This story may not be true nowadays, but Muslim lobby would like to know if any girl is forced to marry so we will stand by her.
I caught the pretty girl talking to her friend for the third time in my English class today.I forgave her as it was the last hour of the day and i knew my students were often distracted and tired by then. But then as I gave back their assignments, after allotting the marks for their Internal assessment, i realized that she was the only one who hadn't submitted hers.This time I lost my cool.
"Whats wrong with you Farhana? You knew you would be losing ten marks in your final examination if you didn't submit your assignment today, didn't you? and why the hell were you distracted in my class ?
All she did was give me a feeble smile and then someone from behind said " Ma'am she will be married by this December.This week will be the last week that she will be attending college".
I for once was tongue tied. I mean its not uncommon for us to have some of our final year students giving us their wedding invitations during the last semester, and it sometimes saddens us that they may never ever work or pursue their higher studies in their life ever again. But this girl was just 18 and in her first year of graduation.
I just wished her luck and resumed my class. But curiosity got the better of me and since i was their class teacher, i called her aside after my classes were done for the day,to find out why she was in such a hurry to get married.
What she told me made me realize that in spite of us Indians boasting of having moved forward in every field, the plight of a girl is always decided by her parents and the community to which she belongs. As suspected it was an "arranged" marriage. Her parents had met this "wonderful" Guy( read filthy rich and loaded with a lot and lot of money) in one of ther family functions and decided that they may never get a " good guy" like this for their daughter so before she knew it she was engaged to this guy. Now within a month she was to be married to this boy and she obviously had to discontinue her studies as the boy didn't want a wife who was academically " more " qualified than him. ( read probably has'nt completed his high school)
In the community that she belonged to she was'nt allowed to go against the wishes of her parents and she had to agree to this proposal. I asked her if she liked the boy and she told me that she had never spoken to him as both their families very very traditional ( read no going out, no talking to members of the opposite sex, and no getting to know the man you are going to spend the rest of your life with)
I told her to atleast to give it some time and try to get permission from her home to complete her studies.She responded that tomorrow would be her last day in college as she already had to start with her wedding shopping and I knew there was nothing I could do to help her.
Though the scenario is changing for the better today and more and more women are allowed to complete their education, there are still those who are unfortunate enough to be stuck within the traditional rules and norms of the communities they belong to. And sometimes they are the students whom I will always cherish as the ones who were the smartest and the brightest during their college days, but then dissolve into nobody's once they get into the portals of marriage.
