Love Marriage
As I took my marriage vows in the House of God, my glittery white wedding gown sparkling in the sun seemed like a symbol of my bright future with the man of my dreams. I looked into his passionate dark eyes, and realized that once again, I had succeeded, gotten what I wanted. No one had ever been able to come in my way ever, and now that I was married to Jai, looked like no one could. Not even my parents. My parents didn’t even know Jai well. I do believe in the whole ‘mothers instinct’ thing, but things were different in this case. All they knew was what they had heard from people, namely Jai’s ex-wife and her mother. And of course they’d be biased, after a broken engagement, who wouldn’t? Jai’s ex wife kept making up stories about how violent Jai got when he was drunk, I didn’t believe her, partly because I didn’t want to, but another part of me sub consciously filed these ‘fables’ in my memory. Mom kept insisting that she had a ‘bad feeling’ about him, “If he’s left her for you, what guarantee do you have that he wont leave you for some one else?” But it wasn’t that way, my parents wouldn’t understand. Jai needed a life partner. His wife couldn’t be his companion. I was everything she wasn’t. She was a slave, more like a machine who just bounced off his ideas to him. Obviously he’d be bored. I also thought that another reason was the fact that I wanted to marry by choice, and not have it arranged like her and Pa, and all the other ‘happy couples’ in the world. Well, so what if Jai had fooled around in the past, or gotten into jail a few times just for small time drug dealing? That didn’t make him a criminal, and it certainly didn’t make me change my mind about his wonderful personality. That was his past, and at the time, I was his present, and that was all that mattered.
Things started shaping up just the way I knew they would, Jai was still the exotic, tall, handsome man, with flashing eyes and a sharp mind. Nothing had changed after marriage; he still loved me with the same passion tinged with possessiveness, and he still treated me with the same respect and dignity as a gentleman, I was grateful because that was something very uncommon in the society I lived in. We shared the same interest in everything: religion, politics, and even video games. I was his companion, his equal partner, I was sure Jai would keep me happy all my life. Soon Jai got a job as an agent for a company, and it was a good job with a steady income, so I didn’t mind the fact that he had to be in and out of town. Pa got us a nice apartment in a friendly neighborhood, till we could afford to pay our own rent. A few months down the line Jai had gone to Singapore for some business, and while he was away, I discovered that I was pregnant. I was thrilled beyond measure, all my parents’ fears of me being unable to live a decent respectable life with a man like Jai were dismissed. My dreams were coming true; I would soon be a respected wife and mother. I thought I’d wait for Jai to return, and then surprise him. But Jai returned a little earlier than expected, hearing of my pregnancy from a family friend in Singapore. The night he returned didn’t turn out to be quite as I thought it would. He came home drunk, and I was at my mother’s house when he returned, and was livid to find me out of the house without his permission. That night, when I returned home, I found him on his rocking chair, awaiting my return. The first thing he said to me struck me like a lightening bolt, “ I should’ve listened to them when they told me about you. You’re finally showing your true colors aren’t you?” I didn’t know whom he meant by ‘them’, but I was shocked by the bitterness and sharpness of his tone and could only manage to mumble a feeble “huh?”
