I was 19 when I got married. It was arranged. I had met the guy once, when he came to see me, along with his family. I was dressed in a red chiffon sari. My mother handed me a tray with tea and sweets. I was asked to carry it to the living room in front of the guests and not make any eye contact.
Ever since I was in high school, plenty of proposals started coming my way. There was a time when attending weddings was like giving auditions. Relatives would constantly scan me, observing the way I walked, talked or ate.
After my Class XII, I shifted to a neighbouring city. There was only a co-ed college in my city and my family wanted me to go to an all-women's college.
During holidays and weekends, I would come home, and I had to, as mine was a joint family. My uncle would come to pick me up.
One morning, when I was at home, my father asked for a photo of mine. I knew the purpose of the photo, and yet I asked for a reason. My father answered, “We all have to get married one day, you know. We can’t live alone. We’ve got a good proposal for you; the boy is an engineer.”
I must admit, initially I was a bit upset, but my mother persuaded me saying things like “he is a good guy.”
My aunt showed me his photo saying, “Look how handsome he is.” He was, I guess, very fair, just an inch taller than me, and I thought I could live with that.
I am 5’8” with long hair and brown eyes. My friends had often told me I should have pursued a career in modelling or in films.
I was aware that I could be anything but I didn’t know what I wanted from life and no one at home cared enough to ask.
On my wedding night, he embraced me in a way that was suffocating. And when I forbade him, he said, “I am not some random guy on the street, I am your husband. I have the right.”
It was as if marriage had given him the legal right to touch me. He quickly got undressed and came towards me like I was a pleasure toy.
I told him I didn’t want to do it and that’s when he warned me that if I walked out of the room it would be the end of our marriage. This was the 1980s I’m talking about, when women did not dare call off their marriage and go against societal norms.
However, I dared to. I didn’t compromise. I walked out of the room and my marriage. My family initially created a scene but they later understood. Now I am the head teacher of a school, still single, living life on my own terms.
