Arranged with Love - Part 1

She was very restless and nervous. It was quite evident from the way she was strolling up and down the corridor and staring at her cell phone every now and then. Her heartbeats were rising as the clock got closer to 10 PM. She went in front of the mirror to check herself. She tidied her hair up and sprinkled some water on her face, forgetting the fact that she was going to talk over the phone where nobody would see her.

Her phone rang, and she looked at the flashing light. The number on the screen was the same that she was expecting a call from. She picked up the call.

“Hi”, the voice seemed more appealing and sweet today. She replied back in a calm tone, trying not to show her excitement.

“Hi”

“So what have you decided?”

She knew what she had to reply, but was hesitant. Her guts seemed to be twisted hard and she had tickling feelings in her stomach. She gathered all her courage and replied,

“I am ready”

“Ready for?” he asked this though he knew what she meant, but he wanted to tease her a little.

“You know what”

“No, I don’t”

"Okay. So I meant Yes. I will marry you”

This is how their new chapter had started. But the actual story began a few months back. It went something like this.

Tanvi Kulkarni was a 24 year old, Computer Engineer, who belonged to a typical Maharashtrian Brahmin family. Anybody could make it out from her features – tall, straight hair, fair complexion and light colored eyes. Her tone was also totally Brahmni – “shudh” as they say. 

Her family comprised of her mother, a housewife who spent most of her time training Tanvi to be a good house maker. Her father was a Professor teaching Geology, he was strict but could never even raise his voice on her. Her brother was also a Computer Engineer, played both the roles of a Bestfriend and a Brother in her life. Overall, Tanvi was a pampered daughter; she was never devoid of love, care and warmth in her life.

After finishing her Post Graduation, Tanvi went to Pune for a Job. She was very happy there, living an independent life in a flat with 3 of her friends. She was enjoying her life at the fullest. The always happy and smiling Tanvi though was annoyed that day. It was 13^th October, her brother’s birthday. She was very excited as she had sent a shirt for him with her own salary. 

She called him,

“Hi, Dada. Happy Birthday, did you get the gift?”

“Yes, I did”

“Such a lame response, did you like it?”

“Ofcourse I did. Listen Mom is asked me to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Do not panic. We have got a marriage proposal for you through Mom’s friend. The guy works in Mumbai in Accenture as a Software Engineer.”

“Dada, you know I do not want to get married so soon. Plus, I don’t want to marry like this, with some stranger. And not at all if the stranger is somebody related to Computers or Software”

“Atleast see him”

“No way”

“I have mailed you the photos. If you feel like, you can see them”

“Don’t call me again. I don’t want to marry. And tell Mom to find herself a sunbai, she will find a better timepass then to search stupid proposals for me. Bye.”

Tanvi shouted so loudly that even her neighbors must have understood what was going on. It was 8 in the evening, she was in her room.

Listening to her shout, one of her flat mates came rushing inside.

“What happened?”

“Shit happened”

“huh!”

“Nothing”

She remained silent all the time after that. She was pissed on the tradition of getting daughters married as soon as they finish their education. She wanted to roam around the world, meet new people, and to understand different cultures and much more. She had dreamed all of this only for herself, she did not imagine a stupid guy standing next to her when clicking a photo outside The Queen’s Palace in U.K. or somebody sharing with her a yummy handmade pizza in Italy.

Nevertheless, after some time she opened her laptop. Sub consciously she even logged in her mail account. She saw a mail from her brother. The subject read “Shree Deshmukh – Photos”

“Shree, such a weird name” Tanvi said it to herself. She ignored that mail and did some other work. After a while, she looked at the mail again.

“Why am I doing this?” She asked herself, she was curious to see the mail, but she also had her ego come in between.

“Anyways, I am not supposed to tell anybody that I saw the photo. And nobody would know” She tried to manipulate herself, and after a lot of self debate, she finally opened her brother’s mail. The mail had an attached copy of the photo, she downloaded it. But there was a confusion followed with frustration when she opened the photo which had two guys standing together outside some mall. Both of them were fair and handsome types, but she did not know who the hell Shree was amongst them.

Finally she called her brother and in a kid like tone asked him,

“Who is Shree out of the two?”

“HaHa, I was expecting your call. You tell me who do you expect your Shree to be?”

“Shut up Dada”

“Y shut up now, you did not want to talk with us right”

“Okay, I am sorry, and I am not serious about this guy. I was just going through the mails and thought of just seeing him once. That is it. I am still not interested”

“Okay, I see. The right hand side guy”

“Okay. See you then”

Tanvi saw the one at the right hand side, somehow she expected the left hand side guy to be Shree, but then she thought it doesn’t really matter who Shree was. She wasn’t going to meet anybody anyways. She turned her laptop off and was about to sleep, when she got a text from her brother.

“Tomorrow at 4 in the evening in Wadeshwar, your Shree would be waiting for you. Sweet dreams”

Tanvi grunted seeing the message, deciding that she was not going to meet any random guy. She kept her cell on silent and threw it as far as possible to avoid any further messages from her brother and went to sleep.

- By Anvi Mehta