In A Caste-Ridden Society What She Did Was Right

   I went to attend the marriage reception of that girl who belongs to our street.She seemed to be very happy as revealed by her attitude.Her husband who was sitting beside her was also very happy and thoroughly enjoying the occasion.

   As I was quitely witnessing the proceedings of the reception, gradually I came to know,certain things about the newly married couple which I felt strange and astonished.

    It was a love marriage.The entire multitude gathered at the reception was the relatives and well wishers of the bride and not the bridegroom.Neither the parents nor any relative of the bridegroom attended the reception nor the marriage that was held a few days ago.   

      I knew the bride very well for the past ten years.When my family shifted to my own house in 1999 to the present street where we are living, she was an adolescent girl and was doing her engineering degree course in a nearby college which was not so familiar with.The reason was that her parents did not want to part with her and not willing to send her to a college that was far away.She did BE and then M.Tech at Tanjore, where her mother accompanied her to look after her.

    But breaking all the shackles she fell in love with her classmate who was also doing M.Tech and who belonged to a different caste.But the parents of the girl did not know about it.Both of them got employed in a company at Bangalore and their love was renewed.Of course familiarity bred love not contempt and finally they decided to get married.

   When the boy revealed his intention of marrying that girl, to his parents, they broke down;cursed him like anything;in particular his mother.No other go.The boy quit the home and sought refuge with the girl with whom she fell in love.The reason that prompted the girl to fall in love with the boy was entirely different.She was already 28.Her parents attempts for the past eight years to seek a suitable boy from their own caste, a forward community, known for its land-lordism, was in vain.No suitable alliance could be found.

    Therefore, what did by her, in a caste-ridden society, to find a suitable pair for her,was right as far as she was concerned.Her parents had no other go but to reconcile themselves with her decision.Hence the marriage and the reception that followed.I think the girl was right and it was a right decision.