Mending her heart

"Marriage is a lifetime commitment,
And I afraid I'm not for it."

~ Raveena Menon

***

            The hall was festooned with floral garlands. Gigantic chandelier in the middle of the hall added a luminous illumination. But, something seemed wrong to her. She looked over the attire she was wearing. Instinctively, she grimaces.

           She's dolled up in red kanjeevaram saree. Her hair was neatly tied in a ponytail behind her neck and a maang teeka over her head, jhumkas in her ears. Unlike most south Indian bride weighing down by heavy jewels, Raveena put on gold-filigreed ornaments.

             

          On the aisle, her groom was waiting for her. Namboodiri chanting over the mantra. Clueless Raveena stepped to mandap and sat beside an unknown guy. Everything went so fast that she could not register anything on her mind.

          "No... No..." She wanted to shout out. But could not voice.

        Her stomach churned, she felt like she would puke. She drifted her eyes over the room and took a sigh of relief. She was in the coffee shop, not in an auditorium. Another nightmare! She had the same dream over and again. But this time dream felt so real. As if the future had set up a plan for her.

      

          Raveena Menon, not a typical Malayali girl, who marries within age 25. In fact, she does not want to get married at all.

           When people asked her you're now graduated, why not tie on knot? She screeched, "I just finished studies and I want to work right now!"

           It went overboard when they  keep on asking her, that when she lost her patience, "I'm not gonna get married..." And they asked till when? For which she replied, "Ever!"

           Everyone thought she was overreacting like all girls. She will come around with time. After all, marriage is a social discipline one must conform to.

          If only they know, how much she despised thought of marriage. Her father was the main reason for her hatred of marriage. Despite having a love marriage he left her mother for some other girl.

           Marriage is a lifetime commitment, they all say. But for that was it necessary to stay in a shattered and miserable relationship? It was not that Raveena hates obligations, she just not want to ruin one soul in a life-long commitment.

     

       Her thoughts cut short, as she was interrupted. She looked up at a man, in his thirties. Inexplicably, she was drawn to the man. Maybe his looks that tempting her.

         When he walked into a coffee shop, he didn't expect to meet that blue-eyed girl. Something in her enticed him. Wanted to know more about her, he approached her. "Hey!" He spoke up sliding into a chair in front of her.

       "Do I know you?"  She asked composing herself. Her eyes zoomed to his studying his feature. He was tall and athletic with a chiseled face, hidden taut in his face obvious to her.

          "Um... No. But we can know each other." His gaze did not leave her.

         "Excuse me?" Retorted Raveena. A stranger coquetry astonished her.