Standing up for love

Love—centre of the universe. Don’t really know if I am right in saying that love is the centre of the universe or is it just that my world revolves around love. More complex and confuse you may get if you try to “understand” it and more simple it may become if you just “feel” it!!!
As they say “There are three great things in the world--The first is for you to love someone. The second is for someone to love you back and the third greatest thing is for the first and the second thing to happen simultaneously.”
And now imagine if you had all this in place and yet your love failed to take off?? Blame yourself or blame it on your destiny, certain things are just not so simple and trust me can turn out to be a huge set back for those who believe in something as simple and pure as love and yet fail to experience it for long.
This is a true story of a girl who believed a lot in love and almost looked for love in every relationship in her life, be it with her mom and dad, brothers or then with the person she was thinking of getting married to.
First male in any daughter’s life and in most cases first love you can say. There is no denying that daughter-father have only love-love relationship. There is no give and take in their case. It’s only give and that, too, giving it in abundance and what better than love. Riya, who got selected for admission to an engineering college, was in two minds whether to opt for an independent career and make her father feel proud of her or be with him, though he may be proud of her, but will certainly not be able to leave her on her own, protective or being over protective, fathers just don’t know how to do without it. Keeping all her love and emotions aside, Riya decided to go far from North to down South, to be able to understand herself, her love for her father and above all to be able to make her dad feel proud of her. Riya could have opted an easy way out to remain with her, be loved and be able to spread love, but like they say “Easily achieved things don’t stay for long and things that stay for long are not easily achieved,” with this in mind, Riya packed and packed well for her different journey in different land with different people, who may or may not be able to understand her emotional side, may consider it to be her weakness or call her an emotional fool. Not bothered much about others and her journey onwards, Riya was all set to make her dad feel proud of her one day.
Tough were college days when Riya just wanted to focus on her aim, which was to study hard, focus on career so as to make her dad feel proud of her and that’s it! But college life, away from home, with peer pressure on, it indeed was not a cake walk for Riya, who was good looking, smart, intelligent, humours and above all someone who believed both in love and life. She turned down a lot of fans and friends, “friendship proposals” and the like not knowing that one day she may have to regret. Her hard work did pay her back, but at what expense only God can answer that. Riya finished her college with flying colours, made one or two friends for life and returned home with a degree and job both. Wow what a daughter, her proud dad was not only happy for her, but now he wanted an equally “good match” for her. His worry was worrying Riya too, but for someone who was so full of love and life marrying the traditional way, without knowing much about the guy and more so without falling in love seemed almost impossible. Life gave her a chance to fall in love, but even before she could realise that she was in love, it was all over. Just when she started enjoying being in love, destiny had some other plans for her, the guy cheated on her and left her shattered.
Ailing father was gradually losing hope and Riya was finding herself trapped and helpless. After gathering herself from those pieces of a broken relationship, she wanted to fall in love again. Her friends and family often told her that it was just, too, late for her to fall in love, but Riya was not able to accept that age had anything to do with love. Riya was hopeful that even in her 30s she would still be able to make it, meet with the “man of her dreams” and was just not able to give up on that.
Just like bad luck never comes alone, Riya, who was already finding it hard to make choices, lost her mother and that, too, when she needed her the most. The pressure from her family members to get her married was at its peak now. Her brothers and sisters-in-law started curbing her freedom and after mother, her dad was losing his say and control over family matters.
Every night more than anyone else, Riya cried for help, tried to find her mom’s shoulder, looked for warmth around, wished to share her dad’s pain, but every night she just ended up shedding a lot of tears and nothing else. But who says you fall in love only once? Life gave her another chance to fall in love and this time she was just, too, sure of the man of her dreams. There was hope, love and life was calling her again. Seeing her dad happy Riya had all the more reason to be happy and thanked God to change the tides of destiny for her.
To love someone and someone loving you back, which otherwise became the most difficult thing in her life, was now a dream come true and Riya surely felt blessed. She was enjoying shopping for her marriage with her hard-earned money and that, too, with the “man of her dreams”, Riya just couldn’t have asked for more, though her mother’s absence pinched her all the time.
Marriage preparations were just fun for her now, 10 days for marriage, last minute details, handing over wedding invites etc just too much to handle, but Riya was simply loving it all and in that hustle bustle Riya was not able to see the change.
Things in her life changed again and this time beyond repair. There is no denying that food is the most important thing in any wedding ceremony and you would be shocked to know if a marriage is called-off due to this. The big fat Punjabi weddings and the show off, groom’s family felt the snacks served during one of the functions were not apt and that’s it, considered it to be insulting and blamed Riya’s father for being inhospitable. The groom, too, wanted to stand by his parents in “tough” times like this and called-off the wedding.
Riya, who was not able to make out anything about her emotions that time, stood up and this time without caring much about the “love-loss”, she gathered the courage to slap the groom in front of all. Wonder if this “slap” was an answer to the disgrace caused to her dad or a reality check for those heart-less guys, who may be have forgotten the true meaning of love and respect somewhere.

Have witnessed a very similar situation in my life, too, and have a couple of friends, who even after marriage, are forced to “choose” between father and husband in a lot of situations. Don’t really understand why do guys “men” make us “choose” between the two. How can love which binds people together be divided?

This entry has been submitted to the Indusladies.com International Women’s Day Contest about “A perspective on roles of Indian Women”. Click here for contest details. I am tagging Sumira, Nidhi and Uma