Chapter 15
DR ISHAN MALHOTRA
My wedding was a fond dream for my parents as if I was their daughter, and not son! They wanted me to marry as eagerly as a kid would wait for his turn to ride on a roller-coaster for the first time. When today, I am finally getting married, the news isn’t being digested by them. Now they suddenly want me to focus on my career and work for a few more years before having a bunch of kids loitering around.
It’s true, that Indian parents would oppose every decision of their kids, as if they are still two years-old amateurs who will accept candy from strangers and die! There is always humour in the explanations forwarded by Indian parents to explain their kids that why a particular thing is wrong for the children, and why should they ‘avoid’ a certain thing. For instance, if a kid wants chocolates, then they’re world’s biggest health hazard, the neighbourhood kids who advertise chocolates openly in streets are guests of few more months! Or if you want a certain video game, then it’s nothing but world’s worst eye-damager. It will leave you blind for the rest of your life! And in my case, when I had a girlfriend in ninth standard – the only girl I actually mustered my courage to approach – my father said that she will leave me and I will go mad and end up in a mental asylum for the rest of my life, and if I’ll have sex with her, I’ll go blind! What I could never question him was – how is ‘he’ seeing things for he also had sex with mom, which is why I’m existing? Of course, he could have killed me for such a question, because you see, they’re your PARENTS! And whatever they teach you, has to be memorized even deeper than the NCERT books!
Keeping all these thoughts aside, I picked up my wedding dress which was finally here. The brown-shaded kurta with matching salwar was looking elegant. It was the first time Avni would see me in a typically traditional look and that too a Punjabi one! Avni and I are no more living together – oh no, not that we again have decided to part our ways or something, but because we are getting married today and she shifted to her friend’s place a few days back to keep the excitement on.
I don’t understand one thing, why be away from each other to keep this so called ‘excitement’ on? I am equally excited to see Avni in traditional clothes, as I am to see her in a bikini. It doesn’t matter if I’m seeing her after a week or after a few hours, she’s always as beautiful as she was when I saw her for the first time in the hospital. And then, girls go crazy about the ‘date’ stuff! No, I’m not talking about periods, but about the ‘Date-Dates’! When we met? When I first kissed her? When we first had our first ice-cream together? When we first hugged? When I first asked her if I could go and pee in a corner ‘alone’? When she first asked me to take her out on a dinner? Some other ‘WHEN’ and more ‘whens’ which end up screwing a man’s life. Like yesterday, Avni texted me – ‘Happy Six Months!’ and by mistake, without thinking that I was supposed to ‘decode’ this message and send a coded – ‘Thank you, same to you’, I asked her – ‘What six months?’
What came next is something that many guys may be familiar with! ‘You don’t love me.’ ‘All that happened in Kerala was a drama!’ ‘You’re getting married just because it’s a formality too!’ ‘I know what you’re thinking right now!’ – believe me, even I didn’t know what I was thinking at the moment when I got this text. I called her so many times last night, but she disconnected the call every time!
‘GIRLS!’
Indian parents are still easier to handle than a girl, especially a girl who is going to marry you! Avni was a sweet little princess till yesterday, but it was the first time that we fought and that too, over some ‘six-month’ thing. I couldn’t imagine that she, being a well-qualified doctor, would also behave that way, but then, we all study about hormones, and when girls are emotional, Oestrogen level spikes up! And my girl is getting married, obviously her Oestrogen would be at the peak of Everest yesterday. Hell, who was I messing with? Finally, I apologized for the biggest mistake of my life, for forgetting that we completed six months yesterday and wished her, kissed her so many times over phone, made her sleep ‘over-phone’, and then, finally, I had my personal time in which I drank some beer, watched India v/s Sri Lanka cricket match and fell asleep over the couch amidst all the popcorns.
The morning was so blissful. It was of course, my last morning as a bachelor. Although I’m married to her since six months now, but traditional marriage has this mental effect over you that you feel from inside – ‘dude, your free days are over!’ I didn’t throw any bachelors party for Avni was totally ‘against’ it. And now, I’ll be hitched in a few more hours. Today, I could do whatever I wanted to, so I tossed the toothpaste into the flower pots, threw my clothes all around the house, filled water in my mouth and spat it over the street from my balcony to check the distance it covers, I roamed around in shorts and as the clock struck 01:00 pm, I went back to being ‘sane’, for my parents and guests would be arriving any time. The maid came and went into shock, and after she was normalized, she started cleaning the house with a vow to never come back here in her life!
