‘3 yrs later, our parents still don’t talk to us’

‘They will force you to wear a burkha. You’ll have to eat beef. He will desert you to marry someone else, don’t you know Muslims can keep four wives? Why do you need to marry him? You can marry a Brahmin and continue being friends with him...no one will mind that.’ Reactions laced with common misconceptions and prejudice came pouring in when Akansha Sharma announced her decision to marry Mohammed Suaib.

Suaib, 31, was a co-worker in a Gurgaon MNC and a happy friendship had unknowingly blossomed into love over shared meals of insipid canteen food and hanging out with friends. Both were from small towns in Uttar Pradesh thrown into big city life for the first time.


Sharma, 28, says, “Growing up we were told that marriage outside the caste is out of the question. And here, I had fallen in love with someone from a different religion.”

The first time they broached the subject with their parents, the reaction was predictably extreme. “But the opposition that should have driven us apart brought us closer,” she says.

The second time, the two firmly told their parents that they had decided to marry. “Overnight from being their favourite devout son — who kept rozas and read the namaz regularly — I became a nobody. They refused to accept my decision hoping that I would change my mind,” Suaib recalls.

When Sharma did not respond to emotional threats and pleas on the phone, her family decided to “take her away”.

In October 2014, they whisked her away from office and kept her confined for 20 days. Sharma describes those days with a wry smile. “My parents fell ill, there were trips to the hospital. I had to meet prospective grooms. I was given a fat set of newspaper clippings on ‘love jihad’ and told this would happen to me,’’ she says.

Finally, she was able to get away. Sharma almost lost her job. Suaib was not so lucky. He was fired after his relatives came looking for him and intimidated some office personnel.

Even three years after a marriage aided by Dhanak, an NGO that acts as a support group for inter-faith couples, the couple is still not on talking terms with their parents. They face prejudice everywhere: while renting a flat, or in office. During a trip to Vaishno Devi, a five-star hotel refused to let them check into a pre-booked room till they saw a marriage certificate.

“We laugh such incidents off. But it hurts when it comes from parents. Our tears and pleas have not changed their mind. So now we have decided ke khush ho kar dekhte hai, shayad khushi se maan jaye (let’s try and convince them with our happiness),” Suaib says.