Yet-to-be-named

I(Shravan) woke up with a jerk and realized that it was 7am already. I had very less time to get ready and leave to college. I just dreamt of my father not approving my love-affair with Sunitha. The very thought of discussing this so-called-issue with my dad has been haunting me for quite a while now and I am literally having nightmares, like the one that just woke me up.

My generation has this problem of being badly sandwiched between these totally different generations (or every generation thinks the same way, I don’t know), but I personally feel that way. My parents got married without even seeing each other’s face properly, not even had a few exchange of words. How do they know if they were compatible with each other? Their parents decide. An oft-heard dialogue: “Being your mom, who else (but me) knows what you want and what is best for you!!!” But it is me who wants it and I’m an adult, so I think I know better what I really want. Anyways, so that’s how my parents got married. For the immediate succeeding generation, people are clear that their marriage is going to be of their choice and their parents are totally in. In-fact they think it’s better that way, so their kids don’t blame them for any failed marriages.

And I’m caught between both these categories of people. My parents would want to choose the girl that I have to get married to (at least that’s what I think) and my younger cousins are already out there dating, after letting their parents know. What do I want to do?

I am in love with this girl Sunitha. She is my classmate in college and I’ve known her for over 3 years now. She’s really sweet and cute (of-course) and how my life has been after she has given an entry, is beyond imagination. I know of my dad giving his support to a lot of love-affairs of my friends, but I totally believe that when it comes to his own son, the rules that were once applicable to others would no more be applicable to me. And the fact that I’ve never been really so open to him about these kind of sensitive things, create the fear in me. I emailed Vikram about this whole thing telling him that I wanted to talk to him.

Vikram is a very close friend of mine from school. Both at school and after school, we always hung out together. Be it going out for movies, or studying for exams, or flirting with girls, we did it all, together. My dad somehow thinks that he is a very good and well-behaved guy (I think otherwise, though), so thought of making him talk to dad about Sunitha. He is in Chicago now, doing his under-grad. I emailed him about all this, so quickly switched on my computer to check for any reply.

And there it was, it said he was anyways leaving to India next week for a short trip, so he said we would meet up and talk about it when he is here. I was already late, so hurried up to make sure I’m not late to college.