My husband and I met about six months before we got married. We were introduced to one another by our extended family. I had just moved back home and more than my parents putting pressure to get married, I decided that I wanted to get married. As it usually does, the word made its way through the town…from one aunty to another and I started meeting guys. None of them really floated my boat because either they were looking for someone too traditional or they were too casual. There seemed to be no hope of finding someone with any semblance of balance.
That’s when I first met Deepak, at a wedding function. It was a mutual family friend’s sangeet and both of us knew that we would be introduced to one another. Looking back, I don’t know if it was the atmosphere or that we were at a happy occasion but this meeting went a lot better than any previous ones. We decided that we would meet again in the coming week and we did, a few times after. He told his parents that he was happy to continue this courtship and would like to see more of me. My parents received the news, informed me and I agreed.
We met almost seven or eight times after this. The instances changed; sometimes he would hang out with me and my cousins or sometimes I would go to dinner with his family – the situation began to feel organic and a genuine sense of comfort was beginning to emerge. We had a kacchi misri with family and that was it – we were engaged. We got married six months later.
Wedding planning was easy as we both wanted a small wedding. Nothing drastic happened after we got married as we live apart from his parents (so there’s no family drama to reckon with). We live a comfortable life and we’re both happy with the fact that we are EMI free and enjoy the benefits of a double income household. We eat together, have sex, enjoy a moderate social life and occasionally talk about the future and foreseeable children… But are there fireworks? Is there that intense love, that madness, that crazy, stupid love? I am not sure.
But are there meant to be fireworks? I don’t know. I never allowed myself to be in a relationship by choice. I was too engrossed in studies, then work and building my career and telling myself to settle down and get married. I’m not sure what I was expecting to feel or why I told myself this was the next ‘right’ thing to do. People say the good thing about arranged marriages or the statistical reason why they work is because people go into them without any expectations. It’s a blank slate and you write your own story, together, along the way.
It has been so in my situation too; our graph is constant from that perspective. But I can’t help but wonder… Should I be happy or complacent about the fact that I ultimately ‘settled’ for someone and didn’t necessarily ‘fall’ in love with him?
While everything is normal, it isn’t great, and that makes me wonder… Is he my Mr Right?
*Names changed to protect privacy
Images: Shutterstock
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