Marriage is a very pious institution that completes the belief of a
person and helps him to make his life easier and simpler. Every
person dreams of a perfect and ideal partner and works hard to find
a partner who meets the standards set by him. With difference in
convictions and priorities, many people have myriad criterion that
they put forward while searching for a partner. For some, beauty is
the most important criteria they put forward in their” bride wanted”
list. For some, an intellectual connection and compatibility is must.
For others a perfect partner consists of a person with good
understanding and caring nature. So, different people do have a lot
of expectations from their partners and they consider themselves
really lucky is they find such a mate! My story is of a girl who had
same dreams and expectations as every girl of her age had. Seerat
(name changed) lived in the picturesque village of Bandipora
district, a teacher by profession; she was a girl of simple living and
high thinking. We hardly find such girls in present generation
dominated by plastic and artificial beauty. Her simplicity was her
biggest asset which saved her from various unnecessary
temptations and ostentations.
As luck would have it, she got married to a handsome young man
who society thought was good looking than her. She never took
these things to heart and started off her journey on a very positive
note. She tried to make her journey very smooth by being a perfect
wife and daughter-in-law. Her husband seemed to have some
issues with this marriage. He usually tried to avoid talking to her
and kept himself busy with other things. It pained Seerat to see all
these things happening to her which she never imagined off. Still
she tried to forget the sourness of her husband’s attitude and kept
on nourishing this fractured relationship. But, life can be very
unfair sometimes, for Seerat, things started to take an ugly turn and
conditions worsened. Her husband started rebuking her for her
simplicity and he usually passed sarcastic remarks on her looks. He
often had the audacity to tell her that he married under compulsion
and that his love interest was some other girl. With each passing
day, a part of Seerat died and she found it hard to smile at times.
To add to the agonies of her life, her In Laws too started to show
their true colors. They started creating misunderstandings between
the two and poisoned the already sour relation.
After a year of her marriage, the things had taken the ugliest turn,
her salary was taken by her husband and the vicious cycle of
torture never seemed to stop. They started to treat her like trash
and never cared for her necessities. The lust for money had blinded
her in laws so much that they wanted to keep her just for the sake
of her money. Her husband started making demands of another
marriage as he found hard to live with Seerat. After a long pause of
tortures and silent screams, Seerat was sent back to her home by
her husband. It came as a big blow to her parents who had spent
huge chunks of money on her marriage and dowry. Seerat found
very hard to live with this reality that she was rejected just because
of the way she looked! Her simplicity, her biggest asset once had
become a major blockade in her happy marriage. After a couple of
months, she got divorce letters from her husband and it shattered
all hopes of her happy marriage.
P.S: I truly believe the major culprit in this story is money; the guy
married Seerat for the sake of her money, even though he had no
liking for Seerat, instead had a liking for some other girl. The love
of money blinded the guy so much that he failed to measure the
consequences of their marital life. Instead, he should have
uprightly rejected the marriage proposal and saved her life. Too
often we take hasty decisions and land in the most undesirable and
bitter situations. There are many cases like this because greed has
taken over humanity in present era. Had the guy taken a stand and
convinced his parents not to get him married to Seerat, things
would have been different. After marriage, he should have tried to
work things out and not tease Seerat for her simplicity and looks.
He proved that he lacked integrity and character. It is very
important to carefully choose your partner according to your
priorities.
Excerpt from Book TEARFUL PAGES authored by Azra Mufti, a freelance columnist having written more than 100 articles for various domestic and national dailies, currently working as an assistant professor in CGC Landran Mohali.
