Last week, my parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Sure, they deserve a trophy – a gold-plated, diamond-studded trophy – for their togetherness. But what I find commendable is how they got together.

While we were having a quiet celebratory evening, a friend of mine who was at the party asked them, “So tell us how it all began.” And that’s how they started narrating their sweet little adventurous love story.

Wooing
It all began about 32 years ago, when my dad – the new, moustachioed guy on the block – began typically wooing his neighbour girl – my mom. “I liked her from the very beginning,” my dad said shyly.

And my mom reacted, “I didn’t know what was happening. Those days, if a guy wanted to speak to a girl, it meant he was interested in her. It was very simple. I figured out he wanted to be with me.”

Courting
So, in their pursuit of true, simple love, they began their period of innocent courting. “We didn’t want our families or anyone to know that we were dating. So we wouldn’t meet in public. We would synchronise our timings. We would find excuses to spend our journey time together before heading our separate ways,” my dad said.

They were forced into being secret lovers because they were scared of how their families would react. “In those days, people weren’t falling in love so commonly. Your parents chose whom you had to get married to. So we feared we would offend our families with what we were doing,” my mom clarified.

Opposition
And true to their fears, all hell broke loose when their families found out. “My father told me that he didn’t expect a responsible girl like me to misbehave this way. He didn’t speak to me for days. There was always pin-drop silence at home when I was around,” my mom said.

To add to all the melodrama at this stage, my dad suggested to my mom that they get married. That wasn’t a surprise to either of them. “We were in love and the only way we could have stayed together was if we got married. The big challenge was to convince our parents that it was the right thing to do,” my dad explained.

Marriage
The stalemate continued for months. “My father wasn’t ready to speak to his father and his father didn’t want to have anything to do with any of this,” my mom said, adding, “And it was all just because we dared to fall in love with each other. But we were adamant.”

It was their persistence that finally deflated their families’ egos. Their wishes were finally fulfilled. And in true Bollywood style, it all ended with a great Indian wedding and massive feast. “Can’t believe it’s been 30 years, seems like it all happened just yesterday,” my mom said.

“Not to me,” my dad teased her. She pinched him and they both cheered over their glasses of wine.

By Gayatri Parameswaran
Photo: Gayatri Parameswaran, © Love Matters/RNW

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