MATRIMONY

“Shalini, please open the door! Vishnu, could you open the window or the skylight. Vaishali! Help me open this door!” Vasudha cried out aloud while frantically knocking at the bedroom door.

“I could not open the skylight and the window, let’s open the door. Vaishali, hurry up! Will you!”  Vishnu rushed to the door closely followed by Vaishali and the three of them threw their weight on the door in their attempt to open it.

“Bang!”  Locked door relented to the pressure and the three of them literally fell into the room. Vishnu rushed to switch on the light while, Vaishali and Vasudha rushed to the centre of the room. The whole room was illuminated with the light Vishnu had switched on. They were shocked to see the motionless figure of Shalini sprawled on the bed. Vaishali grabbed the water jug from the bedside table while Vasudha held unconscious Shalini up in their effort to revive her. Meanwhile, an empty bottle of sleeping pills lying on the floor caught Vishnu’s attention. “Vasudha, Vaishali, it’s an emergency. We have to rush Shalini to the hospital. Get her to the front door while I get the car.” Vishnu rushed out of the house to get the car from the garage.

Vishnu and Vasudha were young software engineers in their late twenties working for a multinational company. After three years of courtship they had tied the knot and moved to a new city with a new job. Shalini was Vishnu’s sister, was in her late thirties, working as a clerk in a social welfare organisation and lived two blocks away from them. After Shalini had lost her parents, Vaishali’s father got her employed in the social welfare organisation and helped her with accommodation in a working women’s hostel close to her workplace. Vaishali was their cousin sister, who lived in their village ancestral home and was on her annual visit to her cousins.  Vishnu’s mother and Vaishali’s father were siblings and had raised their children together to foster strong bonding between them. Vaishali had just graduated from college. She had begun working in the village Aanganwadi. Vaishali was very close to her cousin sister Shalini, who was a mother figure to her ever since she lost her mother to pneumonia, when she was just six years old. Shalini was a slow learner in her childhood and was a dim witted person to her family and friends, except Vaishali. Both of them would share their happiness and sorrow and confide in each other too. 

“Don’t worry we have washed out the pills from her stomach. She will regain consciousness within the next few hours. We will keep her in the ICU for the next twenty four hours. You can go home and rest, Mr. Vishnu. You know the hospital’s visiting hours. Take care.” Said the doctor approaching the anxious trio huddled together in the waiting area in front of the Emergency ward. “Thank you doctor, you have really helped us. Can we discharge Shalini and take her home if she recovers completely within the next twenty four hours?” asked Vishnu, who jumped to his feet and warmly held the doctor’s hand to express his gratitude.

Three of them decided to spend rest of the night in the visitors’ lounge and return home only after Shalini had regained her conscience. Once they were in the visitors’ lounge, Vishnu broke the silence ever since they had left home for the hospital, “Vaishali, it’s because of you that Shalini visited us and agreed to stay at our home. She does not communicate with us at all. I telephone her once a week and she keeps the conversation brief saying that she has lot of work to do. She is very close to you and it was you who woke us up and called to help Shalini. Do you know what has been troubling her of late to take such a drastic step?” Vaishali burst into tears. Vasudha held Vaishali close to her and console her.

Vasudha gently urged Vaishali to settle on a bench in the lounge and went to get water for them to drink. Vishnu squatted on the floor in front of Vaishali and held her by her hands, “Vaishali, you know Shalini is out of danger. So, please tell me what has been troubling her so that we can together help her out. You have to be strong for Shalini if you really love her. Please tell me.” Just then, Vasudha walked back to them with three paper cups of water in a tray. She offered it to them and sat down on the floor beside Vishnu. Vasudha could sense that the two had been conversing while she was away. “Vaishali, I know you are a very strong girl. You are the one who will be able to help Shalini and you have to tell us how we can help you to do it.” Vasudha spoke calmly while she looked at Vishnu and Vaishali.

