I was awake the other night, (now at least three consecutive nights) almost the entire night thinking of a person I care about a lot. I thought I would let this go, I wouldn’t make it an issue, but it is and I am unable to just let that pass off. I thought that I’d not make it public, I won’t discuss it with anyone, after all it’s not my matter, it is someone else’s private business but then I am incapable to get it out of my mind, I think either I’d die of guilt, or of anger at the least. I am sorry for violating this person’s privacy, and can just hope that she never reads it.

She met a person a few months back, for marriage- she liked him. He on the contrary refused to marry her with an unsatisfying reason, saying that her grandfather has a serious disease which travels with heredity, so what if? The matter was closed and she accepted the rejection without much thought.

He, got engaged to a girl, and broke off the engagement just in a few weeks’ time, when he eventually found out that the girl was obsessed and mentally unstable. (I don’t care what happened with him then, and what is true and what is not true.)

Oh, this arranged marriage thing!!!

Somehow, these two bumped into each other again, and he asked for her hand, again! This time, forgetting his own reason of not wanting to marry her.

This girl, of course she has some self-respect, she did not want to marry him now. I totally respect her decision on this. But her parents did not; at least that’s what I think. She said no – her mother agreed- her father thought otherwise. He tried to change her decision, she still was hesitant. So his father talked to his brother, her uncle, and now even he was pestering her.

What he said to her was extreme, and that is what is most fuming me.

He said, “You are of age now, and it is high time you get married, you are age is passing, and since you are manglik, I think you should change your mind, and accept his offer. Your luck isn’t that good either, so what do you think?” (This is the exact literal translation from the person who heard it first-hand.)

Like, seriously? You have the right to say that? And you could really listen to that?

She agreed to meet him again, saying that she will say ‘yes’ only if she thinks she likes him. But I knew her decision even before she knew it. I knew she would agree to them, her uncle had hurt her so bad, making it all her fault, I knew she would say yes.

And the night before, her mother called us that she is getting engaged to the same man now. She said that she really liked the boy, and is not saying yes under any pressure. She said she is happy.

I know she isn’t. I want myself to be 1000% wrong here, I want to know that what she said was the truth, that there was no pressure, but there is no way I can know that now. I just hope that she is happy with her decision, and need not regret it later. She is like an elder sister to me, the one which I never had. She has been with me through thick and thin, whenever I needed her, and all I can do for her is hope that she stays happy? I am guilty at myself, and angry at the person who filled her ears with such negativity about herself.

My mother thinks it’s her fault, for not putting her foot down. But no one understands that she was brought up like this, in a conservative home, where girls were told what to do, and live in a specified manner. And she has been moulded into a person that she is now, from a very small town, with the concept that girls are meant to do certain things, that you should not talk up to elders, that there is a certain age for everything, and all other usual norms. Sure she could have said something, before and even now, but who listened? She did say no, once, but who listened? Instead she heard some really piercing words that demeaned her. She was so broken that she just gave in, and people think that it’s her fault. Not everyone can remain strong, after listening to such things.

I don’t know what to say, I just feel or rather I just wish that I could have helped her, at least I could have been with her. But I am very far away, in a separate state altogether. And all I can do for her now is hope that she does not regret her decision, that she did say a ‘yes’ only because she liked him and for no other reason.

PS: Really not feeling good about discussing her problems here, but I don’t know who else would listen? I am sorry for violating her privacy like, I truly am. And I am dead scared for her reading it, I am just hoping that she is busy enough, not to read it.