Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

A week back my friend (co-worker) announced her daughter got married. She did not give a clear picture and she evaded our questions. All that she said was that her daughter had an affair and got married 10 days back. Everyone pacified her and then no one spoke about it. My friend Lekha sits next to me in the staff room.

A few days later I noticed she was looking very depressed and I asked her what had happened. She looked up and her eyes were filled with tears. I touched her shoulders and asked her what had happened. She burst out crying and she opened up. Her daughter was doing her Post Graduation in Engineering in Tamil Nadu. Lekha said her daughter got a missed call on her mobile phone and that led to an affair. It is hardly a year since she got to know this man. This man hails from an interior village in Calicut. His parents are very poor and this boy is not one bit appeasing. He is not very educated either.

I do not know what she found in that man. May be he has an attractive way of talking to girls. “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder”, right???

Lekha was getting ready for her daughter’s marriage. She had disposed a property of hers and bought quite a lot of gold. She had already booked for a car. It was then that her daughter got married at a registry. She married him and she stayed in her house itself. Lekha nor her husband did know about their daughter’s marriage. Her daughter had lost her mobile phone and it happened that the guy rang on the landline that they came to know about the affair. Lekha was shocked when she knew that her daughter was already married.
Lekha was weeping bitterly when she told me this.

Suddenly it took me back to 21 years ago when I was a witness to a similar act. I was doing my final year PG and I had a friend – Girija. In fact Girija and I were friends from our school days itself. She hails from a reputed Nair family in Trivandrum. She fell in love with a Pentacost boy. The match was not at all suitable. According to Girija he looked like Ravi Shastri and that was his qualification. Since we were very good friends and we were there for everything together I never discouraged the affair. Love is blind and so were we.

Girija’s parents came to know about her affair. Her father used to escort her for tuition, to college and everywhere that Girija went. Her parents trusted me. They have come to my house and even I used to go to their house quite often. When things at her place became very strict I used to pass letters for them. Finally they decided to get married. They published it and after a month they were getting married. On that D-day Girija asked me if I would go with her. I agreed. Her fiancé came in a car and picked both of us up and went to the register office somewhere near Killipalam or Karamana. I am not sure. They got married and I signed as a witness from the girl’s side. I could feel my knees knocking together and my hands trembling while I was signing. I was betraying Girija’s parents but Girija was more important to me.

After the wedding we went to attend another classmate’s wedding. We had lunch from there and went back to our houses as though nothing had happened. That guilt was there in my mind. On the last day of the examination Girija eloped with her husband. Her father complained to the police that she was missing. Both of them produced their marriage certificate and her father declared, “Enikku ingane oru mol illa. Aval marichu”(“I don’t have a daughter like this. She died”) and turned and walked off.

Girija came home and said that she felt very sad when she saw her father turned and walked off. I felt very bad. I cheated the poor parents. They had so much trust in me. Her father died of heart attack in less than a year’s time.

When I saw my co-worker Lekha’s sadness I felt very guilty. Girija’s parents must have felt the same 21 years ago. They must have shed more tears because they had an elder girl to get married. If Girija had waited they would have agreed to it even after much opposition. I really don’t know if Girija’s mother is alive. I want to apologize to her. Now as a mother I know what it is like if my daughter were to do the same thing. I sincerely hope that I don’t get it back in the same coin. I don’t think I’ll ever withstand it.