Free Arranged Love by Parul A Mittal Page B

at all, I have only learned to appreciate the value of true love from Di,’ I said, expunging Tanu di’s name.
    ‘Then what’s the problem, beta?’ asked Dad politely. Himself fond of Tanu di, he was not too happy with this unexpected blame game either.
    ‘I want …’ I paused briefly to find the right words, when Dad interrupted excitedly.
    ‘Let me guess.’ His eyes glowed like he had gone back in time to when I was a little girl and we were playing the
guess what I want
game.
    ‘You want a Barbie dream wedding set with Stacie and Todd.’
    ‘Dad! You already gifted it to me on my seventh birthday,’ I reminded, my anger dissipating at the fond memory.
    ‘We are talking about her wedding, not her doll’s wedding,’ corrected Mom. She was busy planting strawberry crops on her farm, but her ears were clued in on our conversation.
    ‘You want to go on an all girls’ tour to Europe,’ guessed Dad, taking inspiration from Bollywood movie plots.
    ‘That would indeed be fabulous, but …’
    ‘Is it your art? Do you want to take time off and paint for a while?’
    I would have loved to take time off and paint forever, but I knew what Mom was about to say.
    ‘The store is already stacked with her canvasses. I get a bigger house if she gets to paint more,’ demanded Mom.
    ‘Okay, I think I have nailed it this time,’ claimed Dad, banging his fist on the table. ‘You want to live by yourself for a year. Likein your own apartment, independently.’
    ‘Why are you putting these rubbish ideas in her mind,’ complained Mom, clearly not in favour of unnecessary frivolity or freedom. She had even perfected the land usage on her farm so that every unit of her farm was profitable.
    ‘Don’t tell me it’s the new age stereotype
I want to be known as someone before getting known as someone’s wife
,’ remarked Dad.
    When I shook my head, he raised his hands in despair to gesture that he had given up.
    I rejoiced at my victory, almost forgetting that I now needed to tell him what I wanted. ‘I want to marry a guy I love rather than love a guy I marry,’ I said, twisting the truth slightly and keeping Jay under wraps.
    ‘Ah, that is a cliché I could never have guessed,’ said Dad, waving his hand dismissively.
    ‘Can we get a little more serious here if the father and daughter have finished playing games?’ Mom never liked being left out, but she never liked being party to the fun either.
    ‘In our generation, the saying was “it’s better to marry a person who loves you than to marry a person you love”,’ jabbed Dad. It was hard to get him to be serious.
    ‘What does this instant generation know about love?’ attacked Mom. ‘Food, loans, messages, henna and sex—everything is instant today. This generation needs arranged marriages or else their marriages will result in instant divorces,’ she said, expounding her philosophy.
    ‘Arranged marriages are a by-product of the discriminating caste system,’ I protested, on behalf of the entire instant generation. ‘They were designed to prevent children from marrying outside the community.’
    ‘And love marriages are a by-product of authors’ and movie producers’ plots,’ replied Mom.
    I looked at my mom, blew at a ringlet falling carelessly on my face and gave her a ‘what do you know about love’ dare.
    ‘I remember my first one,’ she said, taking the challenge. ‘I was only sixteen and his voice had just begun to crack,’ she reminisced.
    I had never heard Mom talk about her youth before. It was hard to imagine Mom as anything but a mom.
    ‘He would come to his balcony every evening and watch me pick the line-dried laundry. Soon, we moved houses and before I knew, I was skipping classes to have tea with this other guy in college.’
    ‘You never told me about this college fling,’ accused Pa.
    ‘It was irrelevant,’ justified Mom. ‘Out of sight, out of mind, and that’s exactly my point. A fling at this age is nothing but a