 Vaishali emptied the glass of water trying to moisten her parched throat. She wiped her tears and lips and said, “Vishnu, it’s strange that you do not know what Shalini di has been going through of late.” “Please tell me, we want to know” Vishnu urged her to speak.

With sad eyes Vaishali looked at Vishnu and Vasudha before she began to speak “Shalini di always feels that she is the cause of Mausi and Mausa’s death. They died worrying for her that she is a dim witted girl and they could not get her married. My father had to help her with a job and accommodation at the hostel. When she last visited us in the village, my father had nearly confirmed her doubt when he asked her to fulfill her parents’ last wish to marry and settled down in life. He made her register on few matrimonial sites. That is the main cause of all the trouble Shalini di faced. I will never forgive my father for that” overpowered with grief and resentment, Vaishali burst into tears. Vasudha got up and sat beside her and held sobbing Vaishali close to her. The room echoed Vaishali’s sorrow while Vishnu helplessly looked at his cousin.

Vaishali regained her composure and continued with her narration, “Many people contacted Shalini di, but all of them were fraudsters. They used to telephone her and write emails to her and after exchanging few emails they would ask her to send money to them or mobile phone or even help them by receiving valuables like gold and currency that they would courier to her that they would collect from her when they would come to meet her. One gentleman, who said he was working in UK  asked her to send the size of her ring finger so that he would bring the engagement ring along with him when he would come to meet her in India. The morning he was to fly in to India, Shalini di received a phone call from a stranger, who introduced himself as a customs officer calling her from the airport. He had seized fifty thousand pounds in cash from her husband’s baggage and wanted Shalini di to go to the airport and get him cleared from the customs. Fortunately, Shalini di’s room mate was with her and she helped her out. She spoke to the caller and asked him to describe the man he said was Shalini di’s husband. The description he gave was completely different from the photograph the person had emailed to Shalini di while corresponding with her referring to her profile on the matrimonial site. Her roommate had called off asking the caller if he had any proof that he is a customs officer and Shalini di is the culprit’s wife.  Her roommate had coaxed Shalini di to register a complaint with local police station and then with the FIR details log a complaint with the matrimonial site. Shalini di was too scared to take such an action. Her roommate then logged a complaint with the matrimonial site on Shalini di’s behalf. At least more than twenty such fraudsters had approached Shalini di through the matrimonial sites she had registered with. The most disgusting experience she has had is in the form of Yahoo messenger messages, emails and phone calls for sexual dates. Shalini di was quite disturbed and she had called me. She could not understand the messages she was receiving until I explained them to her tonight.” Suddenly Vaishali hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Quite shocked by all that he heard from Vaishali, Vishnu got up and pulled Vaishali up from the bench and said with a gruff voice, “Don’t stop Vaishali, and tell me what happened!” Struck by Vishnu’s intent look on her face, Vaishali stopped crying, slummed back on the bench and continued with her narrative “When I arrived this morning, I was glad and equally surprised to see Shalini di at the station instead of you and Vasudha. Shalini di told me that she had taken the day off from her work and she wanted me to help her. She took me to her hostel and Vishnu, I had telephoned you from there. She took me to a cyber café close to her hostel and showed me all the messages and emails she had received from the fraudsters. I was shocked to read the emails and the messages asking for money or sexual favours. I was repulsed reading them. There were only a couple of emails where they had directly asked Shalini di if she would ask them for any financial help in her subsequent correspondence with them. This irked Shalini di and she had stopped corresponding with them. She showed me an email she had received today and the person had given his phone number and asked her to call her in the evening. I checked the person’s profile and it was of a wealthy Indian businessman from Australia and the cell phone number in the email was that of India.  I pointed this out to Shalini di and she asked me to use the telephone number in the evening to find out the truth. Meanwhile, I convinced Shalini di to stay at your place while I was in the city. She always avoids you and Vasudha because she feels inferior to both of you. Though she is way older than the two of you, but she always fears being a burden on you. Quite reluctantly she came along with me to your house. In the evening, at nine thirty, after dinner, when both of you had retired to bed, Shalini di reminded me to make the phone call. Before making the phone call, I switched on my computer, opened the person’s profile on the matrimonial site and dialed the number using Shalini di’s phone. The person who replied had strong African accent. When I asked him few detailed questions on his country of residence and why he had given me an Indian phone no, he replied that his parents lived in Australia while he spent most of his time in India for his business. I had checked the number using the phone number detection software. The number was registered in the name of a mobile phone shop somewhere in the south-west India, but the caller said he was in Delhi. He called off saying that he was dining and would call back after some time.” Vaishali stopped and looked at her listeners who seemed to absorb every word she uttered.

