To a movie-script ending

Life is full of ups and downs, turns and twists, times of sorrow and times of bliss. And, uncertainty is what makes life beautiful and worth living. But there’s nothing more beautiful than a fulfilling relationship. The real beauty and joy of life lies in how beautifully we fulfill our responsibilities in a relationship.

I am a firm believer of the saying that ‘love recognizes no barriers; it jumps hurdles, leaps fences, and penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope’. It was almost 10 years back when I first met my husband and had my first talk with him. Since then, his inspiration and due companionship has been the sole factor that beautifies my life.

As a girl from a typical Newari community, it was a great challenge for me to think about going across my culture and traditions. Yet, I listened to my heart and made my dream come true. The first duty of love is to listen to your heart and be trustworthy. If castes, cultures and traditions do not comfort your love, life and relationship, we should never hesitate to create a life of our choice and happiness.

Tirtha and I have been married for seven years, but we have been together for more than a decade. We first met at a social function. The moment I met him, I knew he was someone special. He became my first and last love and friend forever.

Initially, we could not meet frequently, and exchanged our feelings through e-mail. But we continued to keep our bond strong. But eventually, geography, family, caste and culture took its toll. And we separated. But the separation didn’t last long as it was when we realized how important we were for each other. As we started missing each other every single moment, we reunited after six months, and decided to marry and live together.

The time we spent together before the marriage gave us adequate opportunity to understand each other. Honesty and simplicity were the first things in us that brought us closer. The next was trust. It gave us strength to overcome obstacles that came our way. We were prepared for any difficult situation where we did not get support from the family. 
There are small things that we realize late, such as food, style of living and dressing sense, among others. But as we had already talked, argued, accepted and refused so many things before the marriage, only love, care and compassion were left after marriage. Prior understanding and compromise over these tiny matters made our lives comfortable.
Not everyone gets a second chance to love. In our community, reasons for separations, oftentimes, are issues related to religion or caste. It’s unfortunate because we don’t ask a person whether s/he is a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Brahmin and then fall in love. You just fall in love and love finds its own way.

When we approached our respective families about our relationship, they were not okay with our decision to get married. But we continued to fight our families. At times we felt tired and even thought of giving up. But we continued to pursue our dream, maintained our dignity and walked away with grace. We got married in 2010 and have been living happily ever since. I am now pretty convinced that our life together was written in the stars and no obstacle could have changed that.

In 2014 we were blessed with a baby boy, who has been adding joy to our lives. I live a life full of love, the life of my choice. A loving and inspiring husband, an adorable son, and a profession of my choice, where I have been contributing as much as I can for social transformation as a social worker.

There are different kinds of love that we experience in the city. To celebrate these diverse kinds of love on our column ‘Tales from the city’. Please send us your stories at mycity@myrepublica.com with the subject-line ‘Tales from the city’.