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When a woman imagines her dream wedding, a proposal is how it all begins. A moonlit sky, fireworks, two glasses of champagne, and a beautiful ring - that is what I had thought of, except I never got it.
A proposal is a surprise for a woman, yet I know that most Indian women end up demanding it. In our culture proposals happen after parents have met and the couple already knows that they are getting married. I never understood this, but I also never questioned it. So when Jagat and my parents met and everything was final, I asked him when he was planning to propose. He would just laugh and change the topic as if it was unimportant.
I even got my best friend to get after him to plan a proposal for me and he told her also to ‘get real’. He said. ‘When Anu has already said yes, then what exactly should I propose to her for?’ Months went by, and we got married. The proposal I always wanted never happened. At first with all the hullabaloo that surrounds weddings, I forgot about this demand of mine, but as days passed and my friends started posting their proposal pics on Instagram, I started getting very upset.
‘It’s not about what made sense, it was about what I wanted!’ I would say to Jagat. ‘Okay, but I didn’t want to do it as I find it silly, so what about my wants?’ He replied. I felt so hurt I wanted to leave him.
‘How selfish can someone be?’ I said to my best friend. ‘I can’t believe you are still fighting over the proposal’, she replied. ‘Anu, why did you marry Jagat, and not some other boy?’ She asked me. ‘Because he was different from other boys’, I replied. ‘So then why are you hating on him for doing things differently from other boys? He supports your dreams. He is always there for you. So why do you now suddenly want him to become conventional?’ She said.
My best friend’s words echoed in my mind for a day or two. Jagat was fiercely independent and way ahead of his times. He treated me like an equal partner and getting married was a decision that we made together, then why fall into the trap of inequality where one partner must plead the other to marry him by going down on his knees?
The next day, I made up with Jagat and told him I wanted to live in the present with him and love him for who he was instead of comparing him. I realized that I had got much more than a proposal when we had had a full conversation about getting married and made a well-thought-through decision instead of an impulsive ‘Yes’ that could later lead to regret. Proposal or no proposal, ours for a fairytale that was like none other.
