Birds of a Feather
A pair of ruby red lips spoke to him of the new parks in the city, the weather and then noticing he was paying no attention to her, asked him what the matter was, had he gotten so drunk he couldn’t even think? She giggled.
The man was every girls dream, with chiseled features, a strong physical presence and blue eyes he realized that people often turned to stare as he passed then on the streets, Calcutta was a city, but men like him were still far and few. People often remarked that he was probably some famous man that they had only heard about. It was not exactly the age of TV you see.
And he was getting married! And to a village girl!
He had read and re read the letter a dozen times, the sentence stood clear in his head
His sister had written
“and the cows are fine, we have fixed your wedding, girl is pretty and has studied upto sslc, she speaks English so don’t you worry my boy, date for the wedding will be finalized on reply of this letter”
It would good to be married, he though, but the thought of a domestic life irked him, he went out and got drunk. How could he deal with getting married to a villager now?
Later-
Its ok, he told his friend Captain Sundar, I will get married, take her home to my village and visit her once in a while, it will be a good excuse to go home, my life here will be the same he said with a smile.
But he was wrong
Meanwhile in the village of Cherai in Kerala, a young free spirited girl was fighting her father, she was a girl who in ordinary circumstances would do just as her father ordered her to, but this was different it was her dream that was at stake.
‘I want to be a doctor and I will’ Radha could be heard screaming at least thrice a day. Much of her life had been spent taking orders from her father, even as a teenager, cooking, cleaning, washing, the works. ….
She was the oldest and looked after her little sisters when her mother was giving birth and that it turned out, was a frequent affair. Radha knew the midwife just as well as she knew her mother, except, the midwife was kinder.
But through thick and thin, the dream had kept her going, the dream that one day she would become a doctor. The dream that lay like a shattered perfume bottle at her feet, so strong smelling that others complained, it was perfume but excess of it dint work they said. Dreams like those were for the rich, they added.
She would talk the groom’s sister out of the wedding when she came to visit her she promised herself, but the future sister in law, a round woman of about 35 only glanced at her, the rest of the conversation continued with the family, the dowry, the ceremony …..
Though it wasn’t until the wedding itself that Radha got to meet her groom, but she was shown a photo by her father, she was stunned, the man was errr very good looking, now that was not something she had bargained for. He looked British, had his skin been any paler and his eyes any bluer, he would looked as British as British can get.
Well, I remember looking into this very man’s eyes when I was seven and wondering why the world was unfair and I dint have blue eyes, even at that age I guessed he would be a real
chullan in his prime.
Coming back, Radha’s attempts to convince her parents to let her study medicine proved futile
And on 26th of August 1947 my grandparents were married.
The wedding by itself was a simple affair, Radha might have actually enjoyed it had it not been at 12 midnight. Whenever she thought of the day in the days to come, the taste of bitter coffee she was forced to gulp down so as to be awake lingered in her head.
My grandfather decided, on a whim, to take his pretty young bride to Calcutta with him. He was a happy man those days.
The stories of their days in Calcutta will fill up this blog, I will perhaps write about them later, five years later he lost his job in Calcutta as the man he was working for had died. They moved to Chennai with their three little children.
In Chennai they found happiness, had two more children and lived a life of great luxury. The job was a good one, grandpa was a respected man and in short they were living the happening life. There were parties in gymkhana club, Chiffon sarees for my grand mom, (they were rare those days) and they lived in a mansion in Nungambakam and sent the kids to Park Church school.(it was co-ed those days)
The children were happy kids with tea parties, rich friends and the best clothes and toys that money could buy.
The Elder daughter, Rati was the prettiest of them all, her skin shone, her eyes glittered and she wrote poetry. She was selfless and would go to extremes to make others happy
The second one was pretty, fair and had her way with words, she had plenty of friends and some termed her self centered.
The third one was slim, fair, tall and had raven locks, she was very clever, sometimes to the point of being scheming.
The two boys were happy kids divided in age from one another by only a year, but fortune did not favor them as it did to their sisters, by the time they were teens the dad lost his job, went away from home and even at that age, the boys had to earn their own living.
With the bread winner of the family away, the mother arranged the Rati’s wedding to be held as a simple affair in a temple, she was married to a diamond merchant. She was 20 then, and looked every bit the beautiful, shy, chaste bride.
A young IIT graduate was given the hand of the second daughter, much to the annoyance of the boy’s family who felt the girl wasn’t wealthy enough for them. But the wedding wasn’t a love marriage, the groom and his family had come to see the girl, the mother was disappointed by the non existence of huge pieces of jewelry and tired to cancel the match, but the boy having set his eye on the pretty Rati insisted money was not all.
Five years after all of this my grandfather came back from Bangkok, bringing with him enough money to lead the life they had once led, he wanted his youngest daughter to be married into a rich family and that was when he met him, Alagappan, a doctor who had studied in London, and hailed from a huge, wealthy Chettiar family, his mother was the same caste as my grandparents and hence she felt her son should be given in marriage to my family, the wedding was a grand affair, with relatives from all over the world coming in for it. But of course the only reason the real reason behind the wedding was that the groom and his mother had been fascinated by the bride to be’ s looks, she had grown to become a real beauty. The kind that is raw and rare, she remained her old self, but her radiant face and charming smile had many a man staring at her on the streets. Her raven locks and red lips made her look like an exotic beauty from some far away place. She happily agreed to marry Alagappan, for except that he was dark and in no way good looking, he was the perfect groom, a wealthy and smart doctor.
And as you must have guessed, the third daughter was the aunt of mine who I finally met in Italy this year.
She told me her story.
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