Marriages are made in Heart!

The final part of the story (Part 1 and Part 2):

The legendary Rendezvous:

The legendary temple!

As planned, I reached the temple at 6 p.m., which was set as the meeting time. I was accompanied by my Dadaji, Dadiji, Negotiator Uncle, my cousin brother Kailash(who has btw changed his name to Divyaansh!!) and my Dadaji’s sister. The distance between the temple and uncle’s house wasn’t much. Hence I could not think much about how I was going to evade this! All my little scams were going horribly wrong. Also, with all the elders in the car, I couldn’t call and take advice from anyone about to go about the job. So, it was clear that I was completely dependent on myself there. (Life me pehli baar responsibility ki feeling! Aur wo bhi saala kahan jaake!)

The last working scamster in my mind muttered some very cliché suggestions. “Tell her that you love some other girl and you are seeing her only because of family pressure!” “I am a drunkard! I can’t even think straight without a glass!”[Though later, she was the one who made me change my views on drinking! :P]. But the fact of the matter was that my mind had lost! Such a good excuse-maker turned into a normal cry baby! So the long wait began. It was 6: 15 now.

I got a little annoyed as they were supposed to come at 6. I hate people who come late. (Ok! I am not talking about my college classes!) 6:30! Still no sign of them. The annoyance turned to anger! 6:45! Bloody hell! What is going on. To pacify myself I thought of texting Pinky Didi and Dipanjali! But it turned out that they were biased towards me as expected. So the replies were something like “Saala lao ladki ko. Kitna intezaar karwaoge!” and “Tumhara koi value nahi hai kya!”

Now the combination of all these factors had made my anger reach its boiling point!! (No please! No comparisons to Arnab Goswami!) At 7:00 the daily aarti of the temple started. To cool off my mind, I joined in. (Yeah, I wasn’t an atheist then!!) I was almost standing in a perpendicular view of line from the statues of the deities to the entry gate. Now, after many days I heard an aarti in such a beautiful synchronization. The music of the bells was perfectly in sync with the claps and the voice of the Panditji was also not bad. I tried to immerse myself in the aarti closing my eyes! And it was just wonderful. Though my anger had not subsided but it had been reduced considerably. And then the final round of the bells began!

(The description of the following excerpt has not been taken from any Hindi movie)

The symphony of the bells. The conch shells sounding as calls from a different world.  Music. Peace. Bliss. And the anger in me. I open my eyes. I see her. She doesn’t see me. My anger is gone. Pooof! This is Destiny!

I come back to my senses. She is talking to all the other people who have come with me. My Dadaji asks her qualification in English! She replies. Then my Dadiji and Dadaji’s sister start their queries of cooking, knitting, sewing, etc etc. Seems she passed their test. And then, the moment of reckoning awaits.

We are instructed that we may to talk to each other. I do not remember who accompanied her. I was accompanied by my cousin Kailash/Divyaansh! And then the craziest conversation begins:

Me: Manisha, right?

She: Minakshi

Me: No, Manisha!

She: No, Minakshi! And you are?

Me: Poonam

(A little smirk from her. Me thinking “Yeah! Yeah! As if I don’t know that look! It’s a long NAME story!”)

She: Ok.

(“What was I supposed to say??”, I think! What do people actually say in these situations? The cliché! The cliché!)

Me: So, what are your hobbies?

She: Dancing and getting my photographs clicked. What are yours?

Me: Singing and clicking photographs! (What was I thinking? Or maybe I wasn’t.)

Now I tell the side characters, “Will you get the hell out of here?” Ok. Politely. I just wish I could say it that way.

She and me only. A little silence.

She: What are views on friendship? (Are we in a philosophy class, for heaven’s sake!)

Me: Be it friendship or any other relation. Only two things matter. Trust and space! (Man! I was on fire!)

She: That’s nice to hear.

Me: Yeah! I need to tell you something. I was madly in love with a girl for about 3-4 years. It was one sided though. I couldn’t even tell her. Just thought you should know.

She: It’s ok. (Ok? Are you drunk? Don’t you have anything to say?)

And then the more comfortable zone of the conversation arrived about how both of us had lived in a joint family, what our expectations from our prospective life partner were. It was chill. All the while, I was ogling at her eyes. She had and still has the most beautiful eyes! Now I was average in chemistry and I think chemistry is the most misused word while talking about two people who really hit it off well. And I was pathetic in physics but the word I can use has come from physics. Energy. Positive energy.  And there was such a flow of positive energy that I felt completely bemused. I mean something was there which I couldn’t explain that was so positively positive. This is right! This has to be done! This is meant to be!

The disturbance. Kailash comes in and says that they are calling us. It had hardly been 15 minutes. I put him away for 5 more minutes saying, “Thoda to time do yaar. Zindagi ka sawaal hai!” She smiles. I made her smile. Eternal bliss. My final words to her that evening, “ I do not know what you are feeling. But I have very positive feelings. It would be quite ok even if things don’t work out. But this was a positively happy meeting. ”

We go back. They made us stand together to look at the height and health difference. Acceptable they say. Her mom sees me. Looks radiantly happy looking at me. I do not understand why.

I come back to uncle’s house. I am left alone in a small room for an hour. Seems like gazillion hours of thinking. The onus is on me. Few gazillion hours again it seems. This is it. I want to marry her. I talk to Papa, Mummy and Uncle from that room. I tell them. Then I go down. Tell my Dadaji. He has tears of happiness. Craziness! He then calls the Bagris and tells them it is a “Yes” from us. Everyone is in a joyous mood! Then I start worrying. What if she doesn’t like me? But after a sleepless night of speculation, it’s confirmed early next morning. She has said “Yes”! “Yes”! I call all my friends in the return journey! All are happy, surprised, elated! Most bemused reaction by Anshul and Rinki “Mana karne gaya tha! Sagaai kar ke aa gaya!” Oh! It was one helluva journey. And I knew after everything that happened,

“MARRIAGES ARE MADE IN HEART!”

I LOVE YOU MINAKSHI! J