Daastan [#MissionDesi]

Chapter 5

It wasn't love at first sight or anything, not a fairytale romance either. I don't know till this date why i said yes for marrying her. But I believe I didn't even have any reason not to. Whatever it was, I'm glad I chose her as my wife. 

  I didn't get time to talk to Sujatha before marriage which was irritating given most of the time, her two nosy aunties were following us. Somehow I got rid of them and Sujatha took me near a waterfall. Smart choice since there was no one around spare for a couple of buffaloes who indifferent to us, went on smugly carrying out their own activities with little birds perched over their backs. 

I looked to my left and right. "Relax," she chuckled, "I'm not going to drown you into this water." 

"Well, that's a relief you see," I said. 

Her laughter, carefree like a song sung by a bird calling out to the rains, even now, years later, makes me nostalgic about the time we spent near the waterfall. 

"Are you sure you want to marry me?" I asked, surprising myself.

She looked taken aback, as if i had somehow pried open the lid and spilled out her secrets. 

She muttered, "I don't know."

"Is it just the normal wedding jitters or did they force you to say yes? Are you in love with someone else?" I fired questions at her.

Her eyes filled with tears. She started bawling, incoherent words tumbling out of her mouth, words like, maybe, shouldn't have, father would kill me....

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Words clogged her throat, forming a lump, without any outlet for her feelings to pass. If only she could tell her mother how she felt. But she needn't have bothered because her mother looked at her fondly and said, "Even I am wondering how did you grow up so fast!" She saw a shimmering light dancing inside the dark pools of her mother's eyes, forming ripples of unshed tears. 

But before she could utter a word, footsteps closed in on them. Both mother daughter froze in their spots as her father walked inside, closing the door behind him. He turned to look at Sujatha, his eyes like daggers piercing her and said, "You better pull yourself together. Your days of hopping around like a grasshopper are over. Now all you should think about is keeping your husband and in laws happy. That's what you were raised for since childhood."

Those last words stung her to her very core. But she would not disobey her father's wishes. It just won't do.          
                                                                        Even the scene outside seemed to have been staged to match her father's outburst. Storm had set in. Thunderclouds burst forth to announce their arrival. Soon everything was going to change within her.                                                
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Our Kundlis matched by god's grace and all the marriage rituals were performed in the presence of both the families. Almost entire village was present, the only people missing were my friends and colleagues.           

We brought her back to Mumbai with us. Being a village girl and away from her family for the first time made it difficult for her to adjust with strangers in a strange city. We arranged a small gathering for my friends and colleagues who wouldn't stop pestering me about the "Secret Wedding."

Our first night and subsequent nights after that weren't coloured with the adventures that newly married couples embark upon but were filled with long spells of tears with a trickle of sunshine in between as if someone had opened a window and let out the stale air out of a stuffy room. 

The veil of her shyness and fear that accompanies any bride was gradually lifted and a woman emerged from a girl like a flower blossoming out of a bud. It took time for her to trust me and embrace the change but I knew patience on my part would get her to open up to me.

She started going out, taking on the responsibilities, delegating work to the maid, paying the bills, grocery shopping. One day she even went on the city tour bus and sometimes she would go visit my sister on her own, getting bored alone at home. So i encouraged her to pursue further studies which she had to leave halfway because of the wedding. I was no more the workoholic i was before. Having her in my life had made me question my own principles about my life which i was so proud of. 

She and my mother got along really well and more so when it came to biting my ears off. No, they didn't complain to me about each other but they would complain about me to each other, which was fine by me.

We had slipped into the routine life of husband and wife, me getting up for work, her preparing my breakfast and me making tea, me leaving for work, her waving me goodbye, me standing at the door waiting for a kiss, her shying away from me, checking out if mom was around, quickly giving me a peck on my cheek, shooing me away, each of us going through our activities, me coming back home, her waiting for me, the two of us having dinner and then sometimes wrapping up the night in a blanket of love keeping us safe and warm. 

It was one such day when....