On most evenings when Sharvari feels helpless, she goes and stands in front of her ex-boyfriend's apartment just to catch a glimpse of him. Failure to keep the one she loved in her life, still haunts her every day. It was love-at-first-sight for Sharvari. While, he is happily married now.
For 27-year-old Sharvari, who is excelling in her engineering career, caste was the biggest hurdle in her love story. Sharvari belongs to the Maratha community in Maharashtra, while her boyfriend belonged to a scheduled caste. "When I met him, I was awestruck but when I got to know his caste I told him to go away because I knew my parents would never approve the relationship. But I hardly remember a day when I did not miss him,” Sharvari said.
But destiny had other plans. She met him again after five years, out of nowhere, at a mall and realized that her feelings for him were the same as they first met five years ago. “I decided to give it a chance. However, he had promised someone else for marriage and got married to her last year. I still go and stand in front of his apartment to catch his sight and then come back to the realities of my life,” she added.
Some good 60 years ago when Sahir wrote "Jaane woh kaise", maybe, he did not know that he is giving an anthem to broken hearts. The straight-from-the-heart lyrics encapsulate the pain of unreciprocated love. The song, as it goes on, "Jaane woh kaise log the jinke pyaar ko pyaar mila" also gives words to the pain of people who could not get or reciprocate the love because that person belonged to a different caste or religion.
These two factors shadow almost every other love story in our Indian society.
27-year-old Anurag, who is a political consultant, met his girlfriend at a birthday party. They became friends first but their friendship blossomed into love. The struggle and realization of their stark reality started when they decided to break the news to their parents.
The struggle to convince his girlfriend’s parents for marriage was very difficult. The mental trauma continues even now. "I still miss her every day, I can't imagine my life with anyone else, but I have no choice,” Anurag said.
“We were of different castes from the OBC category. But her parents could not just digest the idea of their daughter marrying someone out of the caste and we had to succumb to the pressure,” Anurag added as he narrated his story.
Even after 75 years of independence, our youth lack agency in their own marriage decisions. Many of us are highly impacted by what parents decide for us. Marrying outside the caste or religion that an individual is born into, remains taboo in most parts of India that can lead to social ostracism and eventually into violence.
32-year-old Mayuri got married to her engineer boyfriend 8 years ago. While she is from the Maratha community, her now husband belongs to the OBC community in Maharashtra.
While narrating her emotional roller coaster ride, Mayuri said, “While my story looks positive and successful because I married the person I loved, I had to go through a lot of mental trauma which led to social disconnect and even affected my career. Had my family supported my decision, the journey, which was supposed to be full of love, would have been really great. Even today a lot of relatives don't talk to me. Those who were really close are strangers now. Caste should not be a criterion for marriage and loving someone, and it doesn't provide the lifetime validity and assurance for a successful marriage. But people don't get this.”
The issue of caste looks less evil when interfaith relationships and marriages come into the picture.
Saba is a 28-year-old advertising professional. For Saba, who belongs to the Muslim community, getting into a serious relationship had always been an issue.
While narrating her part of the story, Saba said, “As a Muslim, my love life has suffered just as much as a person from any other religion would face. It's more about having a broad and open mind towards the concept of love that challenges the backwardness of our caste-driven, regressive society. I am not a practising Muslim, so most of the Muslim men who I have come across didn't really view me as a potential partner. The same goes for men following any other religion; it's difficult for them to consider me as a potential partner when it comes to having a future. The mess that this journey entails, the friction with family and society, it’s all way too demanding for anyone. In addition to the emotional conflicts that we go through to survive a relationship is quite consuming as is and when you throw in caste and religion, then just forget about it.”
Aniket Salve who runs an NGO named Vicharvedh, while speaking on the issue noted that he believes this form of casteism and discrimination still exists in our society. Aniket and his organisation help and create awareness regarding inter-caste and interfaith marriages. They also support them and provide counselling when the couple decides to get married.
Amlan is a consultant who is from Assam, said, “My girlfriend was from UP, Agra to be precise, and she was from a higher caste. We never discussed the same and I thought it would never come up or it will be an issue at all. Everything was going fine and I was also friends with her elder brother. One day she and a few of our friends came to my place for a get-together and we were discussing various issues, which included the caste system in India. The discussion heated up but we continued, later had dinner and everyone left. So that day I mentioned that I am from a lower caste and was too carefree about it. And from that day everything in the relationship started to change. At least I noticed the change in her attitude and behaviour towards me. I didn’t think that this was the reason behind the same but much later I came to know that her brother assumed that I was of their caste and when he found out I was from a lower caste, he insisted that she stay away from me.”
(Names in the story have been changed due to the sensitivity of the topic)
