“Mama, I have come to ask you for something. Do you remember what you said when Auntie Chann was going to marry that man last year? You said that if you have to think about whether or not you love someone, that isn’t really love. Mama, I was listening. I don’t have to think about whether I love Aria because I do. I can only hope that in the past little while that she has been living here, you have come to love her too. Mama, you said a long time ago that when I met the girl that I wanted to marry, you had a ring for me to give to her. Mama, I have met the girl I am going to marry. And I am going to ask her to marry me. But I am asking for you and Papa to give me your blessing.”
Neeraj huffed and sat up against the headboard with his arms folded. “She is a very good girl. We like her. But why are you thinking about this at your age? Why can’t you wait until your schooling is finished? Why can’t you behave your age? I do not believe you are ready for such a thing as you are proposing,” he said.
Jarminder was uncharacteristically quiet. She stared through Omkar instead of at him. It was not the first time Omkar had mentioned that he thought of Aria as a potential wife. Having seen Omkar and Aria together, both she and Neeraj had come to terms with the possibility that they would one day be married. The strength of Neeraj’s protest surprised her because it exceeded her own.
Neeraj continued. “Omkar, marriage is not a trivial thing. It is not something that you can pick up one minute and drop the next. I do not understand why …”
Jarminder cut him off by grabbing hold of the sleeve of his nightshirt. In Punjabi, she told him to stop. She scolded him for refusing to even hear Omkar out.
Omkar’s heart leapt. He had barged into the room expecting a fight from both of them, and instead, it seemed his mother was on his side.
“Omkar, we love you very much. We want the best for you. If you want to marry this girl, you’ve got to be completely sure of it. Why can’t you give it some more time? Why can’t you wait until after you finish school?” she asked.
“Mama, I have four more years to earn my master’s degree. I am not going to wait four years to marry this girl,” Omkar shouted.
Neeraj and Jarminder were calculating the impracticality of their request, given the reality that he had spilled out on the table. “You and Papa were married when you were even younger than me,” Omkar said, hoping to trap them into being unable to invalidate him without at the same time invalidating themselves. They said nothing, but both of them were reminded just how different the reality of marriage had been to what they had expected when they found themselves in the same position that their son was in now.
“At some point, Papa and Mama, you are going to have to trust me,” he said. “You have raised me right. You have taught me right from wrong. I am capable of taking care of this girl and if you don’t believe me, I’m just going to have to prove you wrong. Love should build things, not break them. You can’t say to me that you love me and break my heart. If you love me, I am asking you to give me your blessing and help me to build a life with this girl because in my heart I know she is meant to be my wife.”
Jarminder patted the bed with her hand for Omkar to come sit by her. She placed her palm flat against his cheek with tears in her eyes. Using his nickname, she began to speak. “Jeety, I may have no right to judge you, but I have a mother’s right to worry. Aria is from a different community, a different culture, a different race. This makes marriage more difficult. But your father and I will get used to it. Everything we have done, we have done for your happiness. And if you say that your happiness is to marry this girl, then you must marry this girl.”
Omkar hugged his mother harder than he had ever hugged her before and looked toward Neeraj, whose initial resistance had been worn down by seeing Jarminder cry. “Do you swear to me that if you marry her, you are not going to drop out or do anything else stupid?” Neeraj said. “If you say that you are in love with this girl, then you cannot jeopardize your future.”
Omkar shook his head. “No, Papa, you know I want to get my degree. I swear I am not going to jeopardize my future. I couldn’t do that without jeopardizing hers as well.”
Neeraj deliberated, keeping both Omkar and Jarminder on tenterhooks. “OK. I give you my consent. But Omkar, you have made promises to me tonight. To break a promise to your father would be absolutely disgusting ya?” Omkar cracked a half-smile at his father’s threat.
Jarminder got out of bed and walked over to the closet. Realizing that she wasn’t tall enough to get to the box she was trying to reach, she asked Neeraj to get it down for her. With it in her hands, she walked back to the bed and put it down where Omkar was sitting. She opened the box to reveal a miscellany of gold jewelry. Jarminder brought the pieces out one by one. She showed him the
