“I saw her for the first time before Dussehra– we were neighbours and family friends. But because I was away at boarding school, we never met. In 1976, when I came back to Raipur, I remember her vividly. She was wearing red– we were both flying kites on our terraces. That first glance was the beginning of everything; for the next 2 years, we’d try to catch a glimpse of each other. But back then, even that felt like a crime, because she’s Muslim and I’m Hindu.
Finally, she wrote me a letter where she called me by my pet name ‘Chunnu’ and told me she likes me. For 3 years, we wrote hundreds of lettersto each other. I couldn’t live without her– whenever she was out of town, I’d wait for her to come back; I’d sit in one place for hours, without even bathing!
Times were different back then, so even when we met for the first time for a movie, we took our friends along. We spotted a neighbour there and left midway! We kept meeting with friends after that. But once her brother saw us… and everything changed. She got a big firing at home.
So I went to talk to her parents and requested them to not shout at her. They politely asked me to leave. I told my parents as well– their reaction wasn’t good. By then, I’d set up my business and was renting two flats for work. I was a planner, and had some money saved up.
I told her I wanted to marry her. She was scared, but we were so much in love that it was beyond our control. We spoke to our parents but even though they’d known each other for years, our religion still came in the way. Our fathers met once and decided- ‘Dono ko samjha lenge.’ We had nochoice but to elope. (excerpt)
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