“Vaishali, do want some more water?” Vasudha asked. “No, I don’t. Let me continue. Shalini and I moved into the bedroom as we did not want to disturb you with our conversation. While waiting for the phone call Shalini told me about an automobile engineer, who befriended her from a social networking site and had invited her to meet him in a cafeteria at the other end of the city. When she met him there, he feigned to have lost his wallet and was in dire need of money to immediately pay for his mother’s hospital expenses. When Shalini di explained to him that she did not have any savings, he bid her good bye. She had a person seeking living-in relationship with her. She had people from every part of the globe pretending to be a suitor, but with dubious intentions. Just then the man called. I put the phone on speaker phone and answered the call. The man, in his African tone, blatantly said that he wanted to have telephone sex and began making obscene noises. I yelled at him that I would give his number to the police and disconnected the call. The call had shaken us up and made Shalini di burst into tears. I consoled her and asked her to be with me while I informed the two of you about this incidence. Shalini di seemed quite reluctant to share her experience with the two of you, but ultimately gave up to my persuasion on one condition, that she would sleep on the settee in the living room and not with me in the bedroom. I then forced her to sleep in the bedroom and I moved out into the living room. After a while, I heard a tinkling sound from the bedroom and that’s when I rushed to you for help.” Vaishali silently looked at her audience. Vishnu cleared his throat trying to dispel the overpowering grip of emotions “Did you know that Shalini used to take sleeping pills?” “She had told me once about a doctor from her workplace had prescribed sleeping pills to her as she was unable to sleep at night. I remembered it only when you showed the empty bottle in the room.”  Vasudha looked at Shalini and asked “What about the complaint Shalini di’s room mate had filed with the Matrimonial site?” Vaishali looked sullenly at Vasudha and replied “Shalini di was too scared to follow up. She did not want anyone to know about all this. She felt quite ashamed of herself. You can’t blame her for this.” said Vaishali, as if trying to justify her cousin’s actions. “Vaishali di always was under Mausaji and Mausiji’s control. She did not develop her ability to discern the shades of gray. Mausaji a

Shalini, please open the door! Vishwa, could you open the window or the skylight. Vaishali! Help me open this door!” Vasudha cried out aloud while frantically knocking at the bedroom door.

“I could not open the skylight and the window, let’s open the door. Vaishali, hurry up! Will you!”  Vishwa rushed to the door closely followed by Vaishali and the three of them threw their weight on the door in their attempt to open it.

“Bang!”  Locked door relented to the pressure and the three of them literally fell into the room. Vishwa rushed to switch on the light while, Vaishali and Vasudha rushed to the centre of the room. The whole room was illuminated with the light Vishwa had switched on. They were shocked to see the motionless figure of Shalini sprawled on the bed. Vaishali grabbed the water jug from the bedside table while Vasudha held unconscious Shalini up in their effort to revive her. Meanwhile, an empty bottle of sleeping pills lying on the floor caught Vishwa’s attention. “Vasudha, Vaishali, it’s an emergency. We have to rush Shalini to the hospital. Get her to the front door while I get the car.” Vishwa rushed out of the house to get the car from the garage.

