Of No Avail - Web of Wedlock

Falling in Line

"But the hour of reckoning came at the dawn of my thirtieth birthday," she resumed her recap of the way she had waded through the web of wedlock. "That's nearly ten years after life first took me to the crossroads of marriage, and some parallel here with Chitra for it's at that age she entered your life. By then, winning the trust and confidence of one of the bigwigs of the business world in town, I became the company secretary of his corporation of amalgamations. Early that morning, the old man came to our ladies' hostel with a greeting card and a birthday cake to grant me the leave of absence for the day. After he left, being on cloud nine, as I read a letter tucked in the greeting card, I was nonplussed."

"Did he propose to you or what?" he said in jest.

"Well, his thirty-five year-old heir to his business empire lost his wife after she delivered a still born boy, and simply put, he wanted me to fill the void in his son's life," she said. "But knowing that I thought of his son, our director without a portfolio, as a good for nothing, he penned a rosy picture of mine wielding the real power as the future empress of his vast enterprise and all that goes with it. Not failing to address the maternal weakness of the feminine gender, he made me envision the scepter being passed on to the one borne out of my womb. In short, that long letter carried everything to seduce any woman, more so an ambitious one, into that corporate wedlock."

"So, you became Mrs. Somebody," he said withdrawing his hand that she was holding all along.

"You can relax for now," she said in all smiles taking his hand all again. "Somehow, wedding the widower didn't appeal to me, in spite of his wealth and status not discounting his good looks. Though I was old enough to be objective in these matters, yet I allowed myself to be swayed by this girlish whim on that count. That apart, as I started delving into the matter, so to say, I began to rediscover myself; true, to begin with, I craved for a rich lifestyle and hoped to facilitate it through matrimony, and when I realized its improbability, at least in my case, I strived to improve it on my own accord, and succeeded too, to the extent possible. After all that which made me an old maid, my fate seemed to beckon a life of unimagined riches and high social profile but with a rider, as would often be the case, that is to wed someone whom I didn't admire. So, realizing that even as I made money the crux of my life, the core of it was the quality of my mate, I declined the proposal."

"How strange, after ignoring my hand devoid of means, you gave up his in spite of its plentiful wealth! Surely it requires a rare strength of character that I never credited you with," he said in all admiration.

"Thanks for your appreciation," she said pressing his hand. "Then as it occurred to me that we could've as well built a material edifice on our marital ground, I realized my stupidity in nixing you. Hoping against hope, even as I made up my mind to try to reach you, slighted by my snub, the old man made it untenable for me to continue in his employment; so I had to resign to retain my self-esteem. So, even as I looked around for my proper relocation, my father had finally managed to fix my sister's marital destination; well, unlike me, she remained rooted to the ground and was no mean a looker either but yet for long she too couldn't wade through the complex web of wedlock that you so well described. Whatever, that led me to the station of our separation to try my luck to ascertain your location, but I came a cropper at the factory you worked and the room you tenanted not to speak of the college you attended."

"It's all the more painful that I wasn't married as yet then," he said in vexation, "So as to put my disappointing past behind me, I distanced myself from my acquaintances there. But for that, maybe it would've been a different story and that brings home the truism that our nature is our fate."

Wanting to smoke, he withdrew his hand that she still held, and added, "If you don't mind, I would like to smoke."

"Surely I would, if you smoke alone," she said mischievously.