An Unexpected Marriage

We have been married since 2003.

Prior to that, I hadn't seen her. Her younger brother, many years my junior, knew me well. He was young, handsome, intelligent, affable and sweet-natured.

However, what impressed me the most in him was his diligence and iron determination.

Everybody admired his sincerity and dedication to work. After the completion of his studies, he was trying to locate a safe and permanent source of income. Meanwhile, he was giving tuitions in mathematics and science. His fame was spreading. There never was then a mathematics and science tutor who worked harder than he did.

He came to my house very often and my mother loved him deeply. At that time, we were living in the BDA colony at Laxmisagar. I was jobless. My younger brother Akhil was teaching in the DAV public school at Chandrasekharpur. He was my fountain of consolation and sympathy which prevented me from taking any extreme step like running away from home or ending my life. My only job then was writing, something I had started right after leaving university. Thus embarking on an uncertain and unsafe career was the stupidest of the decisions I had taken so far in my life. However, it was also writing which enabled me to get married.

By the year 2000, I had a big sack filled with rejection letters. I had approached a large number of publishers both Indian and foreign. Majority of the publishers were British and American. I had also approached publishers in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Full of bitterness and frustration, I decided to quit writing. The next obvious option was painting or singing. At this time, I thought of giving a try to get my stories published in magazines. I sent contributions to a large number of American magazines. There was no success. The same rejection slips came. Almost invariably each of them would read as follows:"We are not the right publisher for your work. Wish you good luck elsewhere. . . . . " I had also approached Indian publishers like Penguin, Harper Collins and Rupa. I still didn't lose hope. I sent two short stories to the editor of Alive. It was a Delhi Press publication edited by Vishwa Nath. Both the stories came back. I was stung. Because the stories were good and had been highly appreciated by some of my near and dear ones. Again I sent two more stories. They were also rejected and sent back to me with some careless comments. I was enraged and decided to ask the editor for an explanation.

In the evening I went to a telephone booth and called their editorial department. They connected me to the Editor Mr. Vishwa Nath. I introduced myself and wanted to know whether he himself had read and rejected my stories. He told me his assistants had read the stories. His calm and polite voice calmed and cooled me. I enquired if I could send some more stories. He said, "You can send as many as you can. . "

The next day I sent two stories to ALIVE. The stories were "The Skivvy" and "Love and Sacrifice". After two weeks I got news of their acceptance. I received the contract paper and a cheque for one thousand rupees. I signed the contract giving them the rights. After that I sent stories and articles. I was very happy to see my short story "Deepa" published in their prestigious publication WOMAN'S ERA. Unfortunately for me Vishwa Nath died in 2002 following the publication of a few of my stories only. Later I did send some more contributions. They were summarily rejected and came back with some cruel and disappointing comments. I called the new editor and didn't like his crude and gruff approach. Here I would like to point out something most of us writers must know. Nowadays readers hanker after only works of famous writers. I was one such reader when I bought Vikram Seth's 'An Equal Music' and Salman Rushdie's 'Shalimar the Clown. ' After reading them I was deeply disappointed and thought I had wasted my hard-earned money. Although both have produced great works of literature, these two novels from them were disappointing.

If an unknown publisher brings out a nice literary piece, no reader is going to buy it. I am hundred percent convinced there are many brilliant writers who are still struggling to come to light.

Getting committed to a prospective writing career blindly and insanely was undoubtedly a Himalayan blunder, but it was that very writing and the consideration of Vishwa Nath that gave me my lifelong companion, my wife-a source of genuine love, moral support and later significant monetary back-up. I work very hard but she works the hardest. When I think about her selfless sacrifice, I feel indebted to her. Had Vishwa Nath not published my stories, I would not have been able to know her.

The dashing young tutor one day came to me and saw my published stories. He expressed great joy and took the magazines home. On this occasion he revealed that his elder sister held a master's degree in English. She had taught at a college and at a residential school in Baripada. He had also previously borrowed from me a copy of 'The God of Small Things. ' He said his sister loved to read. 

My mother was then desperate to get me married. But who would marry an unemployed person?I was pretty embarrassed when she said to the young man, "How about getting them married?" He said he would talk to his parents. After he had left, I scolded my mother saucily. I knew that his sister would rubbish the proposal contemptuously. Later on, I knew this had actually happened. However, he persisted in his efforts. She eventually gave her nod. Then my elder brother, sister-in-law and sisters paid a visit to their rented house. He and his sister were living in Bhubaneswar. My would-be father-in-law who had worked in Tripoli was opposed to the proposal on account of my joblessness. My in-laws were living in their ancestral village in Dhenkanal. Meanwhile, an unpleasant turn came to the surface. Quite unexpec

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tedly, her brother prevailed upon her to change her mind so that they might marry her off to someone better off and employed. She however refused to change her mind. 