Vishwa and Vasudha were young software engineers in their late twenties working for a multinational company. After three years of courtship they had tied the knot and moved to a new city with a new job. Shalini was Vishwa’s sister, was in her late thirties, working as a clerk in a social welfare organisation and lived two blocks away from them. After Shalini had lost her parents, Vaishali’s father got her employed in the social welfare organisation and helped her with accommodation in a working women’s hostel close to her workplace. Vaishali was their cousin sister, who lived in their village ancestral home and was on her annual visit to her cousins.  Vishwa’s mother and Vaishali’s father were siblings and had raised their children together to foster strong bonding between them. Vaishali had just graduated from college. She had begun working in the village Aanganwadi. Vaishali was very close to her cousin sister Shalini, who was a mother figure to her ever since she lost her mother to pneumonia, when she was just six years old. Shalini was a slow learner in her childhood and was a dim witted person to her family and friends, except Vaishali. Both of them would share their happiness and sorrow and confide in each other too. 

“Don’t worry we have washed out the pills from her stomach. She will regain consciousness within the next few hours. We will keep her in the ICU for the next twenty four hours. You can go home and rest, Mr. Vishwa. You know the hospital’s visiting hours. Take care.” Said the doctor approaching the anxious trio huddled together in the waiting area in front of the Emergency ward. “Thank you doctor, you have really helped us. Can we discharge Shalini and take her home if she recovers completely within the next twenty four hours?” asked Vishwa, who jumped to his feet and warmly held the doctor’s hand to express his gratitude.

Three of them decided to spend rest of the night in the visitors’ lounge and return home only after Shalini had regained her conscience. Once they were in the visitors’ lounge, Vishwa broke the silence ever since they had left home for the hospital, “Vaishali, it’s because of you that Shalini visited us and agreed to stay at our home. She does not communicate with us at all. I telephone her once a week and she keeps the conversation brief saying that she has lot of work to do. She is very close to you and it was you who woke us up and called to help Shalini. Do you know what has been troubling her of late to take such a drastic step?” Vaishali burst into tears. Vasudha held Vaishali close to her and consoled her.

Vasudha gently urged Vaishali to settle on a bench in the lounge and went to get water for them to drink. Vishwa squatted on the floor in front of Vaishali and held her by her hands, “Vaishali, you know Shalini is out of danger. So, please tell me what has been troubling her so that we can together help her out. You have to be strong for Shalini if you really love her. Please tell me.” Just then, Vasudha walked back to them with three paper cups of water in a tray. She offered it to them and sat down on the floor beside Vishwa. Vasudha could sense that the two had been conversing while she was away. “Vaishali, I know you are a very strong girl. You are the one who will be able to help Shalini and you have to tell us how we can help you to do it.” Vasudha spoke calmly while she looked at Vishwa and Vaishali.

 Vaishali emptied the glass of water trying to moisten her parched throat. She wiped her tears and lips and said, “Vishwa, it’s strange that you do not know what Shalini di has been going through of late.” “Please tell me, we want to know” Vishwa urged her to speak.

With sad eyes Vaishali looked at Vishwa and Vasudha before she began to speak “Shalini di always feels that she is the cause of Mausi and Mausa’s death. They died worrying for her that she is a dim witted girl and they could not get her married. My father had to help her with a job and accommodation at the hostel. When she last visited us in the village, my father had nearly confirmed her doubt when he asked her to fulfill her parents’ last wish to marry and settled down in life. He made her register on few matrimonial sites. That is the main cause of all the trouble Shalini di faced. I will never forgive my father for that” overpowered with grief and resentment, Vaishali burst into tears. Vasudha got up and sat beside her and held sobbing Vaishali close to her. The room echoed Vaishali’s sorrow while Vishwa helplessly looked at his cousin.

