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2 States: Three ceremonies, one day!
We asked you, our dear readers, to share your 2 States stories. Here are more responses.
Akash Robert shares his story:
When we decided to get married, the only thing we really wanted was that our families should agree for this union.
We went about convincing our families and everyone agreed after few hiccups.
Next step was to decide how to get married because we belonged to different religions.
She comes from a Sikh family.
My mother is a practicing Hindu whereas my father is a Christian.
I was keen on a court marriage initially just to keep it a simple affair.
But when her family requested for a Sikh wedding, I thought it might not be such a bad idea to have a Hindu wedding and a Christian wedding also!
Besides making everyone in our family happy, this would be a great way to pay respect to all the three religions!
Moreover, it would re-establish the belief in both of us and everyone else that there is one Almighty.
After some initial resistance everyone agreed. And that was it.
Our marriage turned out to be an exhausting marathon of three rituals which were completed in the course of a day.
We started with the Sikh wedding that was followed by a prayer in church and Hindu ceremonies in the night.
While we were busy in rituals and changing, our families took the pains to arrange everything and made it possible for all of us to perform this feat.
By the end of it, we all were obviously exhausted but we enjoyed every moment of it.
Especially my wife who got to wear three different types of wedding dresses!
To her, it was an unimaginable, a dream come true!
When I look back now I feel proud of this union where two families despite their religious, cultural and language differences celebrated love and proved that after all we all are children of one God and the biggest religion is humanity.
Read more heartwarming stories like this one here!
Trust, perseverance, faith and honesty keeps the marriage going
Next we have Leela Mehernosh Karkaria's story:
I am a Tamil Brahmin who has been married to a Parsi for the last 27 years!
We are now grandparents to the three-year-old Farshad.
In 1978, we worked in the same office, which is where we first met.
We got married in 1985.
Mehernosh is a Parsi and I am a Tamil Bramhin. The differences couldn't be starker!
Of course there was opposition from both the families. And this went on for nearly two to three years.
But when they learnt that nothing could change, the families finally agreed to fix the marriage date.
There were two receptions -- one of the Parsis and the other for the south Indian Brahmin community. :-)
He is a non-vegetarian and I am a vegetarian so that meant a lot of adjustments and compromises.
I cook non vegetarian food but I do not eat it.
With the families, things settled when our daughters arrived.
A lot of trust, perseverance, faith and honesty have kept the marriage going.
Read more heartwarming stories like this one here!
'True love is a real blessing!'
And finally, Ranjini Thankappan shares her story:
Sanjay is a Maharashtrian born and raised in Amravati (in Maharashtra). I am a Malayali born in Thrissur and raised in Nagpur.
We met when I first joined the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNV) in Amravati in 1994 in Class 11.
He was notorious for his mischief and I was one of the toppers in our class.
It was only after 18 months or so after I was admitted, that we first spoke to each other, quite by chance and became friends.
JNV being a residential school, we had a lot of opportunities to meet and talk.
My teachers and friends got worried about my scores in board exams after this distraction.
Later some of Sanjay's good friends told me that he was in love with me.
They advised me to stay away, study well and score good marks.
A relationship or marriage was next to impossible for us.
I could understand that we were more than just friends but I kept a distance did not meet him or talk much.
By the time our board exams got over and my parents came to take me home, I did not realise that I also had feelings for him.
Yet I left the campus without saying a word to him.
The school authorities had informed my parents about my friendship with him.
Back home my mother had a close eye on me and watched my every move.
I somehow managed to post a letter telling him, to forget about this friendship and move on.
After school I joined Engineering College in Nagpur and moved to the college girls hostel.
Some three months into the college, Sanjay turns up at the hostel with flowers and chocolates.
I was surprised and shocked to see him.
He told me he could not forget this friendship and asked me to be in touch.
He had joined a medical college in Kolhapur.
We may be the last generation to have written letters.
In those letters we talked about our families.
I learnt that his father was primary school teacher and his mother, a homemaker.
His family depended on farming.
He learnt that my father was an engineer and my mother, a principal of a JNV school.
There was a huge socio-economic and cultural difference in our families.
By the end of our first year in graduation, we confessed our feelings for each other.
And I told him that he has to convince my parents to marry me.
Life had been roller-coaster ride since then.
It took eight years for us to convince our parents.
Finally got we got married in 2005.
It was a south Indian engagement in Thrissur and a Maharashtrian wedding at Amravati.
After nine years of marriage we are blessed with a five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son.
I feel blessed to have Sanjay in my life.
His family is wonderful and they adore me.
I won their hearts and Sanjay is the responsible son-in-law.
He is a vegetarian, likes Avial and Sambar more than phiki dal.
I am a non-vegetarian, now loves dal chaval, and aloo bhatte ki sabji and roti.
We are now settled in Chennai.
I work as a software engineer, and Sanjay is a diabetologist.
The best part of our relationship is that we liked each other when we were nobody.
And we managed to stay together and committed through thick and thin.
True love is a real blessing!
Read more heartwarming stories like this one here!
Are you a north Indian who's married a south Indian or vice versa?
How did you two meet?
How did your families react?
Was there enough drama for a Bollywood movie or a bestselling book? :-)
Tell us!
Email us the stories of your inter-cultural marriage!
Write to getahead@rediff.co.in (Subject line: 'My 2 States story') along with a picture of you and your spouse, and we will publish the best stories right here on Rediff.com!