‘Hey! Did you find someone to get marry?’- a friend sent me a message.
‘No’, I replied.
‘Ok, I have a recommendation’- friend replied.
‘Ok, tell me’- I replied.
My friend started describing the perfect rishta for me; ‘He doesn’t drink, first of all’ and I started laughing. He doesn’t smoke. He is a very ‘Nice Guy’ and an Excise Inspector in Nashik. It seemed quite nice. So, my next question was, ‘Will he marry me?’
‘Yes, he is a very nice guy and you are also a nice girl, you two will be a perfect couple’- he announced. So, like a typical arranged marriage rishta, the next thing I asked about him was the Gotra, which is the real deal. He enquired and nothing matched. Taking it to the next level I asked my friend to exchange the contact numbers but ‘the nice guy’ denied to share his number and said whatever his parents would decide, he would do so.
After some time, even I also forgot that conversation. One fine day, my father broke one bad news to me. It was about a school friend who got married a few months ago. The marriage was arranged by her parents and within few months, she was getting divorced. Fearfully, I sent a message to that friend (who recommended the guy) asking if his cousin was still looking for a bride. He called me and asked what happened. I explained everything that I am quite frightened of arranged marriage idea. Although I trust my parents completely but I know how people manipulate after wedding. He understood my situation and asked his cousin if he was interested to talk to me. He called me again and said that he had shared my number with his cousin. After 30 minutes, I received a call and it was him. Yes, it was HIM, ‘The Nice Guy’. We talked for around 45 minutes. He was a good human being. Starting from that day, we started talking regularly through messages and over calls.
The conversations turned us into friends, the discussions made us like each other and a meeting made us fell for each other (at least me). We were quite different personalities but there were things that seemed to be binding us together.
He was intellectual, I was creative.
He was practical, I was imaginative.
He was a speaker, I was a listener.
He was a reader, I was a writer.
He was messy, I was tidy.
He loved coffee, I was tea.
Yet what brought us together?
Honesty to see through the differences,
Truthfulness to accept each other,
Respect for our professions,
And love to follow our professions.
We were talking like good friends but things were not moving ahead from marriage’s perspective but one fine day he said he would be coming soon to Delhi and would make me meet his family. I was on cloud nine since I also thought that he was the guy I was looking for. Next day, I got a call from my father saying that he had found a guy for me and I would have to meet him at the earliest. So, I broke the news to ‘the nice guy’. He said, ‘ok, let’s do one thing. We will tell about each other to our parents and will see how they react.’ Next day, I told it to my brother and he passed it on to my father. ‘The Nice Guy’ also told it to his father.
The day we told it to our families, he talked about how we would be leading our married lives; he kept making me dream of our married life ahead. I could also feel butterflies in my stomach but somewhere in my mind, I had a thought what if it won’t happen because alliance of a guy in public sector and a girl in private sector is quite rare. However, the way he was talking to me, trying to know me, showing as if he cared, assured me that he was a rare guy and would break the stereotypes. So, all my assumptions, imaginations and dreams shattered the day when my father called his father and he told that ‘Bacchon ka level match nahi karta’. The guy whom I was considering nice was no longer nice. If he hadn’t the courage to share his thoughts and the differences with his parents, he shouldn’t have started talking to me. Maybe he knew that his parents had different expectations yet he passed time with me. My heart doesn’t make me feel that he was passing time yet head says he was. So, here I am broken:
He isn’t intellectual, he is imaginative.
He isn’t a speaker, his thoughts are messy.
And nothing could bring us together.