the bad news had come knocking at their door.
Mr Gaurav Khurana was her father's research associate and his son was the Dhanav who was coming to disrupt her little world of a dream. At 23 she had not expected her father to behave as any other typical parent and start ranting about his responsibilities in getting his daughter married off. Somehow she had believed that day was distant... somewhere in the future, which she had tricked her naive mind into thinking that it would be far from 23.
Perhaps, it's the norm in the south, she thought. No matter how educated or forward thinking the parents were, they somehow always thought that daughters disrespected them when they didn't go by their choice for marriage. Well it was not like they had forced her or not sought her opinion when it came to choosing her school or clothes or jewelry, but somehow they had turned the matter of her life partner to become their preference. Perhaps even a tamil guy would not have shattered her life as much as this punjabi munda had already done. Gaurav uncle's proposal had been irresistible to her parents, especially when he had been her father's favorite student and was supposedly pursuing the same research path as that of her father. The extreme differences in the cultures had suddenly disappeared and their daughters' life had served as the supreme sacrifice to turn the thesis partnership into a personal one. She couldn't bring herself to imagine her speaking Punjabi or eating roti's for the rest of her life, when she could not stay without curd rice and pickle or Ilayaraja's songs even on a fasting day.
She sniffled as she moved to lie into her mom's lap.
"Appa will do it only for your good...He works for the US government you know..."
They were too proud of their not yet but soon to son-in-law and the thought sent a flare out as she sighed. She had no clue why she hated the whole arrangement when she had never met him. To her it only came across as loss of her freedom, passing too quickly from her parent's care into another man's arms whom she had never met or ever spoken with. She wondered if that would make a good argument with her mother.
"Amma but I don't even know if the man looks agreeable...What if he has a squeaky voice like those geeks who visit our house?" She drowned herself in her pool of tears, but could not give up the fight with her mom.
Upon hearing her annoyed tone and arguments in the other room, her father made an entrance.
"Geet...the matter is all settled. We know that he is handsome as hell and god no, his voice is not squeaky" he heaved, showing signs of an impending asthma attack.
No her father was not trained in the theatricals, but the frail man had always suffered such attacks every monsoon; a condition that was his one curse that kept him from travelling. Except this time around he was thankful that he had such weak lungs, because it made his daughter run to him in panic.
"Appa please.... sit down" she said.
And giving in to her request, he seated himself beside her mom and went on.
"He is a very busy guy and so your marriage is going to be in a week. We will have the marriage in both customs. The reception and punjabi style wedding will be in Delhi for they have more relatives there..." He coughed and wheezed the whole time "Their family home, the Khurana mansion is where we will be staying and that's all there is to say"
"Am I never coming back appa?" She held onto her father's knees as she trembled at that question.
Strangely her father was overcome with grief as he saw his daughter innocently ask about their parting, a moment in time he dreaded more than her. He could have answered her but instead turned towards her mother and started off a praise chant about his son-in-law. Fearing he would give away his weakness he could not make himself meet her gaze. He had had no such thoughts of taking her marriage decision into his own hands until Gaurav had asked for Geetika's hand in marriage for his son. He had become teary eyed and had been stumped all at the same time as he could not believe the fortune and good natured people his daughter would have for a future family. Like Marlon Brando, Gaurav had made an offer he could not refuse and there was no choice but to give his acceptance for the same. Any other man, the proposal would have taken another route, but it was his favorite student they were talking about and he was as selfish as fathers came, to expect nothing but the best for his daughter.
"I want to talk to him first...I need to know what sort of a person he is Appa" She demanded now as her father sat down for dinner; her voice now stern and demanding after having stopped crying the full three hours. These were the last tricks up her sleeve for a slow resolve was forming inside her telling her that she had lost the battle a long time ago.
"Geet that might be tricky. He is here only for a short while and is landing on the night before the marriage. I will get his number from Gaurav..." He said as he let a thin stream of water flow from his hand, around the plate before he dug into the steaming idli's; an old ritual to purify food, which he could not give up no matter how much he had taken to science.
"Look at yourself appa...you are a strict Brahmin and they eat meat...Chi Chi entha guruvayoor appa" She was taking the lord's name at the very thought of their choice for consumables. Her father ignored her outburst for he had always known that she had been a drama queen ever since she had slurred at her first words.
"I do aalapana in the morning...when he probably would do balle balle...I would eat idli and he would demand roti and butter chicken...I will speak tamil and he will speak Panjabi...Above all I'm so sure he is bony, oily haired, with a thick moustache, bad taste for clothes and smelly. Narakam (hell) is what he is appa" She completed her spiel at one go and sat down next to him, intently glaring for an answer.
Her father gave a quiet smile, which grew into a chuckle. For some reason, she heard the doors closing down upon the sound of his laughter; a defeat horn hooted in her mind as she saw her father spew out the ultimatum she did not dare to accept.
"Geet...his way or your way...it's for you husband and wife to figure out...But get this straight my daughter...You are marrying Maan in 5 days"
***
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