A marriage of honour

Education matters and it can make a difference between life and death in certain situations in life. I realised this some five decades ago when my wife and I escaped a possible honour killing for we had transgressed social mores of great central importance. We married though we came from different religions, castes and communities. That was not all. The marriage was not performed by a pandit chanting incomprehensible mantras in the august presence of Agni the god of fire despite I being a Hindu. The whole exercise was also not even remotely connected to Anand Karaj -- the Sikh marriage ceremonies.  Incidentally, my wife comes from a Sikh family.

We were starry-eyed youngsters back then -- non-conformists to the core, fiercely independent, unbending, rebellious and stubborn. We wanted all kinds of barriers shattered. My parents did not agree to this kind of marriage. They wanted a proper legally valid marriage. I was told the kind of marriage I was suggesting would be socially and legally unacceptable. Those days the term live-in relationship was not in vogue. But, both of us remained adamant. We wanted to shape our own lives. 

I was thrown out of my family home a week before my marriage. On the appointed day three friends and four cousins accompanied me to a restaurant where my wife and I exchanged garlands. That was not planned too. It so happened that my wife’s two young nephews made two garlands and they insisted that we put those around each other’s necks. That done, we became man and wife. No vows were exchanged, promises made or platitudes uttered.

Months passed before one of my cousins came to me and broke the news that we had been forgiven and that we should return to my parental home forthwith. We did. My mother lived with us for 28 years till she passed away. My father lived 11 more years after that.

But the ending could easily have been very tragic had my family not relocated from my village in Haryana to Patiala, then the most modern and non-conformist city of Punjab. That both our families were highly educated made all the difference.

But alas nothing much has changed in the five decades since. Such a marriage in a peasant family in a village even today would still invite a death sentence in the garb of honour!