Vaishali regained her composure and continued with her narration, “Many people contacted Shalini di, but all of them were fraudsters. They used to telephone her and write emails to her and after exchanging few emails they would ask her to send money to them or mobile phone or even help them by receiving valuables like gold and currency that they would courier to her and they would collect from her when they would come to meet her. A person of Indian origin from Japan and contacted Shalini di and even visited her. He told her that she looked more pretty and fair in her profile picture on the Matrimonial site than in reality. A few months after his visit, a woman telephoned Shalini and asked her if she was in contact with that man. She told Shalini di that she was his living-in partner in India and he has absconded with her money and other valuables. She had found his telephone no and was contacting all the ladies listed in his phone book. Then Shalini di had a gentleman, who said he was working in UK asked her to send the size of her ring finger so that he would bring the engagement ring along with him when he would come to meet her in India. The morning he was to fly in to India, Shalini di received a phone call from a stranger, who introduced himself as a customs officer calling her from the airport. He had seized fifty thousand pounds in cash from her husband’s baggage and wanted Shalini di to go to the airport and get him cleared from the customs. Fortunately, Shalini di’s room mate was with her and she helped her out. She spoke to the caller and asked him to describe the man he said was Shalini di’s husband. The description he gave was completely different from the photograph the person had emailed to Shalini di while corresponding with her referring to her profile on the matrimonial site. Her roommate had called off asking the caller if he had any proof that he is a customs officer and Shalini di is the culprit’s wife.  Her roommate had coaxed Shalini di to register a complaint with local police station and then with the FIR details log a complaint with the matrimonial site. Shalini di was too scared to take such an action. Her roommate then logged a complaint with the matrimonial site on Shalini di’s behalf. At least more than twenty such fraudsters had approached Shalini di through the matrimonial sites she had registered with. The most disgusting experience she has had is in the form of Yahoo messenger messages, emails and phone calls for sexual dates. Shalini di was quite disturbed and she had called me. She could not understand the messages she was receiving until I explained them to her tonight.” Suddenly Vaishali hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Quite shocked by all that he heard from Vaishali, Vishwa got up and pulled Vaishali up from the bench and said in a gruff voice, “Don’t stop Vaishali, and tell me what happened!” Struck by Vishwa’s intent look on her face, Vaishali stopped crying, slumped back on the bench and continued with her narrative “When I arrived this morning, I was glad and equally surprised to see Shalini di at the station instead of you and Vasudha. Shalini di told me that she had taken the day off from her work and she wanted me to help her. She took me to her hostel and Vishwa, I had telephoned you from there. She took me to a cyber café close to her hostel and showed me all the messages and emails she had received from the fraudsters. I was shocked to read the emails and the messages asking for money or sexual favours. I was repulsed reading them. There were only a couple of emails where they had directly asked Shalini di if she would ask them for any financial help in her subsequent correspondence with them. This irked Shalini di and she had stopped corresponding with them. She showed me an email she had received today and the person had given his phone number and asked her to call her in the evening. I checked the person’s profile and it was of a wealthy Indian businessman from Australia and the cell phone number in the email was that of India.  I pointed this out to Shalini di and she asked me to use the telephone number in the evening to find out the truth. Meanwhile, I convinced Shalini di to stay at your place while I was in the city. She always avoids you and Vasudha because she feels inferior to both of you. Though she is way older than the two of you, but she always fears being a burden on you. Quite reluctantly she came along with me to your house. In the evening, at nine thirty, after dinner, when both of you had retired to bed, Shalini di reminded me to make the phone call. Before making the phone call, I switched on my computer, opened the person’s profile on the matrimonial site and dialed the number using Shalini di’s phone. The person who replied had strong African accent. When I asked him few detailed questions on his country of residence and why he had given me an Indian phone no, he replied that his parents lived in Australia while he spent most of his time in India for his business. I had checked the number using the phone number detection software. The number was registered in the name of a mobile phone shop somewhere in the south-west of India, but the caller said he was in Delhi. He called off saying that he was dining and would call back after some time.” Vaishali stopped and looked at her listeners who seemed to absorb every word she uttered.

