What's In A Name - A Short Story - Part One

Waise toh, I'm very famous for starting to write a story and never finishing it,but I'll definitely try to finish this three-part story that I'm starting with this post.

All the characters in this story are fictitious! People, though you may be tempted to draw parallels between the main lead and me, I'll tell you, it's not my story!!!! I'm NOT getting married any time soon! This is just something that crossed my mind when I was talking to a guy-friend about how a girl becomes a woman and how the things she wants in her man changes with age and/or events. This is also dedicated to all the my-parents-are-starting-to-look-out-for-grooms-for-me SMSes that I've been receiving of late from my friends and the ones that are sent out by me!!! I hope this three part story brings in some hope for you.

***

“Who’s it?”, said a miffed Simi, who had woken up from sleep as my phone rang.

“Hello”, I answered the call, ignoring Simi’s pillow throws at me.

“Hi. How the party was?”,Dhruvesh, my fiancé today and husband tomorrow asked about my ‘bachelorette’ party.

“It was good.”, I said nonchalantly. “How was yours?”, I asked as part of a formality.

“It was amazing! We had lot of fun”, he answered. And why wouldn’t you have fun when you can have alcohol and drool over women and return home drunk and not get grounded.

“Nice”, I said for the lack of anything better to say.

“So, big day tomorrow! You excited?”, he asked me, sounding very enthusiastic. I was wondering how many tequila shots did he have to sound like this?

“Yeah, excited and nervous”, I answered. Keep a fast until you’re officially married, wear two sarees together and tons of jewellery and make-up and then I’ll ask you how excited you are!!

“Guess it’s a girl thing! It’s nice that Simi and your other friends have decided to spend the night at your place. You can talk to them all night”, he said. “I think you should go to sleep now. You’ll have to wake up early na tomorrow”

“Yeah. That’s a good idea. Bye, good night”, I said.

“Good night” he said and hung up.

“What is wrong with you. Why do you talk to him like that?”, Simi said

“Like what?”, I answered. Guess she had woken up and heard my entire conversation with Dhruvesh

“Like you’re just not fucking interested in talking to him! In the 20 years that I’ve known you, you’ve never answered in one words! You are you! You TALK! Why do you talk like this to Dhruvesh?”, she said.

“Can you guys like please go to sleep?”, Reema said from one corner of the room.

All my BFFs – Simi, my best friend since KG, Reema and Sheetal, my school best friends, Purvi, my junior college best friend, Shruti, Dimple and Swati, my degree college best friends and Khushi, my post-grad best friend had stayed back at my place on the eve of my marriage. I have a lot of best friends! But, Simi is the bestest of all. She knows me since we were 3! That’s like since 20 years! And we’ve been best friends ever since!

Simi came to where I was sleeping, dragged me by my shoulder and took me to our ‘window sill’. It was this balcony in my room which had an amazing view and we’ve spent a million hours talking about Simi’s then boyfriend and now husband Varun! She forced me to sit.

“Tell me what’s the issue?”

“There’s no issue. I’m just tired”, I answered, not looking at her in the eye.

“Don’t bullshit me”, she sat in front of me and turned my face so that I could look at her in her eye and talk. “Tell me, what’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong”, I said.

“Really? You want me to believe you? Babes, please tell me what’s wrong? Did he do something? Say something to you?”

“No”

“Monosyllables! I hate them!!”, she fumed. “Did he try to you know….force you for like sex or something before marriage?”, she guessed

“Hell no!”, I shouted back!

“What is it then?”, she asked with a grave concern on her face. “You’re getting married to him in less than 12 hours…. You want to marry him right?”, she asked. And I couldn't control the tears that I had filled myself up with since a month that it was decided that he was the one for me.

“Aww, baby! It’s ok! You just are freaked! It’s normal to have cold feet before the wedding day. I had it too!”

“Don’t lie! I’ve never seen anyone as desperate as you to get married!!”, I joked. Finally, after a month there was a smile on my face.

“Ok, fine! At least you smiled. See, I know it all has happened real quick! I mean one month is really not enough…. But it’s ok. Your parents aren’t fools and besides that, Dhruvesh is a really nice guy, trust me! Even Varun says so…. And he’s a guy….he knows guys better than us!!”, she asked.

“It is not that, Simi. Leave it, you won’t get it. Nobody does”, I shrugged.

“Try me.”, she urged.

“It’s everything! He’s not what I wanted in life! You know that I never had a boyfriend in life and that’s why I thought probably that’s because I’d get someone out of the world for me to marry. But this is not out of the world!!”

