My Father Didn’t Know My Mother Was Allergic to Garlic
The heartwarming story of an Indian Arranged Marriage
The year was 1990. It was a bright, sunny Sunday in the month of August.
There were butterflies in my father’s stomach. Of course, he wasn’t my father then. He was just Deeptarka (“Deep”, to his friends). The young engineer, with high hopes of making a difference to society.
Today was the day he had to go to my mother’s home to ask for her hand in marriage formally. However, she wasn’t my mother then. Just Karabi.
Karabi was the lady Deep’s father (my grandfather) had chosen to be his wife. She was an engineer who worked with the state government. Deep had seen her pictures before and talked to her once on the phone. She was beautiful and well-spoken. The way he could hear laughter in her voice when he cracked a joke made his heart flutter.
Deep liked her.
He had spent the last night tossing and turning in bed, obsessing over how to greet her for the first time in person, hoping she would like him as much as he liked her.
It was around ten in the morning when he started getting ready. He looked through the shirts in his closet, but not one of them appeared dressy enough for the occasion. He stood for hours in…
