Raju Ganapathy

Drama

4  

Raju Ganapathy

Drama

A Crippling Marriage

A Crippling Marriage

4 mins
354



The morning was quite bright and the sky was blue. Not the blue mood that an office goer feels on a Monday morning. A cheerful blue. There was nip in the air even though it was mid-summer. There were many butterflies flittering around. That was when my daughter told she has found a guy. That she was over thirty and there was all round pressure to get married. Even though this was New India old pressure continues. Not a day passes without someone asking when she would get married. As if marriage alone gives completion to one’s life. But it was a shock when she disclosed that guy lost his right knee cap due to an accident. A cripple for life although not born as one. I said not a good decision. She continued however she knew. There are many things the guy cannot do. Cannot travel in a bus. He would need a more spacious seat on a flight. He won’t be able to trek or walk around too much. I wondered if the couple be able to experiment with Kamasutra positions. Has she thought about it? I felt the decision was a compromise not a marriage of promise. But the one that will have many misses. But I always maintained that a girl should have full freedom in the choice of her partner for life.


Nothing was wrong with the girl. She was fair and lovely to look if one were to use an ad cliché. Perhaps there was an extra stepney around her waist. She was doing an ok job, one that didn’t pay well. So, what was the reason for this decision? That he had agreed to no babies; that both would cook; that it would be a simple marriage; that they wouldn’t ask about past life of each other’s; especially involving matters of sex.


If you are wondering as a reader why as her father, I am not putting my foot down? This marriage wasn’t about my daughter but my daughter’s friend. So why should I? Long back I had read advice should not be given unless asked for the exception being a life-saving situation. You may argue this situation also calls for life saving. In a way yes, but that life-saving meant in a medical sense and not in a bad marriage sense. Would I not protest in case of my daughter? I would, definitely indeed!!

The heroine in this story was my daughter’s classmate from college and a best friend too. So, I told my daughter not to share my remark that boy was a cripple. I wonder if the girl was a cripple if she should be able to find a normal boy? Don’t you?


The marriage has been fixed a few months from now. I wondered why no one from the girl’s side discouraged her from this alliance? Is the society that bad when it comes to girls that any marriage is better than no marriage? In my mind I am already resisting the idea of attending this wedding. At one point I used to think this girl was my second daughter. But that was some years ago. But not anymore. She became an alibi to my daughter’s various escapades. At one time I had told her not to visit my home anymore. But that anger slowly faded away. She frequents our home now. We were discussing the other day, before I knew of this crippling truth, that we would gift her a relatively unused dining table for four that we have at our home.


But all I am doing is to let my rippling thoughts take the form of words that I am joining into a little story. I am a writer that is what I would do to share my anguish in this case. Perhaps some readers would empathize with me and be one with my feelings.


So, what will happen to her? Will it be a case of happily married for ever? What is happily married mean to any one? A couple of children, nurture them so they will become a success, accumulate wealth and fame for one self. Does fame apply for a woman? Or she will be glad to be in the shine of her husband or her children? In this case of “no children” the choices get reduced further. Or she was just planning to get away from carrying the burden of a fatherless family with an old grand-mother, not so healthy mother and an anaemic sister who was still at studies. Or will it end up as from the frying pan to the fire?


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