Just a Talk

The story was really simple. He loved this girl, the girl loved him and then there was no other issue. I mean no other issue from the parent’s side.

His parents were basically moderate and they already knew about their relationship. Wait a minute, who says. Well, they must have known by now, it had already been nine years; he had talked to her for hours on phone in front of them. But!

So there was this unexplainable problem, how to make the already knowing parents know that he was in a relationship. The meaning is that they would have never objected but still one needs to tell them formally. He belonged to a middle class family with a set of values. By values, it is meant the kind of parent’s who find it hard to utter the words like girlfriend, relationship etc. They talk about their son’s marriage to all their relatives but not with him.

Now he delayed the matter as long as he could but then it is hard convincing a girl who wants to get married. His girlfriend desperately wanted that he should formally let his parents know. I need you to have ‘Just a talk’ was what his girlfriend told him.Only those having a close understanding of Indian families can appreciate the precariousness of 'Just a Talk'.

So after days of excuses and many ultimatums from his girlfriend, he gave up. It had to be do or die. He called up his mother, talked for fifteen minutes about her health, weather, traffic hazards of Delhi etc, took a deep breadth and shot the question point blank, “What have you thought about my marriage”. See simple.

Well he had tried to smile a bit and give it a humorous look, but the effect of his voice came somewhat like a serious Greek tragedy. There was this heavy silence that followed with some heavy breathing on both sides. There are moments when to speak something, you have to move your cheeks really hard. Both of them uttered some vague words but he could not recollect them ever.

After this he took a recluse from this world. He told his girlfriend whatever be the consequences, he is never going to breach the subject again. It was a gross violation of the family norms. For next three days, the phone of his mother came and he received them well making sure that discussion is always on formal lines. They again talked about heat, weather and relatives.

On the fourth day, his mother was in no mood to give up. She must have tried really hard but ultimately she made things really easy for him and made him talk. Thus this simple story had this happy ending and he was relieved that he will never have to do this ever again.