Meant to be? – ©Shreya, 2014 (Formerly: The girl who always smiled :) ) They will never agree. I know they won’t. I had muttered these lines over a thousand times to myself ever since Viraj proposed two days ago. For any other girl, it would have been a dream come true but to me the proposal brought with itself a hoard of uncertainties and fears. We had been together for three years but never before had the reality of our relationship hit me before. Regardless of what a fairy-tale our story was, the reality amplified itself with our names. I was Saira Ali Khan. And he was Viraj Aggarwal. Never meant to be together. His parents knew about us from the beginning. And miraculously they were okay about it, perhaps because both of them were professors. The problem lay with my parents. They had nothing against Hindus but they would surely never marry me to one. And to top all this mayhem in my mind, Viraj and his parents were coming to meet my family tonight. I grabbed the pillow from my bed and threw it against the wall, wishing all this to be nothing but one big nightmare. Hesitantly I walked up to my parent’s bedroom to talk to them about tonight, but ammi’s urgent whispers to abba stopped me in my tracks. “How could Saira do this to us after all that we have done for her? We gave her a good education in spite of how our relatives frowned on us. We gave her all the freedom that she wanted despite living in a society that does otherwise. We let her make her own space in the world. We gave her whatever she asked for all her life, but not this time. I cannot live with the stigma of marrying my only child into a family from another religion. How can she take away this only little thing that we asked from her?” I didnt wait to listen anymore. With tears swimming in my eyes, I returned to my room having made the decision as to what to say tonight. *** I stood peeking through the meshed window that overlooked the guest room where Viraj’s parents were seated. They were having a heated discussion; with ammi looking the most distressed. Viraj stood at the corner of the room, patiently hearing the on-going conversation. His face echoed my thoughts. This was going nowhere. Perhaps our journey together was supposed to last only till here. His eyes momentarily flickered to the window where I was standing. He smiled at me and my heart ached because I couldnt find myself smiling back. Just at that instant, Viraj’s mother told him to get me downstairs. Ammi instantly got up from where she was sitting to call me herself but abba signalled for her to sit down. As Viraj started walking towards the stairs, I ran back to my room to wear my hijab. It wasnt a rule set down by my family but I liked wearing it nevertheless. Ammi didnt wear it; neither did any other women in my family. Rather, they found it odd that I did but they respected my choice to wear it. I opened the top drawer of my dressing table and my prized collection of hijabs; in all colours and designs, stared back at me. I took out my favourite one out of the lot – a black one that I had been wearing ever since I was a little girl of fifteen. I placed the cloth over my head and wrapped it around my face like I had been doing since my childhood. I finished pinning up the last of the cloth so that just my kohl-lined eyes were visible. I looked at the mirror and stared at my reflection, wondering why my life had moved from black and white to absolute shades of grey. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didnt realize when Viraj entered the room. He quietly came and stood behind me and for a brief moment I felt the familiar warmth as our eyes met. “You look beautiful.” I hurriedly tore my eyes away from him and started walking towards the door because I realized that it was too painful to even look at him knowing that tonight would be the last time I’d be seeing him. He grabbed my hand from behind and pushed me against the wall. In a swift motion of his right hand; he unpinned my hijab so that my face was visible to him and all the frustration and despair that had been building inside me for the past two days; came out through my mouth in the form of words. “I am not going to give up my identity for you, Viraj!” His forehead wrinkled ever so slightly into a frown as he looked deeper into my eyes. “I am never going to ask you to.” With that; he tilted his face down and pressed his lips on mine. My lips froze and ceased to respond. My mind and my heart raged a battle of their own. I couldnt choose my happiness over my parents’ but having been with him for three years; I somehow knew maybe I wouldnt have to choose after all. And so, I gave in. After we broke away from the kiss, he smiled at me and pinned my hijab back just the way it was. *** As I came down the stairs, the sitting room came to a standstill. Ammi smiled at me but it didnt reach her eyes. I expected Viraj’s parents to be uncomfortable on seeing me wearing a hijab but their smile never faltered. I started to say something but Viraj reached for my hand and gently squeezed it. He then went over to ammi, knelt down at her knees and held both her hands in his. “I know that you are reluctant towards our relationship and I am aware that it is not conventional. But I need you to trust me and have faith in me that your I will never let your daughter’s smile leave her face. For ages our communities have had rifts between them but does that make us different people? I am a Hindu and Saira is a Muslim but that didnt stop us from falling in love. I respect you just as I would respect a person from any other religion and I respect Saira. My family and I want to accept Saira along with the identity of the hijab that she holds so dear to her heart. Getting married to me won’t make her any less your daughter or a Muslim. But for that, I need your blessings because I won’t let Saira choose me over your happiness. I ask you for your trust just this once, assuring you that I won’t let you down and I have a lifetime ahead to prove it. I am just asking you for one chance. Will you give it to me, ammi?” I had tears in my eyes and so did abba. I shifted my gaze to ammi and found her crying too. Viraj sat there, unmoving, waiting for an answer. Ammi looked at me with teary eyes and then at abba. She withdrew her hands from his and wiped her tears from her cheek. And then, very quietly, she whispered, “Yes”.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 14:30:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015