A Love that was arranged

A love that was arranged.

“And so will I  be “, Anju replied when Ram told her scornfully that he would be a lot more occupied with his business assignments, for the next one year.

She looked at him, took her eyes off and smiled, in perplexity over the Life that was arranged and hoped to be bloomed between them.

This was the fifth time since their engagement, Anju and Ram went out together. They  were in a coffee parlor, down the road where Anju’s workplace was, to discuss the plans they had for their wedding. The first few times they met, they talked about the list of friends to be invited, the count of days they would be off work for, the places they would visit post wedding and the places to shop. They had enjoyed the conversation and they kept it light and friendly.

But this time, Ram seemed to be too keen on his agenda for the next year. He would be away at his client’s location for three months, immediately after the wedding. And he wanted to know if Anju was interested in accompanying him.

“The new project, I am sure, will keep me traveling around for a while. I am off to Australia, in about ten days after the wedding. Might take five  months until I return.
And I will have to fly again in another month. Anju, I don’t want to amuse you, with all the travel stuff. It could get tiring. But I leave the decision to you. If you want to come with me, then we need to get your visa processings initiated and you’ll need to decide on your job” .

Anju gazed at him. She did not have an answer. She did not want to have one.
And she hoped Ram would understand her silence. Ram looked away, thinking his plans might have intimidated hers. They sat in silence and watched the world go by, bending down occasionally to sip their coffee. This was the first time, since their two-week courtship, they had talked less and felt a bit uncomfortable.

Anju and Ram were engaged for a week now and had known each other one week before the engagement. To both of their apathy, it was arranged. Their parents had met over a common comrade’s wedding and the tête-à-tête deduced to the point of getting their offspring meet up. If they would feel ok with each other, things would be great. And that is precisely what had happened.

“Mamma, I don’t want to get married now. And I am not meeting anybody. I can’t believe you just fixed up something as important as this with out even asking me ! “
Anju was in plain anguish, over what had been discussed to be arranged, when her mom told her two weeks back about the proposal that had come up.

“Beta, we are not forcing you for this, in any way. We are simply asking you both to meet up sometime and see if you can get along at all. I promise that will be all. “

Anju’s mother tried to put her hands on her daughter’s cheeks as they spoke the same thing for she did not remember how many times, that day.

“And If I don’t like him ?” Anju  snapped.

“We are not even going to think about it again”. Her father assured her, as he gently pressed her shoulders, from behind.
Anju sat there with a cranky mood and managed to listen as her father continued.

“We are never against your wishes, sweetheart. And we have always loved to see you live by your choices. But now that you don’t seem to have anything else on your mind, why not give this a try. Just a try and that’s it . You are 24 and mom and I feel this is the right time for you take another big leap in your life. And who knows, this could be the best thing to you. “  her smiled as he looked longingly for a positive gesture in his daughter’s eyes.

Anju replied. “Okay. Bu if I don’t like him, don’t even bother to pull me again to this crap, until I decide to get married. “

“Never, never”.  Anju’s mother’s voice was relieved.

Anju smiled at both of them and picked her bag as she checked on her watch, ready to leave.  And she drove off in her two-wheeler.

She worked for a school, with the administrative department. She loved kids and loved her job. And she was so happy to spend the evenings either shopping with her mother or chilling out with her college buddies. She felt coerced at the thought of being pulled away from the life she was too acquainted with and more threatened at the thought of spending the rest of her life with a stranger.

And as she drove, she sighed at the fact that the day had finally come, when her parents would want her to get married and have another life. She thought about her college days. She had been a freak, back then. There were always some conceptions on marriage, on her mind. She had never been in love. Sometimes she wondered if she would fall in love and then get married. But she had never met a guy, she thought she admired. Anju had a few good friends, a couple of them boys. But they were just friends and the friendship to her was too noble that she never in the wildest hallucinations, saw any of them as her boyfriend. A smile surged over her lips  as she remembered two other guys who had proposed to her in college and the way she had just whisked both the proposals off.

And a couple of days later, they met. Anju and Ram were sitting in the park , as their parents decided to take a stroll around.

Ram smiled at her. “ I don’t know what to talk .” He smiled again.
” Mom and dad and more particularly my brother and bhabhi  have been pestering me to get married for sometime  and I managed to flee the whole idea. But now, they seem to have grown aggressive. And here I am, talking to you. “ He looked at her and they both smiled.

“So tell me, tell me if you don’t like me “  he tried to joke.

“Honestly, I have never given  serious attention to the idea of getting married. “ Anju said,  ”  And mom and dad have not discussed it with me either, until they met your family. I am just happy with the school and home. But yea, Life cannot be the same through out. And they finally made me say yes to meet you up.”

And they talked for not more than 40 minutes. The chat invited topics on their interests, friends, the latest movies in town and their favorite restaurants in the city and then they badly wanted their families to come back.

So that was it. Anju did not have an answer when her parents asked her, later that night, if she found him boring.

“Mom, all I know is he’s a business analyst with an IT firm and he’s looking quite good. It’s too early to decide and besides we did not talk on getting married” .

The next morning, there was a call from Ram’s father saying Ram was ok with the wedding. And Anju’s parents were thrilled when  she said,
“ He seems ok to me. And if you people want to go ahead with the plans, I don’t want to say no” .

