But my mother had other plans for me. The minute I graduated, I was told that I should get married – to her brother’s son, no less. No offense to South Indian traditions but this culture of marrying your own cousin to ‘stay in the family’ always made me question our morality. I tried to calmly reason with my mother and tell her about Deepak. She instantly flew into a sentimental rage. It began with “The boy is not of our caste!” to “Oh, how shall I show my face to my brother now?!” to “Is this what I brought you up for? To bring me a bad name?”.

My uncle’s family was very well off. My mother followed the logic that if I married my cousin, I would always be provided for. His wife had scorned at my un-powdered cheeks and my not-gold jewelry at every wedding we attended. But that didn’t matter like it doesn’t matter to almost every conservative Indian mother.

My mother and I had the biggest screaming match at each other for days together.

In the end, she held a knife to her wrist and I was too afraid and too emotionally drained to protest anymore. She did not sleep in my room that night, but the next morning, I felt the emptiness in my stomach. I had spent the worst days of my life crying out to silence.

Nobody would respond, nobody would say a thing. I was voluntarily jailed in my room for about eighteen days trying to come to terms with the fact that I had to get married to my cousin and I had no option but to hope that it’s going to be nice, as it is for most South Indians. Whenever I managed to think like that, it did make me feel better temporarily.

What happened in the end?