Mom and Dad arrived at 03:00 pm and right now, it is 08:00 pm as I’m watching my wedding dress. I thought about Avni, and the mere thought of undressing her from her wedding dress to nothing, made me hard!
Whatever Indian guys may think, however cool they may be, and doesn’t matter if they’ve had sex many times before marriage, the first night of the marriage is always as exciting for a ‘stud’, as for a virgin guy! Same was the case with me. Although I lost my virginity a few months back to Avni on Kerala trip, but getting laid with her on first night seemed to be equally exciting as that unexpected sex in houseboat in Kerala was! Avni knew that I was a virgin and I know that she’s a non-virgin, for she told me about her past recently when she was comfortable to share her secrets with me, the day we landed in Kerala for the vacation, but never did I mind. She told me about the asshole she met in Varanasi, who left her scarred for life, how he damaged her and left her depressed and hopeless. Such guys are a stain on the name of humanity, I don’t know why do they even breathe and waste the oxygen?
What’s important to me is, her love and care which she has always provided me in plenty. What’s unimportant is a tag – Virginity. Dudes in India hype a lot over this so called ‘virginity’. What if you get a virgin (or what you call – pure) girl, and she disrespects you, has affairs outside, insults your parents and becomes a bitch after marriage? And what if the girl isn’t virgin, but she’s pure-hearted, loves and cares for you, respects your parents, is true to you and remains by your side for the rest of your life? What will matter more? Her virginity, or her nature? Blokes may find a virgin girl more appealing because they think that they will be the first to touch her, or mark their nasty territory, but what they don’t know is, that virginity is nothing but just a tag. If a guy can have sex before marriage, why can’t a girl? If guys can preach – My body, my decision – why can’t a girl? Just because she’s a ‘GIRL’ is NOT a valid explanation. If guys think they can become responsible father by being non-virgins before marriage, so a non-virgin girl can also be a responsible mother! Being non-virgin is NOT being slut. Guys who think that a girl who has had sex before wedding is a slut, should think about the girls they have had sex with before ‘their’ marriage, they were the ones who made them all ‘sluts’ in their language, then why can’t they accept one?
It’s true that male-hypocrisy and chauvinism exists to a great extent in our society, and it’s not the fault of the guys, but of the parents who teach such things to a guy. Parents who would always restrict their daughter and free their son, are doing damage to the society by creating a difference in the mind-sets of their kids that boys are superior to girls. We cry that western nations are much ahead than us, that the technology that they use comes in India years later, but what we don’t understand is, we are the ones who are contributing more to this damage, by restricting girls and confining them only in four walls of home. I know, if my parents will come to know about Avni being into relationship ‘before’ marriage, they’ll create a havoc, and same will happen if any normal ‘Indian’ parents will come to know this, that’s the reason I told them that she’s a friend since I was doing MBBS, and I know her since her twelfth. I know lying isn’t a good thing, it’s a sin and I may have to go to hell for that and blah blah, but if one lie can make everyone’s life peaceful, it’s not harmful to lie. I love her, she loves me, what else can you ask for? Talking about infidelity issues, if she would have another guy in her mind, then she would have got married to him on a contract basis than me, and she has lived with me in this very house for six months, I know she isn’t even in touch with any guy except for the hospital staff. Non-virgin girls are unfaithful is a myth, as big as – Virgin girls are goddesses!
Even if I’ll tell this thing to my friends, that Avni has had a boyfriend before, they will bully me too that I chose an ‘impure’ girl and that I’m a fool for she’s ‘caging’ an innocent guy, but I am mature enough to decide the right and wrong for myself. In a few hours, I will be married and then nobody will remember about Avni Singh, she will be Avni Malhotra from now, her past is now a gone-thing, all people will treat Avni as Mrs Avni Malhotra, wife of Ishan Malhotra…