FEATURE I am an undergraduate with immense love for reading and writing. I am currently nineteen years old and reside in Pune, India. I hope to inspire many with my pieces of literature in the future! Love or an Illusion previously published in The Write Order’s anthology named Tryst.
LOVE OR AN ILLUSION?
A
SHRUTI AWATADE
yesha shut her bedroom door with a loud thud and stalked over to her cluttered desk, searching for her laptop. “Why was I ever born in an Indian family?” she wondered aloud. After having a heated argument with her mother all Ayesha could think of was writing an article for her blog. She switched on her laptop and started typing with such furiosity that the clicks of her keyboard echoed in her room. She typed the title in big bold letters, “The hardships of a common 26-year-old Indian”. Ayesha’s mother was not a typical Indian woman. Having lived all across the world because of her husband’s transfers in want of a promotion or an update in his job title, her mother had been exposed to the cultures of different countries. Her character had been shaped by these visits and she had developed a sense of tolerance towards opinions and ideas that did not match with hers. However, the notion of getting your 26-year-old daughter married to some wealthy, handsome, and intelligent man remained rooted and innate in her mind. This had become the reason for the frequent quarrels between Ayesha and her mother. Her father no doubt, stayed out of all of this and only intervened when things got out of hand. Ayesha never understood why her mother was so eager to marry her off to some stranger, and that afternoon, after being suggested to upload her profile on one of those trivial matrimonial websites, she had decided that the serenity of her bedroom would be a great place to cool off. She was not one of those people who did not believe in love or marriage, it was just the concept of these matrimonial websites which she could not bear. She wanted more time to develop in her career and at this peak point, she could not afford to be in a relationship or even think of marrying. “How can you possibly know the character of a person through a screen? And you expect me to marry some stranger like that?” was what she had said to her mother 10 mins before she decided to retire to her bedroom. After finishing her piece of writing, she leaned back in her chair and admired her work as if it were one of those hideous prom dresses which the 16-year-olds drool over. She knew that she could write passionately when she was angry. All her emotions flowed from her soul on to the keyboard through her fingers whenever she found herself in this mood. It was this peculiarity that helped Ayesha write articles for her blog. But today, she wrote something different. Usually, her articles spoke about the everyday difficulties a young adult faced in this fast-paced world especially in finding a job and she recommended tips that may help these distressed souls
to come out of their slump. But today was different. Today, she dared herself to write about how a person’s thoughts concerning marriage are conveniently ignored by one’s parents. “Why are these websites so hyped up anyways?” she asked herself. “Well, might as well find the reason by myself,” she thought, as she reluctantly opened the first website that appeared below the search bar. A box full of blanks to be filled in by the user for required information popped up on the screen. She pondered for five minutes whether this was going to be worth spending her time on, and finally filled in all her details as well as a photo of herself, which her mother had got her to click explicitly for this purpose. “I am likely to get ghosted anyways,” she thought, as she remembered that time when she had learned from her friends that people get disinterested as soon as they find a better profile. Nevertheless, after checking all the details again for surety, she uploaded her profile, quickly shut down her laptop, and went downstairs to tell her mother of the great deed. Months went by, but not a single notification came for her from the so-called ‘love guaranteed’ matrimonial website. It was time that her parents started searching for a groom themselves instead of desperately waiting for one to approach their ignorant daughter. Ayesha sat on her plushy chair with a book in her small hands, close to the window, so that she could bathe in the juice of the morning sun while she devoured the third book in the ‘Shatter Me’ series. Today her parents would earnestly start searching for her groom after Ayesha’s father came home from work. Today was going to be the first day of her doom. Reluctantly, she kept her book back on the shelf and made her way to her desk. She switched on her laptop, took a deep breath and opened the website to have a look for herself. One way or the other, she was going to have to face this at some point of time. As soon as the tab opened, a notification flickered at the right corner of the screen. Her heart skipped a beat. She clicked on the tab and a handsome man stared back at her from her laptop. Below the photo, she read, “It’s a match!”. She looked through his profile carefully. His name was Armaan. Having passed from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Armaan worked in a renowned company and was earning enough to be called rich by her parents and relatives. He lived in Hyderabad, which was considerably far away from where Ayesha lived, the ‘Oxford of the East’. He had one younger brother, unlike Ayesha, who did not have any siblings. “I can’t believe this”, thought Ayesha. “This has to be some mistake”. She picked up some courage, clicked on the chatbox, and typed, ‘Hi’. Embarrassed by the stupidity of her action, she decided to close the tab and take a good nap to subdue her thoughts. That was when another notification popped up. It was a message from Armaan - “Hey there”. Ayesha stared at the message with disbelief. She typed – “I guess
grxmx magazine
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