Page 21 - English Tehelka Issue 3&4

society

CoverStory

It Is stIll a

Our country has a rich cultural heritage embedded with love sagas — our
BIg Deal to society especially when it comes to social norms concerning love and marriage.
Gods, mythologies and history are full of references to love stories that are
famous legends across the world. However, India remains a conservative

Fall In love On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, ridhima malhotra finds out why it is still

controversial to fall in love in India.

In InDIa!

hen Chhavi (name changed) came fallen in love and wanted to get married in the near
to the capital for the first time in future once our careers were stable. But my family
2005, to study in a Delhi University was trying to arrange my marriage and I got goose-
college, there were some unspoken bumps every time I felt the need to tell them about
W rules that her family back home my relationship. I was afraid they would never
in Saharanpur expected her to abide by. Though agree,” she said.
nobody in her joint family had spoken to her on Chhavi consulted an elder cousin sister who sug-
the subject, she was well aware that she was, under gested that she tell her parents and see how they
all circumstances, not supposed to fall in love with reacted. “So I told my mother, who was very upset
anyone. She knew very well that she had been sent with me and made me feel guilty for betraying her
to the city to get a good education and that she trust. She was dead against my relationship and
might be allowed to work too for a few years. It was accelerated all efforts to find a suitable boy for me.
just a matter of time that her parents would arrange Thankfully, she dint have the courage to tell my
her marriage in her early twenties to a young man father fearing that he would be very hurt. So I con-
of their choice. tinued to live in Delhi. What worked in my favour
And that is, somewhat, how things went by. “I was that my parents couldn’t find a suitable match
was a few months shy of eighteen when I joined for me even when I turned 26, which was consid-
Daulat Ram College. I was allowed to apply for ered to be quite past my marriageable age. They
admission only in girls colleges as my family was were getting restless. Finally, my father got to know
wary of me being influenced by co-education. They of my boyfriend and they agreed to get us married.”
didn’t even let me stay in a paying guest accommo- As an afterthought, she added, “Both of us be-
dation fearing that I would get out of their control. longed to the same kayastha caste, so it made things
So I stayed for three years of my graduation in the easy. My family was happy about that. I don’t think
college hostel that was very strict about timings. We they would’ve let me marry him had he been from
were not allowed to step out after 8 PM. The warden a different caste. Also, my parents told most of our
dint even let us keep mobile phones, can you imag- relatives that the marriage was arranged by one of
ine?” said Chhavi, who is now 30 and mother of a our distant relatives. They were embarrassed to tell
three-year-old. people that their daughter was having a love mar-
It wasn’t that Chhavi dint fall in love. She did, and riage, even though it was in the same caste.”
very much in love indeed. “During the first year of Chhavi’s story might sound a bit absurd to some,
my college, I was quite shy and stayed away from but her circumstances are definitely understand-
boys. But by the end of second year, I had a boy- able for a large number of young men and women
friend. He was a classmate’s school friend.” After in our country where love and marriage are con-
graduation, Chhavi enrolled in a year-long post- tentious issues even in the twenty-first century.
graduate diploma course in advertising and public Since time immemorial, India has been obsessed
relations at a polytechnic and thereafter got a job with marriages that have been the centrepiece of
in Delhi itself. “By that time my boyfriend and I had our society. Across states and cultures, parents and

Tehelka / 28 february 2018 20 www.Tehelka.com Tehelka / 28 february 2018 11 21 www.Tehelka.com

20-27 3rd CStory.indd 2-3 12/02/18 3:11 PM