“Vaishali, do want some more water?” Vasudha asked. “No, I don’t. Let me continue.” Replied Shalini and continued with her narration “Shalini and I moved into the bedroom as we did not want to disturb you with our conversation. While waiting for the phone call Shalini told me about an automobile engineer, who befriended her from a social networking site and had invited her to meet him in a cafeteria at the other end of the city. When she met him there, he feigned to have lost his wallet and was in dire need of money to immediately pay for his mother’s hospital expenses. When Shalini di explained to him that she did not have any savings, he bid her good bye. She had a person seeking living-in relationship with her. She had people from every part of the globe pretending to be a suitor, but with dubious intentions. Just then the man called. I put the phone on speaker phone and answered the call. The man, in his African tone, blatantly said that he wanted to have telephone sex and began making obscene noises. I yelled at him that I would give his number to the police and disconnected the call. The call had shaken us up and made Shalini di burst into tears. I consoled her and asked her to be with me while I informed the two of you about this incidence. Shalini di seemed quite reluctant to share her experience with the two of you, but ultimately gave up to my persuasion on one condition, that she would sleep on the settee in the living room and not with me in the bedroom. I then forced her to sleep in the bedroom and I moved out into the living room. After a while, I heard a tinkling sound from the bedroom and that’s when I rushed to you for help.” Vaishali silently looked at her audience. Vishwa cleared his throat trying to dispel the overpowering grip of emotions “Did you know that Shalini used to take sleeping pills?” “She had told me once that her doctor colleague, had prescribed sleeping pills to her as she was unable to sleep at night. I remembered it only when you showed the empty bottle in the room.” Replied Vaishali.  Vasudha looked at Shalini and asked “What about the complaint Shalini di’s room mate had filed with the Matrimonial site?” Vaishali looked sullenly at Vasudha and replied “Shalini di was too scared to follow up. She did not want anyone to know about all this. She felt quite ashamed of herself. You can’t blame her for this.” said Vaishali, as if trying to justify her cousin’s actions. “Vaishali di always was under Mausaji and Mausiji’s control. She did not develop her ability to discern the shades of gray. Mausaji and Mausiji always dealt with her on what she did as right or wrong. Unlike you and me Vishwa, Shalini di studied in the village school. She came to the city only when she got the job in the social welfare organisation. She suffers from low self esteem. Please don’t misunderstand” “reading between the lines" muttered Vishwa and suddenly he retorted "Do you think I don’t know my sister!” He calmed down, looking imploringly at Vaishali said, “Vaishali, we really need your help” Vaishali sat down on the floor beside him and said “Anything for Shalini di, Vishwa. Anything” Vishwa looked at her and said, “Can you extend your stay with us and help us collect all the necessary information to file an FIR and follow up with the matrimonial site. You have to help me with Shalini di too.” Vaishali stood up and said “In fact, we had been to the police station this afternoon. The Inspector on duty listened to us and said that he has filed many such complaints and asked us to file an FIR, but Shalini di refused to. Let me visit the ICU and check on Shalini di.”

nd Mausiji always dealt with her on what she did as right or wrong. Unlike you and me Vishnu, Shalini di studied in the village school. She came to the city only when she got the job in the social welfare organisation. She suffers from low self esteem. Please don’t misunderstand” “reading between the lines" muttered Vishnu and suddenly he retorted "Do you think I don’t know my sister!” He calmed down, looking imploringly at Vaishali said, “Vaishali, we really need your help” Vaishali sat down on the floor beside him and said “Anything for Shalini di, Vishnu. Anything” Vishnu looked at her and said, “Can you extend your stay with us and help us collect all the necessary information to file an FIR and follow up with the matrimonial site. You have to help me with Shalini di too.” Shalini stood up and said “In fact, we had been to the police station this afternoon. The Inspector on duty listened to us and said that he has filed many such complaints and asked us to file an FIR, but Shalini di refused to.”