The tussle between them continued. We were given news of the marriage plan being dropped. Prior to this, I had tried to find out how she looked. She was engaged in private coaching at that time. I hadn't even seen her photo. I had gathered hints as to how she looked. She would go to her destinations on a white tvs scooty. I had succeeded in sighting her many times. While on her scooty, she never looked sideways. This had foiled all my attempts to talk to her. But I was surprised when I learned that she had reported me to her brother!He had warned her against talking to me. A short span of silence reigned.

Those days my wife's brother and I were teaching a Class-10 boy. My copies of the Alive magazine were with them. I was told that they had lost the borrowed copy of 'The God of Small Things'. I was enraged. I told the young man to buy a new copy of the book and return it to me immediately. He gave it back to me along with the copies of Alive. The Class-10 boy handed them to me when I reached his place next. I inspected the magazines carefully and found that she had underlined a sentence in red ink in the story 'Love and Sacrifice'. The sentence read:"No parents of a middle class family would give their daughter to an unemployed person. " I abused her indignantly and said she was uncultured and crude. I was glad when in the ensuing class the boy told me how harshly her brother had bashed her. Now I was sure the girl was a perfect devil. We became determined not to have any kind of contact with any of them.

A number of days passed by. Those days we didn't have a landline phone. The house owner who lived upstairs did have one. Once a phone call came.

The caller was a girl. She said she was Mira Mohapatra. I thought she was joking because the heroine in my story 'Love and Sacrifice' bore the name Mira Mohapatra. But she sounded quite serious;it seemed she meant business. She was a friend of my future wife's. She asked whether I would like to marry the girl. Later she said her friend had underlined the line in my story 'Love and Sacrifice' only to indicate that my unemployment was a barrier to our wedding. I was glad to know she loved my English. We met and talked many times but there was nothing romantic or exciting in those meets. I was 36 and she was 32. Both of us became determined to get married and start a new life.

I was experiencing an internal change, grooming myself for an active and dynamic life. I had been living a very passive and dormant kind of life. Laziness and lethargy had seized upon me so irrevocably that I could never imagine I would retrieve my former optimistic and vibrant self, the one that characterised my college days at Kendrapada. At Kendrapada College, the English faculty were not only capable and efficient but extremely warm and cooperative. At Utkal University, however, the situation was exactly the reverse. My bitterest days in life were those I spent there. No professor ever displayed even one percent of original thinking, their prodigious memories being stuffed with long texts, bombastic English words and subtle ideas stolen from others though. This made them think they were wise and hence became proud, arrogant and aloof. Even now there are college principals and private college lecturers in Odisha who can't write some two/three pages in acceptable English. One charlatan university professor had crushed me so hard that I was convinced I had become finished for ever. It was a loving and understanding woman who brought me back on my feet again.

When her family members knew about her unbreakable resolve to marry the man they had chosen her, they relented and my elder brother came forward to solemnise and cement the bond between us. At last, the wedding took place. My younger brother and I got married the same day. When I appeared in the traditional groom's outfit, I saw my elder brother crying!I was too dense to understand the reason. I was told those were his tears of joy.

At that time, my earnings were next to nothing, whereas her earnings from coaching amounted to something like eight thousand rupees a month. After a few months, she got pregnant but didn't stop her coaching. It was at this time that I took up her classes and worked wholeheartedly like never before. My brother-in-law had gifted me a Kawasaki motorcycle. This proved to be immensely beneficial. He took on the responsibility to boost my income and succeeded amazingly. In about six months of marriage I was earning twelve thousand rupees a month!We felt the scarcity of money which lasted about a year. Then my daughter was born. Now I genuinely felt lady luck was smiling on me. My earnings were doubled. After that, there was no looking back. Our daughter grew up and went to a DAV school. My wife succeeded in getting a teaching job. Then she studied and obtained her B. Ed degree. She encouraged me to get my writings self-published. She disapproved of my idling away of time. So I wrote whenever I found even a ten-minute break from work.

Now I have seven published works in English. I am no longer plagued by any care or anxiety. We have a steady income though not big. Our daughter is now striving hard to sit for the cbse Class-10 examination in coming February. Now I realise how powerful an influence a woman could be in a man's life. If at all I lose my temper at her, she does react sharply, but I don't mind her words because that certainly entails the promise of a dainty and savoury meal.

Had Vishwa Nath not published my stories, my wife and her brother would not have been able to read my short stories and appreciate my English which had impressed her the most. I pray to the Lord to give more and more peace to the soul of Late Mr. Vishwa Nath.