An old love story

Mr. R is a gentle being; say the sweetest person you meet!

Ms D, a beautiful lady, grace personified.

They live in a gorgeous new house by the side of a hill overlooking the city. They met four decades back in the coastal town that has always been hailed as travellers’ haven.

The story is not that of Mr. R and Ms D but that of Mr. R’s family back in another coastal town of Kerala.

Mr. R belongs to an old traditional Hindu family. Having lost his father by the age of fifteen, he lived with his mother and siblings in an old tiled house with hoards of relatives and servants. His grandfather ran a business of tea and sugar and the house always teemed with people.

Once he completed graduation, he received a job offer in a faraway land, unheard by most in his hometown. Mr. R decided to take the job; it seemed like a welcome change. As fate would have it, there he met Ms D and his life changed forever.

Mr. R was always a very gentle and sweet person. He could not have married Ms D and lived happily ever after without the blessings and consent of his mother and younger siblings. So, on a quite vacation, after both his sisters were married and had borne kids, he broke the news of Ms D, a Catholic Christian, to his mother. Armed with a black and white photograph of Ms D in saree and her long hair tied in a bun, he could easily convince his mother, how pretty and respectable the woman of his choice was.

His mother, despite losing her husband at an early age - unlike most of the widows of that era – had lot of passion for life and enjoyed living every moment of it. Familiar with the ways of the world, she gave her consent almost immediately and announced she wanted to see her daughter-in-law in person, soon.

Mr. R went back to his job and Ms D happy while his family back home started making plans to visit the place and meet Ms D.

Mr. R’s brother managed to purchase a second hand blue Ambassador car, with the consent and support of his mom and arranged a driver too. Within no time, Mr. R’s family, that included his two sisters, their husbands and two kids along with his mother and brother embarked on the journey in the blue Ambassador driven by a sturdy driver. Cars those days could accommodate ‘n’ number of people unlike modern days and the question of how all of them fitted inside one single Ambassador is irrelevant.

It was a long journey. They encountered many hardships enroute, including a flat tyre and a freak accident. They had to cross a ferry on the way and while the driver parked the car waiting for the ferry, it rolled down and bumped into a Mercedes parked ahead. The driver had obviously parked the car in neutral gear and it accounted for the car moving on its own.  However, Mr. R’s mother would narrate the story to her neighbours back home for many years of how the car started rolling on its own and bumped into a ‘foreign car’ parked ahead and the owner of the foreign car came out and shouted at their ‘innocent’ driver.

Water melons were not common those days in the coastal town of Kerala.  So, when the group in the Ambassador car saw water melons, they purchased half a dozen without realizing they would not be able to cut and eat them inside the car without a knife. They arrived at Ms D’s house with those watermelons rolling out of the boot of the Ambassador, much to the embarrassment of Mr. R, who was keen to project a positive image of his kin in front of his future wife and her relatives.

Ms D lived with her mother, a cute and adorable woman, who welcomed Mr. R’s relatives with much love and pampered them with her freshly baked cakes and other delicacies. Mr. R’s sisters and mother were agape and amused at the cute little dress worn by Ms D’s mom.

Mr. R and Ms D took the family around the town on sightseeing and later to the house of Ms D’s best friend, Ms P.

Ms P was overwhelmed and received the family with smiles. She served them beer, as was usual in their place, in tall glass mugs. Mr. R’s mother and sisters were seeing beer for the first time but they gulped it down happily and whispered to each other that it was a shame that they could only serve tea in their houses.  

A small ‘ring exchange ceremony’ was organized at Ms D’s house soon. Mr. R looked smart in a three piece suit and Ms D graceful and pretty as ever in a silk saree to please her would-be in laws. It was agreed that the marriage would be solemnized as per Hindu customs at Mr. R’s hometown.  The group in the Ambassador car returned home thereafter, with plans already afoot for the big wedding.

The unique marriage is another story by itself…will return soon with it…