Hello everyone. This is my first ever try at any type of story writing so please do comment they can be positive or negative comments and any suggestions are welcomed.
"The Divorce ' Part 1"
The family of Modi Parivaar had been long settled in Rajkot. Their house was large, elegant, and well furnished; where for many generations they had lived in a respectable manner, as to engage the good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The family celebrated every event in accordance with the traditions that have been passed along the generations and if the events were to be celebrated within their community they were always there, be it to help or to be the first ones to be there.
About twenty-one years ago Gopi of Rajpal Nagar, with only her father's pension had the good luck to marry Ahem Modi of Modi industries and to be thereby raised to the ranks of the elder bahu from being a mere servant-niece of Urmilla Shah. When Maaji came to her and slid the family kangan onto her hand, she had instantly became happy that after all these years of taking care of her mami and Rashiben she was finally going to have someone in her life to fulfill her dreams and wishes, someone to hold and protect her. But the next minute she came back to ground when she realized that her mami and Rashiben were glaring at her in anger and pure hatred. After bearing the taunts and tantrums of her mami and Rashiben on snatching away such a handsome proposal from them, she closed the door and flung herself onto the bed and started imagining about her Rajkumar; was he handsome, was he tall, will he love her? But the day he slapped her and told her about his love for another woman, her dreams shattered and then became the marriage vows taken back but still living together under the same roof wife of her Ahemji.
Ahem Modi, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and moody disposition, seemed to have some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-five years in the world with very little to distress him until that fateful day when he was tied into the knot of marriage to a girl of his mother's choice. He had wanted to marry his longtime girlfriend but fate was against him as his mother did not approve his choice and instead fixed his marriage or more like his entire remaining life to a girl he did not even know. Many questions had ran through his mind after that; what if she was cleverer than him, or what if they did not complement each other, or what if she was too thin or too fat? But nothing prepared him for the day when he found out that his wife was an illiterate. After that he did not need any other excuse to be rude to his wife or show disrespect to her or to completely shun her from his life.
The ten days spent together for the purpose of protecting the Modi name and teaching Gopi was life changing for him because during those ten days he realized the worth of his wife and what a god made beautiful and caring creature his wife was. Whatever his wife did was either to make his family happy or to make him happy even if she had to take the vows back or to sleep on the floor. She never thought about herself and sacrificed all her time in being the dutiful and responsible elder bahu of the current generation of the Modi family.
He had slowly started to fall for his wife, he couldn't tell the exact time or date but he had been seeking his wife's attention regularly, jealousy took over his mind when the idiot of a designer complimented his wife's work and gifted her lehanga which he had still to do on his own free will and not forced by his mother. He couldn't help and order sari's for the women of the house an excuse to present a gift to his wife so that she would treasure it like she did with the one that the designer gave her. He had gotten worried when his wife had sneezed twice because of the cold but besides showing a little concern towards her he did nothing else when he should have asked her to sleep on the bed but he was a coward and new at wooing your wife. The final straw had been when his kaka had said that a husband and wife relation should be like friends; they should talk to each other and solve their problems among themselves. He, Ahem Modi had taken this advice to heart and asked his wife to sleep on the bed while he could sleep on the sofa, the excuse being because of the cold. She had tried to refuse the offer but he being Ahem Modi had in mock anger told her to at least listen to him, her husband.
He sat there on the "sofa" watching his wife sitting on the "bed" just staring in the space. Minutes passed and what seemed like hours he was still watching his wife and waiting for her to share her worries. She would look at him open her mouth as if to say something and with a shake of head turn her head back to stare in space. He wanted to know what was going through her head that one second she would smile as if she was the luckiest woman in the world and the next second she would have the saddest face which showed anguish as if she had just went through a painful memory lane of her life.
Today was the third day that he was sleeping on the damn sofa and she was sleeping on the bed and that too on the same side on which he used to sleep. He had to persuade her again to sleep on the bed. Yesterday when he came out of the washroom he saw his wife placing the bedding on the floor he had instantly snatched away her bedding and asked her to sleep on the bed or he won't eat anything made by her. She had dragged her feet to his former side of the bed and sat with a thump. He had smirked and went to sleep on the sofa which was his supposedly bed for the time being until he could gather his courage, man up, declare his love for his wife, ask for her forgiveness and renew their wedding vows.
Gopi sat there on the bed deep in thought. Her Ahemji was changing she could tell, he was being nice to her, speaking softly to her, asking about her health but she did not want to get her hopes high because one thing that she was sure about Ahemji was that he was a moody person and she did not want to get her hopes high and get them squashed again for the umpteenth time. She was tired of living this life, her maaji had promised her that one day Ahemji will fall in love with her but all the hope inside her had diminished over the time and she could not take it anymore and finally after making her decision she turned towards Ahemji.
Finally! Ahem thought as his wife turned towards him and said that she wanted him to do something for her. He became happy because for once he was going to help his wife without being forced but he for the second time in his life wasn't ready to hear what his wife was telling him. Ahemji "I want a Divorce".
She knew that "A wife can present a petition for the dissolution of marriage on if the husband marries again after the commencement of his first marriage or if the husband has been guilty of rape, sodomy, or bestiality (cruel or brutal behavior). It does permit one spouse to separate if he/she is unhappy, despite the fact that marriage is held to be divine, if he/she can prove or identify the circumstances that have made the union untenable" [1]. She gave her Ahemji a week's time to finalize everything.
At first he was dumbstruck and agreed to her demand. He didn't know why he had just agreed when he should be trying to salvage their marriage but he did not what came over him. He raked his brain for any excuse to delay the unstoppable when he suddenly remembered a clause of the marriage contract that "Newly married couples cannot file a petition for divorce within one year of marriage" [2]. Well two can play the game and with that final thought Ahem Modi went to sleep.
Note ' I do not know anything about the about the rules or divorce pattern in Hinduism culture so I searched these two references from Wikipedia. If I wrote something incorrect kindly correct me as I do not wish to hurt anyone with my zero knowledge about other cultures and religious values.
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