An Eye for an Eye by Dr. Bianca Nazareth

It was a balmy August day in the little known village of Pandhurna in India when Manoj and family shuffled into Abha’s home. Like typical relatives of the prospective groom the family was loud and unintentionally obnoxious. They cracked corny jokes and everybody had to laugh politely.

Abha’s parents were quiet and submissive like most parents-of-the-girl but even more so as Abha had a flaw. A single flaw. In an otherwise perfectly chiseled face, one eye was just slightly smaller than the other. Her sight was perfect – it was merely cosmetic but it was a flaw nevertheless. An apparently big one in the eyes of the 11 odd men who had trooped in to their home, eaten hot samosas, drunk sweet spicy tea and then walked out after crushing Abha’s parents with a resounding no.

Abha had come to accept the fact that men cannot and will not see beyond her mildly disproportionate eyes and so mostly went through the motions mechanically, accepting the fact that the evening will end with a borderline ugly man’s refusal, her father’s cursing and her mother’s growing hysterics.

Oddly, that morning, it all seemed to be going perfectly. Manoj was tall and strapping. He had a full head of hair and a reasonably becoming face. The family’s expressions did not change noticeably when they saw her and the pleasant conversation that followed began to lull her parents thoughts to a vision of a crimson clad Abha smiling at them. Abha, draped in a light blue saree served up the savories and then sang an old hindi movie song which she had sung several dozen times before.

The family applauded and talk veered towards the wedding. The boy’s family hadn’t committed yet but the fact that they were discussing potential scenarios itself made Abha’s parents practically jump in their seats. The glances that passed between her mother and father would have been funny if they weren’t as pathetically hopeful.

And then Abha mustered up the courage to look directly at Manoj and she held his gaze. He looked at her and then his gaze wavered – ever so slightly. And she knew then – she knew he had no intention of saying yes. This was one of those delayed refusals. They would leave here and wait two days and then say no – with the pretext of the horoscopes not matching or something or the other. And in that very instant she despised him. She

despised the fact he was as superficial as the others. But what she despised even more was the fact that he did not even have the courage to voice it to her face.

In the same instant Manoj also knew. He could feel the force of her loathing. But he was too much of a coward to even admit it to himself.