When Are You Getting Married

It was 8 AM in the morning and Raj had already heard the question “When are you getting married?” once. It's not new to him. It was a constant voice in his ear from the time he joined his first job. Before that, there used to be another question “When are you getting a job?”.

Raj felt like he needed coffee after that and made the mistake of going into the kitchen. He must still be sleepy as he wasn't watching his corners. And from one of those dark corners, his mother shot the same question “When are you getting married?”. She went on after that about something like he dont have to make coffee if he gets married etc. But as soon as he heard the question, Raj switched off his hearing and concentrated on the coffee.

Raj wanted to divert his mind and checked his smartphone for notifications. He got a message from one of his friends Neha. It's an invitation for her marriage. He stared into the void for a minute and finally replied “Congrats”. Then went to check Instagram.

 While he was in the middle of scrolling through it, he got a reply from Neha “Thank you”. And another one “When are you getting married?”. This time, Raj had to stare at the void for at least 5 minutes before replying “Haha. Soon”. The chat ended.

Raj opened his work laptop and saw that no one was online. He thought maybe he was early and he could get some stuff done finally. But he understood he made a mistake when he saw the day- It was a Sunday. Raj was working from home, all the days are kind of blurred.

Since he dont has anything else to do, Raj went into the hall and switched on the TV. The news channel was on and they were saying “everyone is going to die”. He switched to another channel and started scrolling through social media.

One of his childhood friends made a video with his newlywed wife. It was some old marriage joke with terrible acting from both of them. Raj gave a double tap on the post and commented “funny”. He got a reply “I cant wait to see yours. So When are you getting married?”.

Raj was still mindlessly scrolling through the phone and TV when one of his relatives came in. Raj didn't notice her at first as he was too busy scrolling through “We are all doomed” news posts and “I am the greatest” influencer posts. But once he noticed the relative, he got up to say hello. The relative sarcastically said to his mother “This is what happens when they dont get married at the correct age. They get absorbed into some other world. When is he getting married?”

The relative came to invite Raj’s family for a function. Raj tried to avoid it as much as he could, but with his mom’s insistence, he had no choice.

People say light is faster than sound. But Raj was seeing the opposite in the function. He kept on hearing the question “When are you getting married?” before he could see who asked it. The entire function was breaking the laws of physics. He kept hearing it over and over that he thought space and time stood still at that point. After what felt like an eternity of the questioning, Raj was released from the function.

The function taught Raj so much. Raj finally understood the gravity of his situation and the forces he was up against. He didn't want to take any more chances and planned to get married as fast as possible. He even avoided going into crowds until he is married.

Raj finally got married and went with his newlywed wife to meet one of his relatives. He was so eager to not hear the question again and have a normal conversation. The relative invited them, congratulated them and asked “When are you planning to have kids?”.

Something changed in Raj after that. Whenever he saw any of his friends or relatives he started asking “When are you getting married?”.

The End