He Wanted Marriage,She Live-in

I did not like talking too much and I preferred to live my life on my own terms, in my own thoughts and emotions. I was coming from a small town in Bihar and it was very difficult for me to adjust to my new life in Delhi, with my new office colleagues and my neighbors. Delhi, as a city took me by the scruff of my neck and pitched me among new friends, colleagues and acquaintances. I could hardly breathe the polluted air of Delhi. However, I had promised myself that I would survive. I had to. There was no choice. I was working for a fortune 500 companies in their Delhi office and it was a God given opportunity. They had picked me up from my management school campus. I had aced the interview in the first round itself so the second round was a mere formality. I was given my offer letter in the second round itself.

On the other hand, Arpita was everything I was not. She was open, friendly and outgoing. We met in my office. She was going to be my secretary. She was a local Delhi girl and therefore her personality traits came as easily to her as nursery rhymes come to us when we are 30. She had everything I had desired in a woman. She was beautiful, independent, caring, compassionate and at the same time very efficient in her work. She had made a place for herself in my heart within the first fifteen days of our working together. I was very excited when she took the initiative to ask me out for a date. After dating for six months, she decided that it was time to move in with me. I knew that I would never gather the guts to do the things that she had done and was going to do.

I simply said yes to everything she said and did because I loved to make her happy. We both shared a beautiful relationship. She learned to read and like the books that I loved. I learnt to like her passion for Cosplay and Comic Cons. We would spend hours discussing the books I liked. We spent an equal time discussing costumes and the characters she loved. We lived together, we worked for the same company and we had common friends. When we were together, it appeared as if we were made for each other. She would understand beforehand what I wanted and I would sense her discomfort and bend my back to make her comfortable. This went on for quite some time. She hated having to move out of my abode whenever my parents from Bihar visited me in Delhi.

She was of the view that why should she move out if we are to be part of each other's life. She did not understand the my orthodox parents would never approve of our relationship if they learnt that we were living-in without being married. On the other hand, she thought that I should let her stay so that she could get an opportunity to know my parents in-depth. She thought that this was necessary if we were to take the "next big step". The trouble was: for her, the "next big step" was a permanent live-in, while I wanted to get married to her. Looking back now, I wonder what went wrong between the two of us. Was it because we were so different from each other? Or, was it because we were not ready to take the "next big step". Here, it is pertinent to mention that the next big step was different for each of us.

For her, this was telling my mother how she enjoyed our live-in relationship, while for me, it was getting married to her and fathering her kids. I knew that my mother would never accept her if she found out that we were living together. For a woman who lived in a small town in Bihar, this was blasphemy. Arpita, that was her name, wanted me to be frank with my parents. She wanted to know my family more before deciding on "the next step". She wished to visit my house and understand how life would be for her if she ever married me. She herself had no such issues. Her parents knew about us living-in together and they never had a problem with it. Her mother used to come to stay with us whenever she visited our side of town. Incidentally, she hailed from old Delhi while I was staying in New Delhi in my employer's flat.

We had huge rows whenever she moved out of my flat, on my parents visit to Delhi. It felt that we had forgotten how much we understood each other. There were days when we would not talk to each other. When we did talk, we ended up arguing and fighting with each other. Life felt abnormal at such times. That was when we decided that we could not live together. Our family back-grounds were poles apart and bringing them together would be catastrophic. She had once told me that marriage was not just about the two of us but our families too. I did not understand her point then, but, now, I do. I now realize that our marriage would have been difficult, if not an impossible ride towards happiness. We therefore had to give up on "us" to save ourselves from unhappiness. We could not be together because I wanted marriage, while she wanted a live-in. Therefore, in our case twain could not meet.