They could not believe what they had just heard. They were elated  and Anju smiled.

Later that evening, Anju received a call from Ram. He sounded matured on phone.

“Listen Anju, they asked me If I liked you and I said yes, because there was nothing to be disliked about you, as long as our meet went. And I heard from pa that you have no issues as well.  But I know it’s too early to commit on something as serious as marriage. Anju, err,  if you want to take time before deciding, I would never object and besides, we did not talk about our life together. I mean your plans and mine.
Would you be comfortable quitting school. I mean, I would never ask you to, but
my work involves a lot of traveling. So I think, we need to talk over a few things that might crop up later.”

Ram said quite a few important things and Anju felt he sounded very serious. And she wondered if was basically a serious person. And they talked for a couple of hours. But at the end of it, they had not convinced themselves that they were doing it right, because there were issues to be talked about and resolved if they wanted to go ahead with the wedding.

Ram somehow had the strange feeling that his career might disturb Anju’s and that would be a problem. And he was sure Anju would be thinking the same thing.

So, it was a fortnight, an engagement ceremony and few jaunts  that had all happened between them.
There were more smiles with every meeting and once Ram tried to tease her, when a bunch of teenage school chaps giggled , as they recognized Anju, with him.
The evenings slid in as they indulged in more conversations and coffees and as the night got lit up, they realized it wasn’t too tough after all, to talk about life to a person who had been a stranger, till a few days back and would be the better half for the rest of  their lives.

Anju knew, they both still had questions for each other, and more importantly to themselves. Sometimes she wondered if Ram was the kind of guy, she would be comfortable with and she frowned as she doubted if Ram was going through the same thoughts.

And this day,  they sat in the coffee parlor and tried to talk about their Life  together.

Anju told him she loved the school and he understood she wanted to continue working.
She felt too joyful to be involved with the kids. And there were events coming up and few big plans. She was expecting a promotion to the management unit.  Her MBA had groomed her managerial skills finely that she was sure she refused to think about quitting work.
They both had careers they loved and that would draw them in two different directions. But they appreciated that they had decided to talk about it.

They tried talking of making compromises. But eventually, acknowledged the fact that they could not, as far the career was concerned.
They liked each other and had enjoyed being in each other’s company.

“But, this is Life, Anju. We need to settle on compromising something for us to think of a sharing a life” , Ram said, this time on a very serious tone. “If we cannot give up on something, I think it would be better to part ways, before issues get tightened:”

Anju looked at Ram in surprise. Was he hinting at calling the wedding off.

“Are you sure, you would not be able to postpone your trip or change your job ?” Anju wanted to know.

“Of course, I can’t, the most I can do is try and get another job that would keep me here”

“Can you do that ?”

Ram did not answer for a while.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to do that. I love my job”.

They talked about it again and again and finally decided to stop slogging over the discussion that  found no solution.

They left the place when it was almost three hours, sitting there, and as they sauntered slowly, both of them were looking away from each other.

Anju’s mind was on a  rove, that night , thinking whether she was taking the right step.
The discussion had grown to be a debate and eventually a cause of worry to both of them. They had spent hours talking on the phone. They had gone out, shopped and dined together and felt  good about it all.

But this seemed to define and set limits for their future.

‘May be Ram cannot compromise. May be I am being  too adamant to adjust Am I?. May be… May be we both cannot get along well. May be, arranged marriages always have opposite priorities. ’ It was an endless list of  maybe’s that tormented Anju the whole night. And she was intrigued by the fact that she was taking the subject a lot more seriously than she would have otherwise and she had to put herself one final question , was she in Love with him ?
‘Damn, No. What the hell. I hate men and I don’t want to get married and I am not compromising on my career . My job means the most to me.’ She concluded and fell asleep, whilst the dawn cracked.

“Papa, I want to talk to you”. Anju said in a mushy voice, the next morning.

Anju’s father looked at her intriguingly.

“Papa, I want to quit my job. “

There was a silence and she was embarrassed by it.

“What are you saying baby. I know how much that means to you”.

“Papa, I hate to leave it , but …”

Anju’s mother walked in, looking at her grimly

“I want to travel with Ram. He would be away on work most of the year and I think it’ll be a dire thing to lead a lonely life, after marriage”.

There was silence again and Anju desperately wanted it to be shattered as she was astonished by her own words and the smile on her parent’s face.

“You don’t need to, dear”. Anju’s mother helped her break the stillness.

“Ram had called up in the morning and he told us he has decided to switch his workplace      that would keep him here for at least a couple of years. He said, he does not want to be flying around the world, while you are here .”

Anju could not deem what she was hearing.  Her eyes were wide open and she wore a surprised smile.
“Anju dear, we are proud to see you both ready to compromise for each other.”  Her father patted her.

Anju ran to give Ram a call.

“Hello, Ram here”, came the answer.

“You changed your mind ! “ , Anju’s voice was still mushy.

She could not wait for an answer but Ram kept mum.

“I did not want this relationship to be tested too much”. He said, finally.

“Neither did I, But you said you wanted to go”.

“That was until the moment, I fell in Love with you “ , came the reply.