To Marry or not to...2!

Dear Friends,

Here are some of the gems while I got talking to the girl's father and mother in an effort to get the pair to get married but alas to no avail.

The gems which flowed out from the father's mouth are for you to read:

"We are neighbors and were very good family friends. We used to help the boy's family by teaching them tuition. They also used to help us as neighbors. My younger brother taught his sisters but did he fall in love with any of them like this boy is now doing? How can this boy dare love my daughter? Our castes are different and we will never accept him as our son-in-law?"

I gently had to point out that in love two were involved. His daughter knowing about caste and creed fell in love with her neighbor. She was also equally responsible for taking this forward. But the hard heart of the parent would not melt at all!

The boy would always be found near his kitchen window from where he could look at the kitchen window of his lady love. He would make a peculiar noise and get the girl to come to the kitchen. We live in a close by flat and can see both flats from an angle.
I would often wonder 2 years back why all of a sudden this girl was all the time washing vessels in the kitchen post lunch and dinner past midnight at times, making all the jangling noises. :)

This boy had no other outside interest and would be tinkering with something or drinking water now and then perhaps finding some excuse to be near the kitchen window, the scene of all action. (Now he never comes this side at all and his new bride is seen cooking lovingly for him each morning and evening).

Once it so happened that the parents stumbled upon this shocking news even while the window peeping was going on. On one occasion her mother came to the window and there the boy was, smiling away at his mother-in-law to-be. But the response must have been unexpected for the boy as a pin roller was waved menacingly at him to shoo him away from there!!

The stand-off went on for two years with the girl's parents curbing her movement outside her home.

Before I could meet and counsel the boy last year I had a session with the girl's side and asked them point blank what they intended to do about it all.
Pat came the reply that they will not approve of this marriage. The mother chipped in to say they will rather be all dead than permit this alliance!

The father said he would rather sell his flat here and go somewhere very far away. He begged me to advice the boy to marry another girl and forget about his daughter. When I inquired whether their daughter went along with what they thought, they said she was not even prepared to step out of house leave alone accept this boy and bring shame to their family.
I would have loved so much to have a word with her myself, but it was not to be as they used to whisk her away to some relative's house often and there was no knowing whether she was at home or not. I dint want to over-step myself by asking for her or going to their house in search of her.

It was then that the boy met and got my advice to move on with his life. It was a happy ending for him but a sad ending for this girl who is still not married for reasons unknown.
In no time he found himself a girl from his office belonging to another caste.
The boy is a Muslim and the girl, a Hindu. All this will haunt me until I see the girl also settling down in matrimony as her brother and sister are married and have babies and it is but natural for a young girl to feel when she sees all others leading happy lives with their spouses.

God bless us all.

Mahalakshmi

To Marry or not to?

Dear Friends,

I am withholding names of concerned people in the event I am going to narrate today.

Sister of a man aged about 38 came for help last year around this time. she wanted her brother to forget the girl he loved who refused to come out of her house to marry him against her parents' wishes, perhaps.
It was two years since there was heavy silence from both sides.
Boy seemed to lose interest in his life and was quite frustrated.
After work he would come home and even if he were to request for some tea, his sisters at home would tell him to go find a wife who would make it for him as they wont be around for long making him tea all their lives!
Which was true yet he wont budge nor look at any proposals his family would get for him.

Then one day his sister invited me over to her son's birthday party and the boy got talking to me. We were talking for the first time though I knew his background and about his refusal to get married to anyone else.

As we got talking he felt he should come to me for some counseling and advice.
I fixed a convenient time and asked him to air out whatever he felt. As usual he dint want to let down the girl he loved and dint understand why the girl dint have the courage to take a bold step when he was prepared to take her in as his wife.
Caste plays an important role in India and that was the primary reason for the girl's parents refusing to listen to any reasoning by the girl to get married to him.

