This is the second of a series. Please read this post first as it is a general framework for this series.
Ok, one of the cases most closest to me is that of a girl who worked in the same office as me back in 2004-05. For the 18 months or so that she was there, I was pretty close to me, like a lot of other people. She was one of the first of a new batch of call center agents entrusted to me to supervise on the floor just after my promotion to supervisor. Hence I was close to most of them and that closeness has continued to this day, even though none of us work in the same place anymore. I treated most of the young ones like a big brother would and true to my treatment towards them most of them treated me like an older brother. Infact most of them called me Roshan Bhai (which means brother in Hindi, as a couple of them had thought that I was a Gujarati and hence referred to me in such a way). This girl was one of the closer ones to me and I still have some contact with her.
One day when I was speaking to a couple of them, she told us about a guy she likes and who likes her. I asked about him and she told me all his details and about how they met in college. From whatever she told me he sounded like a decent guy. A few days later on my way to my desk, I saw her standing in the hall waiting to talk to me. Next to her was a young man her age, obviously the fellow she mentioned. I stopped to speak to her and she introduced me as to him as her boyfriend. Infact she had asked him to come to the office in particular to meet me and a couple of her close friends in the office! I said hello and we spoke for a bit. She told me that she was going to inform her parents about this guy in a few weeks and ask their permission for marriage. It was a few months after this that she quit the job at the office and I haven’t had seen her since except for a few calls over the phone and well on Facebook for the past couple of years. About a year after she left she called me up one day as her sister was joining the office I was then in and she wanted to enquire about the facilities there.
We spoke and caught up about things that happened in the last one year since she suddenly quit and left the company. She told me that she was married and now living in Thrissur. So I casually asked about the guy that she had introduced me to and asked how he was doing and where he was working – on the assumption that she was married to him. She seemed a bit embarrassed and said that he was fine and working as HR in a nice office. I was glad for her & him. A while later she called me back and said that she couldn’t speak freely about this guy to me earlier as there were people around her but now she was alone and free to tell me – that she wasn’t married to the guy at all! It seems that her parents were against the marriage, saying that the age gap between them was too small and they would not let her marry a guy of her choice. They said that she was to marry a groom who they choose. So she meekly told this guy to forget about her and find someone else as she couldn’t go against her parents wishes.
I felt a bit pissed off at her for doing it. She should know her parents and their behaviour and that they would never let her get married of her own choice. She shouldn’t have strung the poor guy along for so long and then faced with her parents anger, told him to basically take a hike. Don’t go for such things if you cannot face the music. Either convince your parents or elope. Ensure that you and the guy can fend for yourselves and do the courageous thing if you are sure – go out on your own. If you cannot do this then don’t fucking get into a relationship! Stay at home, meet the guy your parents choose for you, agree if you like him, fuck the stranger on your wedding night and make babies in less than a year! Simple as that, make your own choice!