In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Gut Feeling.
Around 13 years back, my parents were hunting a groom for me. I had seen many people rejecting my elder sister on the grounds of her height. I am not tall as well, just about 5 feet 2 inches. I was disgusted with those snobbish prospective grooms who themselves were short or ugly reject my pretty and educated sister.
Around the same time, my aunt sent a proposal to my parents of a boy who though Bengali wasn’t from our caste. My parents asked my opinion and I agreed to meet the boy. One fine day the boy called me up and I kind of liked him after the brief chat.
Two months later in August boy and his parents were coming to see me in person. Just one day before their arrival, we received the boy’s biodata and lo behold my mother vehemently nodded her head and sighed, “This proposal isn’t going to materialize”..I was puzzled and asked her the reason and she sighed, “The boy’s height is 6 feet 2 inches”! But by then..it was too late!!
Next day..we met and I saw this tall, lanky boy with a disarming smile greet us. After formal introduction, we were asked to go somewhere and spend some time with each other and then go from there. In my nervousness, I took him to a garden in the scorching heat at 2 in the afternoon! We both were sweating, chatting, and smiling. I liked the guy. I felt here was a guy who was simple, unassuming, with no airs or show-off, and didn’t feel like I was meeting him for the first time. Also, he was least bothered by our height difference.
When I came back, my parents were eager to know about my decision and without batting an eyelid I said yes. Six months later we became man and wife.
Marriage, be it love or arranged, is a gamble of a lifetime; more so in arranged as you don’t know the person much. But on that eventful afternoon my “gut feeling” told me to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I can say that that was one of the best decisions of my life and my “gut feeling” was absolutely right.
Today 12.5 years and 2 kids later, I still find that tall, now not so lean man with disarming smile as charming as I found him on that scorching afternoon.
Life and its different shades 