Paul was holding Revati’s hand as if this is the last time he can hold on to her hands.
“All the best”
Instead of saying anything, Revati just let out a sigh
“I just hope that all goes well” Paul tried to lift the spirit of Revati.
But Revati’s expression was like that of an American in China who has no idea where she has to go.
“Don’t worry, just be cool” Paul said with a press to her shoulder, evoking yet another no response from Revati.
Paul was really worried now. She didn’t want to leave Revati on her own in this state of mind. He was nervous too. But he didn’t want to show it outside. After all, every one is entitled to be nervous when you are going to tell your parents about the love of your life.
Paul made an over all look at the dirty Majestic bus stand of Banglore. Similar to the bus stand separating the places where their buses stood, everything was different between Paul and Revathi.
Paul is a chirstian and Revathi is a hindu. That seemed to be the starting point of their difference. Both are from different castes and Paul was brought up as a spoilt rich kid opposite to that of the middle class brought up of Revathi.
The only similarity seemed to be their parents, who are both heavily orthodox and they will definitely oppose their children marrying some one not from their caste and community.
Just 2 years, back, Paul would have never imagined that he could have been in a situation like this. Definitely he wanted to fall in love for sure. But he was not that interested in love marriage. He has seen the difficulties which his friends have gone through to marry the girl of their dreams.
So Paul had a simpler solution. He wanted to get the best of both worlds.
He found no positive points in having a girl friend. In fact he found nothing other than negative points in having a girl friend.
His friends who had girl friends had to listen to all their cribs and they were not able to tell shut up to the stupid baffling of their better halves. More over where ever they go, they were expected to spend out of their pockets and they were supposed to come up with some innovative gifts for her birth day, diwali, the day they hooked up, New Year and on and on.
More over all of his friends who had girl friends stayed virgins till their marriages. Paul, being an electronics engineer, just found this to be high input no output system.
After being with the back bench gang who isolated themselves from girls, he was a bit bored with just boy groups. He wanted to have the companionship of girls, but with no strings attached. He was not able to stand the whining and bitching of most of the girls. But he was able to find some girls who were having his same frequency and he made it sure that those girls stay just as friends and don’t get even a slightest interest of furthering the relationship.
He was an idealist and he hoped to find love with the girl his parents choose for him.
More over, he is more or less lazy. Every thing has been always given to him in a golden plate. He never toiled hard for his Engineering seat and got through in campus interview in the very first company which came to his college. After being spoilt by the Tamil movies of his time and finding about the hardship which a guy and a girl has to face to get together if they oppose their parents, arranged marriage looked to be the perfect option for him. In fact, he never cared about his future or marriage and took life as it comes most of the time.
Revati is similar to Paul, but in a slightly different way. She is from a really orthodox Brahmin family. In her family, talking with an outsider from opposite sex is treated similar to committing a murder. She is really a hard worker and she hates coming second to any one. She has been more or less a topper through out her life just because of her disciplined attitude in her life.
Starting from getting up to going to sleep, she almost always sticks to the schedule and rarely comes out of it.
Thinking about the past few years of her life made her realize how much a simple straight forward life could change because of few events.
