LOVE MARRIAGE

A love marriage:

The lady from Uttar Pradesh was from a business family and the boy from Odisha from a low socio economical class. They fell in love and got married, love in business. Two years after they had a male child, they named him Sudhir. That small family lived happily in the same ‘Khusi’, apartment where we stayed.

                                                       The mother of the boy came and stayed with the son and his small family. One can say it was a very happy inter-state love marriage. The child started learning his mother tongue as well as Odiya .The grand mother taught him Odiya but his mother taught him Hindi. As the child grew up he would sneak into our house much against his grandmother’s directive and gossip in Odiya and Hindi. From his looks we were sure the child one day would be an intelligent one in future. His mother Ameeta was busy with her business from nine am to eight pm and father Sameer would go out of station very frequently for his official duties. Three years passed by after the child was born. They were living happily but the presence of mother in-law probably resulted in frequent misunderstanding between the couple.

                                                  One fine morning we came to know that Ameeta has run away with her ex-lover, leaving Sudhir and her husband. The child started asking his father about his mother’s where about? Sudhir refused food and started crying incessantly. No amount of consolation could stop his sorrow and vacuum in life. He was told that his mother has met with an accident and is badly burnt and face disfigured. One year later, Sameer got married to an Odiya lady, from his caste. Sudhir refused to accept his new mother; saying that neither she has his mother’s skin nor the beauty. She does not look like his mother, he would repeatedly say. The new mother hypnotized Sudhir with her patience and acting skills which resulted in Sudhir accepting her as a second mother.

“You see doctor, has done plastic surgery on your mother’s face after the burn hence she looks different.” Sameer and his mother who had come back again to settle the new daughter in law in house, repeatedly told Sudhir. Gradually with passage of time the young child forgot his original mother and the new lady became his adopted mother. Now he is four years old and continues to speak fluently in Hindi and Odiya. Ameeta never came back to see her son, they never met again. We were told that the second love marriage went in for more trouble and lastly Ameeta consumed poison and finished her life.

                                         At times Sudhir would come to our house and ask about his mother’s where about? Last time I asked Sudhir about his first mother, he said “she will come suddenly one day—his teacher has told him.”

We do not know when he grows up in to adult hood what would be his reaction to the truth of life; a mother could be so ruthless?

Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy.