When I was a little kid and my mother, aunts would get together and make extravagant plans about my wedding, there would be only one caution thrown to me - beta, kisi se bhi shaadi karna buss Muslim se nahi. Although my family is a Hindu Brahmin family, we were never one of those rigid ones. No one told me what to wear or what not to, hanging out with guys was not a big deal nor was eating non-vegetarian, staying out late or even consuming alcohol. We were a relatively open-minded family except for the fact that I was told I could never fall in love with a Muslim. Initially, I never questioned this… Somehow, I never had any close Muslim friends so it really didn’t matter.
Slowly, as I started growing up I questioned my parent’s rather orthodox views on this matter (being an agnostic myself) but even then I never had energy to fight about it again and again. Until, one fine day I met a guy at a friend’s party, we started talking, got along really well...and he happened to be a Muslim.
We had both graduated from high school back then and had lots of pre-college free time so what started out with texts and calls. We started meeting frequently and before we knew it, we were expressing our feelings for each other.
You know how it is in college... you never take anything too seriously, especially not a relationship but we were REALLY in love with each other. Ga-ga, head over heels, puppy love...whatever you want to call it, we were that.
One day, simply to test the waters, I told my mother that I think I’ve started liking a guy. Again, my elder brother had had a few girlfriends back in his day and everyone in the family knew about it so even dating was not a big issue in our family.
“Really? Who is he?” my mother asked
“Well…” I named him and added “...he is a Muslim.”
“A Muslim? That will never work out, you know that!” I was taken aback by this dismissal of my first ever love confession to my mom.
“Well, you don’t know that, I didn’t start liking him because he is a Muslim” I argued.
“That may be so but you wouldn’t be willing to leave us after marriage, would you? Cut all contacts? Is that what you want?” she said in a matter-of-fact tone
“No…” I muttered
“Then there is no discussion, is there? You can be friends with him but you won’t have a future with him” and just like that my love story was officially over as far as my parents were concerned. Unofficially, however, we were going really strong!
We had both graduated from high school back then and had lots of pre-college free time so what started out with texts and calls. We started meeting frequently and before we knew it, we were expressing our feelings for each other.
You know how it is in college... you never take anything too seriously, especially not a relationship but we were REALLY in love with each other. Ga-ga, head over heels, puppy love...whatever you want to call it, we were that.
One day, simply to test the waters, I told my mother that I think I’ve started liking a guy. Again, my elder brother had had a few girlfriends back in his day and everyone in the family knew about it so even dating was not a big issue in our family.
“Well…” I named him and added “...he is a Muslim.”
“A Muslim? That will never work out, you know that!” I was taken aback by this dismissal of my first ever love confession to my mom.
“Well, you don’t know that, I didn’t start liking him because he is a Muslim” I argued.
“That may be so but you wouldn’t be willing to leave us after marriage, would you? Cut all contacts? Is that what you want?” she said in a matter-of-fact tone
“No…” I muttered
“Then there is no discussion, is there? You can be friends with him but you won’t have a future with him” and just like that my love story was officially over as far as my parents were concerned. Unofficially, however, we were going really strong!
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