Of Boats and Feet

“You know, I’m never going to get married”, blurted out J, as I licked off the last of the chocolate from the dripping cone. “Huh!! They all say that, but they finally end up marrying. Trust me, you would be no different”, I reassured the fair, dark haired beauty, my words muffled by the crunchy cone that I was chewing.

Ok, time for some background.

J had been the first girl that I dated, way back in high school and then in the early part of my engineering days. But then, two years down the line, we (rather I) felt that she really wasn’t that “someone special” for me, and so we parted ways. But, the friendship still continued over the years, and in fact had grown stronger over the decade since I first set my eyes on her. She was now “committed” to a 6 feet tall, shoulder length haired hunk who loves her with his life (or so she says, and hence I believe, the last part of the sentence i.e.). Sounds all hunky dory, eh? Well, not quite so. The guy belongs to, umm, let’s say, the minority community as politicians – specially the so called secular ones – refer them as.

On the other hand, J belongs to a family of much respected Brahmins – a large joint family, with a temple inside their courtyard that is well known in the small town she belongs to, just on the outskirts of a city. To make matters worse, she also happens to be the younger sister of a body building freak (with a brain like one too) who happens to be the follower of the saffron party.

So when this cute little 23 year old replies, “Everything is not that easy Sabya, I know one day I might have to choose which boat to put my feet on, and I don’t want to let go of either of the boats”, I wonder for a moment how much the little kid seemed to have matured since the time we used to be together many monsoons ago.

“Don’t worry, just concentrate on your career, stick to this domain (IT, no points for guessing that), next year when I enter, or rather re-enter the corporate world, I’ll pull you through. Rest, let the future take its own course. We’ll discuss this again, its getting late. I have to rush!!”

And thus I separated myself from her for the night and went my way, feeling a bit sad for one of my closest friends, and castigating myself yet again with the fact that had I not broken up with her, things would have been so different. But then, that thought flashes through my selfish mind for just a moment, coz had I not done that, I would have never met …....

Lots have been written about the caste and religion divide that exists in our country. Anything that I add will just seem to be a repetition. But I will still write my two pennies worth.

The country, or rather its people, could never really digest the separation that came as an incentive to independence. We still relate a black burqha clad coterie to be a byproduct of our not so friendly and often back-stabbing neighbor. The atrocities, so well described in “Train to Pakistan” and countless Bollywood flicks have ensured that we always look upon the minorities as foes, no matter which side of the border they belonged to.

I was also a product of the same environment. The Babri Masjid demolition made me rejoice till I was sick, the nuclear test of the 1990’s, so famously coded as “the Buddha has smiled” made me grin from ear to ear. And every defeat to Pakistan on the cricket or the hockey field was a personal loss to me.

But then, that was ages ago. Having developed a habit of reading profusely (thanks to my parents, ironically, coz they will still shut the door on me if I were to marry a Muslim), I now have a much broader view of things. I’d rather think and analyze about the pricing strategy that a major IT vendor should adopt for an I Bank that is its client rather than read newspaper articles which state that the percentage of Muslim population in the country had risen by X %. And, I would be safe to assume that these sentiments are shared by most of the people who belong to my generation.

I can go on writing cliché’ after cliché’, how we are all human beings first, how the colour of the blood is the same, how….. u get my point, don’t you. So I’ll save the rhetoric.

The only silver lining is that today’s generation is much more mature than our parents’, and I’m sure my children would never have a friend who would be in the same dilemma as J. It will be a world where you don’t have to choose which boat to put your feet on, it will be one big yacht where you can just put your feet up and soak the sun.

I am sorry if this post is dangerously teetering on the edge of being a political speech, coz I have no time for the P word. But then, I ask, on behalf of my cherished friend, that if she doesn’t have the freedom to marry the person of her choice, then aren’t we just about as free as the inmates of the Russian prisons in the Siberian desert.

End Note: My parents heave a sigh of relief that i never fell for a girl outside my religion. I consider it to be a personal loss, coz some of the cutest girls i've seen belonged to religions other than Hindu.