In earlier episodes of this narration, I had introduced my daughter and son indicating how they were trying to become reasonably good professionals. Naturally in our typical Kerala families, once you complete your studies and get a reasonably good job, the next step is to get them married. Our daughter being the elder one, our first desire was to get her a suitable bridegroom. Those of you who have read about her studies in CREC for her BTech and later partly in KREC and then I.I.T. Bombay for her MTech must have realized that she is very clear about what she wants in life. Her first choice, obviously was her career. Even though as parents we wanted her to be married as soon as her studies were being completed, she was not willing unless she gets a job like many other educated girls these days. As she had already lost almost a year in KREC and then joined IIT Bombay for her MTech, we were getting worried. In our families girls get married before they are 22 or 23. When she was in the third semester of the MTech course, an advertisement for post of lecturers in N.S.S. College of Engineering Palakkad appeared in the newspapers and we asked her to apply for the post. Our idea was to bring her to a teaching job in Kerala so that getting a suitable alliance would be easy. She was reluctant to take up a teaching job. However, as we insisted, she applied for the job and appeared for the interview which was held in N.S.S. Headquarters at Changanassery. She did well in the interview and we heard that she has been ranked second, the first rank going to a boy from Vaikom who had already completed his MTech from .I.I.T Kanpur. One of my teachers was in the interview board as expert and when he saw me waiting outside after the interview, he asked me why I am standing there I told him that my daughter is a candidate. He confirmed that she has done well.
There was some delay in the issuance
of the appointment order. On enquiry, we found
that the first ranked person in the list is
known to one of her uncles staying near Vaikom. There was a rumour
that NSS management was collecting
some donation from the selected candidates before issuing
the appointment order. When her uncle made some enquiry with
the family of the boy ranked first, they
were ready to give something as donation
before joining. Personally, I was against any
sort of donation for jobs and was not
ready to give anything. If my daughter happens to
know that she will get a job only
after giving some donation, we were certain that she
will not come from Bombay and take up the job. Moreover,
teaching was not her preferred job and by this
time, she had got a placement in Tata Consultancy
Services in the campus placement and was getting ready to join TCS
as a software engineer. Several enquiries from the NSS
office were sent to my
wife’s father who was a local office bearer of NSS Karayogam of
our place asking what is her plan to join, indirectly asking whether
we are willing to pay something before formally sending the appointment order. When he
asked me several times, finally we said she is not taking
up this job and her grandfather gave this in writing so
that the next person in the list could be appointed.
Uncle was very particular in
this as we cannot totally ignore the N.S.S. Karayogam in
our place as we have to go to them for conducting the
marriage, burial and other important events in our families. In case
we were not ready to give this in writing, it
was quite probable that they will not issue the appointment order
and the list will be cancelled. Moreover, I was receiving
series of phone calls from
a lecturer in NSSCE (whose wife was
ranked 5th or 6th in
the list) who was ready to pay anything
for appointment against a
leave vacancy so that she will have a claim for a future appointment. This
gentleman was quiet once we gave in writing that we are
not interested in joining.
Our search for a bridegroom for our
daughter was still on. Being in Malabar was
another disadvantage as many parents of boys
from Malabar were not willing to get their boys married
to a girl from Travancore side, to
be precise for a girl from South of Thrissur. While
we were in such a predicament, one night, my
wife’s mother called me in the night
after 8 PM. She wanted to
know our willingness to proceed on a proposal for
our daughter’s marriage to the son of a
distant cousin of mine who was their neighbor. This boy was
a mechanical engineer working in Saudi Arabia
and had come on leave. They had settled in Thiruvananthapuram as
both the parents were employed in Kerala State Electricity Board.
We said, if she is happy with
the boy, go ahead. Next day
morning she talked to our cousin
and her husband and conveyed that they were very
happy with the proposal. They had two boys
only, the elder one was doing his Masters in
Chest Medicine in KEM Bombay and this boy was
the younger one. Before
finalizing the alliance, we wanted the boy and
the girl to see each other. As the boy
was not planning to go back to
Saudi Arabia , he had taken up a job in Bombay and that gave us an
opportunity for the boy and girl to meet.
Our daughter was in the final semester doing her project.
I requested a friend of mine staying in Hiranandani
flats near I.I.T. Bombay to arrange for a meeting between
the girl and the boy. He gladly accepted and arranged for
a formal meeting in his house with a sumptuous lunch on a
Sunday. We asked our daughter to
go to my friend’s house
with her friend, one Sri Lankan
girl Thanamagal (Thana for short). We
requested Thana to make sure that our
daughter will like the boy. In the same day
evening when we called our daughter after 9 PM, she
was reluctant to say Yes or No, but
Thana assured us that she has liked the boy and asked us
to go ahead.
Things moved fast afterwards. When
we had gone to our native place for the Onam
holidays, my wife and I went to TVM to
meet the boy’s parents and we decided to have the engagement
function within a few weeks and the marriage
after her completion of her MTech studies at I.I.T. Bombay.
Being the first grandchild, my
wife’s father and mother was immensely
happy to arrange for
the marriage of her first grand daughter at an
auditorium in Alapuzha belonging to the Bhima group. In
fact, we
had only paid the money required,
all arrangements including our local rice, fresh coconut oil for
cooking etc were all arranged by
them gladly. After the
wedding, both of them went to Bombay, my daughter to
take up her job in TCS and our son in law to continue
his job in Bombay. They had hired
a flat in Kandivali, not very far from the TCS Software
development center. After completing
her three-year bond period in TCS, she was
offered an
H1B visa job in USA. As the
formalities were getting delayed, she got a job in
Infosys Bangalore and our son in law chose to
undergo training in SAP programming. When
the formalities of H1B were cleared, both of
them left for Boston in USA. They are still
there in Boston with our son in law in a
senior position in Thermo-Fischer and our daughter in an
insurance firm as data analyst. They have two
children , elder one, our only granddaughter and
the younger one a boy.
Comments
Post a Comment