Family: The Journey Of Love

"More than relatives and families, it is our friends who accompany us. Let's see what happens in this story."

Akhil Krishna, a middle-class guy from Pollachi, near to Coimbatore district comes to PSG College of Arts and Science for his second-year studies. His father Raghava Krishna, being a Gounder, stiffly opposes to love marriage and believes that, "Marriages from the same caste, would prompt to save our cultural habits."

Akhil considers his father as a mentor and goes to any extent in order to fulfill his wishes. In college, Akhil has a close friend named Abhinav. Abhinav is a Brahmin, hailing from Erode district. His family hails from Tirunelveli and Coimbatore, in reality. For studies, Abhinav stays with his grandparents in Coimbatore.

These duos are close friends for five years, since 9th standard, and are always inseparable. Abhinav has a drastic childhood past. Since, his father, being a workaholic has left him in childhood, with his younger sister beside and divorced his mother, after which, he hates his father.

In order to make him happier, Abhinav's mother remarried an advocate, who himself has a son named Rithvik. Though Rithvik is his step-brother, their relationship is like brothers. Since then, Akhil and Abhinav are close friends.

Abhinav treats all in an equalized manner and separates his friends on a caste-basis. While Akhil is highly career-oriented and dislikes girls. He also respects his caste principles and ideologies, so much. Though Akhil treats his friends equally, he never accepts inter-caste love, since he fears for his father's anger.

Akhil too has a mindset of marrying an inter-caste girl. But, he fears expressing this to his father, because of his caste ethics and respect towards culture. All was going well and in addition, Abhinav manages to get Akhil's dream of joining the Air force fulfilled after begging Akhil's father for so many days.

In the meantime, Abhinav also gets his dream to become a musician fulfilled and leads a successful life. Abhinav is in love with Akhil's relative named, Darshini with whom, he is present, speaking.

Now, he recalls the life of 3rd year, when Darshini came as a 1st-year student into his college. She is a naughty and talkative girl, and always behaves funny and leads a happy life. This made Abhinav fall for Darshini and after some initial fights, the duo falls in love eventually. However, this remains unknown to Akhil.

Akhil is in love with a girl named Dheekshana. She hails from Madurai and belongs to the Vettuva Gounder group. The duo loves for three years in the college, which is unknown to both the families of Akhil and Dheekshana. Indeed, it was Dheekshana, who fell in love with Akhil.

She was attracted to his hard work, gentility, and humble behavior, though he disliked girls. Since Akhil's mother was a bad light in his everyday life(which he sees from small age), he is lead to the conclusion of showing dislike towards girls.

After she came to the college, Akhil changes slowly. But, when she proposed her love, he rejects her citing to her that, "She saw her only as a friend and not as a lover."

However, when she asks him about his poems, which he wrote about her were false, he emotionally admits the love, that he had for her and they start to love each other from that time, without the notice of their family.

In addition, the only guy, who knew about their love is Raagul. Days after, their love grew stronger and Dheekshana-Akhil develops an intimate relationship by having sex.     

Abhinav's mother, on learning about his love for Dharshini confronts him, one day.

"Abhinav. We would show equality to all. But, Akhil's family is not like that. You itself know that his father is an adherent believer in caste and culture. Will he approve?" asked his mother, to which Abhinav replies, "I knew it very well, mom. Indeed, you see, Akhil's father trusted me a lot and also likes me a lot. How you think that he will disagree with my love with Dharshini?"

"Because liking is different and opposing to love marriages is different. Please understand" said his mother and eventually, he agreed to it and breaks up with Darshini.

One of Abhinav's rival in the college Sanjay Kumar, who had a grudge against both Abhinav and Akhil, informs Akhil that, Abhinav is in love with his relative Darshini and in addition, mocks him for being a friend to traitor when he was getting ready to go for the Air force. Though, angered initially, Akhil controls and plans to handle the issue, once he comes back from Army.

At present, Darshini comes to Abhinav's house where she meets his mother. She tells her, "Aunty. I am Darshini. Your son's future wife. He could have told you. You told him that, you approve of our relationship, but feared for my uncle. Don't worry, aunty. I would handle this issue."

At the same time, Akhil comes with his close friends to Abhinav's house, where he notices Darshini, thus believing the words of Sanjay Kumar. He is almost ready to thrash Abhinav, until being stopped by his close friend Raagul.

"Please leave me, Raagul. If I beat him up only, my anger would sustain. Take your hands" said Akhil.

"Why are you raising your hands against him? For loving your relative or for the reason of hiding this from you? Touch your heart and say that, you never tried to follow the ethics of inter-caste marriage" said Raagul.

"Brother. Love doesn't rely upon caste and culture. It is all from our heart. I knew that you still fear for our family. Did you know? I too developed an intimate relationship with Abhinav(by having sex) similar to you. But, in my terms, that's not sex. We both made love, to show how much we both loved each other" said Darshini.

Eventually, Akhil gets convinced and promises Abhinav that, it's his responsibility to get them married with the consent of his family members.

Before that, Akhil meets Deekshana and her family(who learned the love of the duo) and manages to convince her family, thus solving his disputes. Meanwhile, Darshini's parents learn about her love for Abhinav and scold her for loving an inter-caste guy.

After this, they call Akhil's father and speak with him regarding this. After thinking a while, they plan to get Darshini married to the man of their choice. At the same time, Akhil's love is learned by his father. Initially angry, he emotionally agrees to his love, after realizing that, "Love marriages are not wrong and it depends on mind and heart."

He further tells Akhil that, "He agreed to the marriage because the girl belongs to the same caste." Akhil gets married to Dheekshana.

Meanwhile, Darshini runs away from her wedding hall with Abhinav, accompanied by Raagul, which is stopped by Akhil.

"Are you mad, Darshini? I already told you that, I would convince our family and get you both married. Why are you taking this hasty decision?" asked Akhil.

"I too tried to tell this to her, Akhil. But, she didn't listen to me" said Abhinav.

At the same time, Akhil's family comes to the spot and gets angered upon seeing the decision took by Darshini. They beat up Abhinav and when Akhil was tried to be attacked, Abhi gets up and starts to beat them up.

"Akhil. Are you opposing our family itself, for a friend, who came yesterday?", asked one of his relatives.

 "What did you tell? He came yesterday. But, he was supportive of me at every point in time. How many of you all knew this? Relatives are just like Guest. But, friends are forever, who accompanies us at every point of time" said Akhil.

Later, he turns towards Darshini's and his father and tells them, "Dad and Uncle. You all believe in caste and culture. But, did we follow caste and culture before generations. We segregated the castes now only right. Based on the professions, cultural habits, and ethics we separated our people through castes. What's wrong if anyone loves a man, who belongs to another caste?" asked Akhil, to which his father replies, "Their culture is different and in addition, we would lose our honor and reputation in this society."

"Dad. To which caste does god belong?" asked Akhil.

"Why should a God have caste?" asked his father and understanding what Akhil comes to tell, he refuses his words and tells him that, he is still a 1960's man and cannot agree to the marriage of inter-caste, since he hates Brahmins.

Frustrated, Akhil asks his relatives too, "threw away the caste, culture, and honor and just think about the love of two people, so that they may realize the importance of love."

Convinced, Akhil's family agrees to Dharshini's love and eventually gets her married to Abhinav. Finally, all of them reunites happily and continued to lead their journey of love by living as a joint family.

            

THE END…