Deranged Marriage by Sushi Das

Author:Sushi Das [Das, Sushi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2012-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

There was no such law or even social support for girls who needed it when I was a teenager. Just before my twentieth birthday I felt more keenly than ever that Mum and Dad were intensifying their efforts to get me to accept their plans. I still had no plan of my own to escape.

‘Sometimes you have to marry when you are told,’ said Mum, speaking in Punjabi to lend her words authority.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Well, if one parent becomes ill, he or she may want to see their child married off before dying.’ This scenario had echoes of the Bollywood movie she’d been watching the night before: the ageing mother on her deathbed implores her son to marry before she leaves the mortal coil. He, hand in hand with the woman he loves (and whom his mother approves of), vows to fulfill her dying wish. Cut to scene of wedding where the old mother is frail but smiling, followed shortly by a scene of the now married couple weeping as they stand before a funeral pyre.

‘Mum, you watch too many Bollywood movies.’

That evening I had another argument with my parents. Dad complained that Mum frequently suffered from migraines and that I did not talk to her often enough or try to establish a ‘harmonious relationship’ with her. Mum, for her part, referred to my sister and brother by their names, but had now taken to calling me ‘the other one’ – a situation that I thought was hardly conducive to a harmonious relationship.

‘If something tragic happens in this house,’ Dad warned, ‘you will be to blame.’ I figured he was watching too many Bollywood movies too.

By now I was beginning to get responses from universities asking me to come for interviews, but these letters sparked more rows. Mum and Dad simply didn’t want me to move out to study, as this would delay their plans by at least three years. Most interview requests I received were from universities in the north of England and I needed Dad to drive me there. Sometimes he agreed, albeit reluctantly, and other times he simply refused. I was in his hands.

One day a letter arrived with a postmark from Hertfordshire – far enough from home to require moving out, but close enough to allow for regular visits home during term-time. I wanted to attend the interview, but Mum and Dad refused to drive me there. Angry and frustrated, I marched off to Twickenham train station and bought a ticket to Hertford. As the train pulled out, I felt galloping anxiety. I was nineteen years old and the furthest I had ever travelled on my own was to the neighbouring town of Richmond. Catching the train to Hertford, about 70 kilometres away, was at once liberating and frightening.

That week I received a call from the college in Hertford, which later came to be called Hertfordshire University, offering me a place on a three-year degree course. I told my parents I intended to accept the offer

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