Dark Secret

The family sat down together to have dinner. This was a regular ritual dutifully started by my grandfather and religiously followed by my father. It was a great initiative started by a pioneer with a great vision. Those days generally every family followed this practice.

But as time passed, people became more busy and then self-centered. They did not feel it necessary for this get-together, commenting on it as a waste of time. Then many members moved out to other places on jobs etc. So the dinner attendance dwindled in time to come.

But for people like me who spent the day very busy, this dinner get-together was a great way to wind up and relax. It's a nice way of letting go of the accumulated steam. It was a venue for all types of discussions, opening up no holds barred.

My nephew Neal had just got a good job and fortunately, he was posted locally. But as he was very gregarious and social he regularly brought in his office colleagues and friends with him for dinner. The unique thing was though he had many friends he always brought only one of them. The friend would then stay back for a sleepover and every time it was a different person. 

But recently Neal was bringing with him a girl named Priti. To bring her, he had taken prior permission from his mother. From then onwards it was Priti only and no one else. 'Priti is from an upcountry town and has no relatives here,' said Neal,, clarifying his position. 'Her mother had come on the day of Priti's joining and held my hand requesting me to make her arrangements for the night in a safe place among any family as she has no relative here, ' further said Neal trying to remove all doubts from our minds. Priti's mother had insisted that she should not stay in any hotel because she did not trust them.

So slowly, Priti became a pseudo-member of our family. I thought that there was a relationship brewing between Priti and Neal. In fact, Neal's mother, my elder brother's wife came to me and said,' Pritam, you must do this job for me. '

' We should know beforehand, the antecedents of this girl before Neal comes to us with the proposal of settling down with her, ' My boudi said with caution in her voice. 

I now started doing the work of a detective. I exhausted all my resources and came up with alarming news. I thought if my nephew Neal was aware of it. If he knew then he had to make a lot of compromises. This piece of news was akin to a dark secret and I was wondering how I should share it with Neal's mother. 

Priti had been married earlier and she had runaway from her in laws to move away from bondage to freedom. Probably she was subject to domestic violence. The friendship with Neal had proved to be an elixir of life and made her feel safe and secure. Further enquiry revealed that Priti had a gynaecological problem that would never make her a mother. Probably this may be the reason for her problems with her previous in-laws. Now this situation put me in a dilemma of how to reveal this dark secret to Neal's parents. 

Time is a great healer. Maybe others will also accept the situation in the time to come as Neal had accepted. Will they or will they not?