I talked to him less and listened more to what he had to say.
When it was my turn to talk i reasoned out to him.
I pointed out that he was perhaps wasting his time waiting for this girl to come when she dint have the guts to take a few steps towards his house. Incidentally they both are neighbors and loved each other for more than 3 years!
I told him he was not getting any younger and that he needed a companion in life and it was time to get settled with the few proposals that still came his way.
His ideal time according to his chart cast by me was before July, 2009 and I told him so. I also pointed out that her parents were against her marrying him when they talked to me last about the matter, though I could never meet the girl who was always at home and there was always someone around. So no question of ever talking to her. I knew that this boy was wasting his time waiting for her.

I convinced him that he has to get married and the time was quite short and if not it could very well take even longer to find a suitable bride for him.

This was April, 2009.
In June 1st week the sister came smiling to invite me for her brother's marriage and gave me a generous compliment of turning around her brother to listen to reason when the same turned on deaf ears for so long however much his family tried to talk to him about it.
The wedding was fixed for July 6th, 2009 and the girl was his colleague from the same office he worked in.
This girl was also from a different caste from his.
Anyways the marriage took place and the girl was also in her mid thirties.

God is great. I see the couple happily going about leading a happy life from time to time. I am happy for them.
Yet I feel sad whenever I see or meet this girl who is still not married.
Her parents are now quite free of the tension from this boy who is now married. Whether they are going to take any concrete steps to get her married is to be seen and not discussed or talked about.
I watch silently with prayers in my heart for this girl whose parents wont budge to give her that happiness of selecting her own mate!

Only God can save such girls.

Take care.
Mahalakshmi

Getting Better

cho Dear Friends,

A battery of tests revealed that I have sugar, cholesterol and some stones in the gall bladder. The doctor ordered me to take pills to keep it under check as it is just in the beginning stages. Walking for an hour everyday which is what I worry about as I am the home bird type of person. Dieting is also recommended.
Today being day one, I walked inside the house itself for an hour. Already low on rice intake so no issues there. Had coffee without sugar and it tasted bitter but I am used to this taste so no issues there too.
Only worried about intake of so many medicines for life for sugar and cholesterol complaints.

My husband after his accident on the 6th March, has been trying to exercise and walk and bend his knee and the effort shows. Though he has been out in the car on visits to the doc yet he wanted to test walk to a footwear shop some distance away. He asked me out so both went together walking slowly along the non-existing footpath with vehicles plying so close by. I was worried.
I could see the joy in his face as we climbed up to the first floor to the shop for his new pair of sandals. He tried a few before he settled for something good and comfortable for the new condition of his left leg.

Today was a great day as my husband is trying to be back to normal and this was the first day out in a proper sense. I have faith and hope that all will well soon. We both are trying to put behind us all the unpleasant surprises we have had in many areas of our lives.

Moving on in life is the only thing we are now concentrating.
God bless us all in our endeavors.

Mahalakshmi

Dream Home - 2

Dear Friends

How does one select the ideal location for a home or is there a method to this madness at all :)

Four of a family go out in different directions for work or study. Usually the location is decided with the kids in mind. So it invariably is within a comfortable radius to the school with the elder commuting further for work, if need be.

Or is it the proximity to a bus stop, shops, hospitals, workplace and/or schools, if there are school going kids in the family.

The parents are wise if they chose a good neighborhood where the crime rate is less or not at all, where good schools, hospitals are near by. Our investments are based mostly on such parameters when we want to buy a house.

Infrastructure like good roads, proximity to airport and railway stations are welcome too. It pays to be well-connected and have maximum facilities before deciding on a major issue such as selecting a home.

Once these are in place, the plan for the home sweet home starts with how many rooms and how much can we really afford to invest.
Should we be going in for a loan from the bank? In most cases we have to. Then what is the repaying capacity or are we going to overstretch ourselves and grab any money that is dangled before us in the form of loans? We never sit down to calculate the real price of our home if we were to borrow money at interest. It could well be double the cost of the property in say 10 years from hence. When we sell, we look at what we paid at the time of purchase and forget to add the interest we have paid all these years to this base price. So when we are able to find a buyer for a price which is 2 times our purchase price, we seem so happy to have made a handsome profit but have we really :(

All said and done its so nice to live in our own place, get used to our neighborhood, make good friends and sort of settle down, bank loan, repayments notwithstanding!

Enjoy life and living.

Cheers.

Mahalakshmi