“Ok. What do you not like in Dhruvesh?”, she tried to calm me down”

“Everything!”

“Start somewhere!”, she persisted.

“The name… Dhruvesh!! I mean it’s like so Gujju!! It sounds Gujju…. Because of that ESH thing in the end. I don’t like his name! I don’t like his surname. I don’t like how Payal Dhruvesh Shah sounds like!! It’s not mellifluous to my ears.”

“You don’t wanna marry him because you don’t like his name?”, she laughed, waking up two of my friends.

“See, I told you, no one understands.”, I complained and got up to go back to sleep, she held my hand and asked me to sit.

“Sorry. Let’s start again”

“The reasons I have sound very shallow to others, but to me they are not. Because it’s my life at stake. I want what I want and Dhruvesh …yucckkk…. Is not that! And it’s not just the name. He can’t even speak English properly. He can’t throw two sentences without an error and you know how irritating that is. I wanted a guy who could throw five big words in a sentence if I’d throw three and he can’t even get my normal English stuff. English is important to me and I wanted my guy to speak good English. And he can’t.”

“Hmm. You can work on the English, Payal. And name… you’ll get used to it!”

“Imagine saying Dhruveshhhhh when you’re doing it…. It’s like so turning off yaar!”, I said.

“Look at the good side… he’s letting you work after marriage. That’s a positive”

“He doesn’t talk. He’s all shy and quiet with me and you know I can’t take silence. It freaks me. And he’s not at all romantic. He doesn’t know how to talk to women.”

“No guy on earth knows how to talk to women the way we want, so I’ll give that to Dhruvesh”

“Can you like please not take his name?”, I said. “And I always wanted a love marriage yaar. Falling in love, talking on the phone for hours, that honeymoon period of the relationship…he being all romantic and all filmy, when all romantic songs make sense to you…. I don’t have that phase in my life. I feel like a fucking 16^th century woman!”

“You can have that after marriage. And let me tell you, love marriage sounds glamorous on paper. In reality, it is not like that”

“Look who’s talking! You had the most amazing love story”, I said

“I did. But we do have problems. We’ve dated for 5 years and been married for 2…. The seven year itch is not a myth my friend! See, with love marriages the problem is that you begin with attraction and then when you have to compromise and adjust later, and that’s a problem. With arranged marriage, you start with compromise and end with attraction. Trust me, that’s how it should be because that attraction is unshakeable. It has a more solid and practical foundation.

“But still, I wanted a love story that I could tell my kids about”

“You can still have it”

“With Dhruvesh? Noooo” I replied

“Why didn’t you tell your parents about it if you had such a big problem. You could have told me earlier…. What’s the point of telling me NOW!”

“I tried telling Mom, she gave me one million reasons why he’s the right guy and shut me up. I didn’t like getting engaged and married in a month. But considering that his grandfather is almost on his death bed and wants to attend his function, I agreed.”

“Don’t have a pity marriage”

“It’s more compromise than pity.”, I said

“Dudeee. He’s a nice guy. Trust me. Trust my instincts. Give him one fair chance. Keep the name and English aside…. Look at the inner him. That’s what’s important when you’re getting old with him.”, she tried making me look at the brighter side of things.

“I didn’t even have a bachelorette party with alcohol and all. I wanted to enjoy my courtship period with him. Wanted to go out, party hard, wear hot clothes, get drunk, come home late and not be asked questions….. I didn’t get to do any of that. I wanted him to fall in love with me when he saw me for the first time and he saw a strand of hair on my face and he so liked it that he fell in love with me…. I wanted something like that….”

“What are you? A Yashraj Film heroine? You can’t take the AC for more than 30 minutes and you want to dance in a miniskirt in the Switzerland snow!!”, she laughed.

“No. I just wanted to have a love story. Period.”, I retaliated.

“You’ll have it. Your life is not ending tomorrow. It’s just starting.”, she said

“Yeah right”, I said, staring at my hands which were covered in mehendi. And his name in it. The only thing that I liked on my hands was the engagement ring because of the huge diamond it had.

I was marrying Dhruvesh the next day and I felt nothing for him. Nothing. 

P.S : Thank you, Aanchal for the amazing quote on love marriage v/s arranged marriage! And thanks for approving the names of the characters in the first go! You're back on my blog now, so you better be the first one to comment! 

P.P.S : Please like my page on Facebook!! You can see the LIKE button to your right as well! (Sounds so desperate, but I need some ego boost real bad!!!)

Part Two : Coming Soon