Ours is a love marriage. I’m married to my childhood sweetheart, for me, it was nothing less than a dream come true. Yes, I’m lucky to have found a love as great and pure, but when you gain something, there’s always something else to lose. I lost the love of my parents. They were completely against our relationship. And almost two and a half years later, I’ve got the courage to write my experience.

My husband, a North Indian, and I, a South Indian, grew up together in the same colony in Southern India. We belonged to an upper-middle-class family and our fathers worked for the same company. There were under similar designations there. My husband and I went to the same school, we were in the same class; we knew each other since we were 5.

But our parents did not know each other quite well. Years passed, and our friendship blossomed into love. We were crazy about each other. When I was in Bangalore, he surprised me and visited me often.

Soon, the time was right and we decided to tell our families about each other. My parents had an idea about him, but in their mind, they wanted someone who was a Brahmin. Even though he comes from a family of vegetarians, they didn’t care. For them, it was just his caste that was the issue.

While most of my cousins had love marriages and married North Indian men and were happy, I wasn’t going to change my parent’s minds. They did everything they could to change my mindset, including performing several rituals, taking me to a psychiatrist and what not. On the other hand, I met a lot of counsellors to try and find a way to change their minds.

While the counselors I met thought it could be such an easy task to do, my parents were very difficult to deal with.

After three long years, I finally managed to convince my parents to attend our wedding. My in-laws accepted us easily; they didn’t have a problem with me or my caste.

My husband and I did everything possible to organize a simple, but memorable wedding for us. We searched for a venue, posted the wedding cards and took care of every small detail that typically should have been a parent’s duty. But I didn’t complain, and my husband supported me throughout.  

Eventually, my parents agreed to give us two lacs for the entire wedding. And his family took care of the puja, accommodation of their relatives, rituals and even the mangalsutra.

My parents acted very cold during the wedding; they didn’t smile, neither did they bless us. They simply attended the events as guests. In fact, they didn’t even stay for the whole thing, they left mid-way. A few of our relatives tried to convince them to let go of this anger and enjoy their daughter’s wedding, but to no avail.

With whatever decent financial status, we had, we set up our humble abode and lived a happy life. After three of the wedding came the first blow.

My parents posted rude comments on our wedding pictures that were uploaded on Facebook. They openly taunted us for getting married, despite their wishes and went on publishing their trauma. I couldn’t understand why they had to choose such a public platform to do this. When I confronted them, they didn’t apologize but simply got away by saying, they were unaware that their comments would be visible to the public.

In the midst of this, I had some kind-hearted relatives who tried to talk to them and convince them to not make such a big deal about the marriage. They knew how well-settled my in-laws were and that my husband and I were both in good MNC jobs, making decent money, but none of this changed their cold behaviour towards us.

We made immense efforts to mend the relationship, but somehow, we’re unable to fix it. After two and a half years, my parents are just barely speaking to me and barely manage a smile towards my husband.

They don’t mind him staying at our house for two, three days, with me. But if any guest arrives, we are simply introduced as, “our daughter and her husband”. They haven’t yet accepted him as their son. They haven’t spoken to his parents either. They know he’s a gentleman, that he keeps me happy and that his family adores me; I don’t know what more they expect from us.

Some of our relatives still try to add fuel to this fire, but the rest have moved on with their lives and are letting us move on with ours. We still stand here, dealing with this estranged relationship with my parents.

Most of my well-wishers have told me to stay strong and they will come around eventually, but I think my parents are neglecting a very good son-in-law and are living in a bubble which will eventually burst and they will lose their daughter in this ego battle.

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