Love, Union Aur Conversion

They started their romance with a promise that they would keep it as casual as a passing breeze. Belonging to conservative families – one Hindu and another Muslim, they simply didn’t see a future for their office romance.

Over time they realized that the time they spend busy punching away SMSs and in the late hours secretly whispering into the handset of the season gave them enough reasons to break the promise they made at the start. Finally they are getting married after a 5 year long courtship. Both the parents have agreed to the union. It must be a tremendous relief for the two as well as their parents.

But in all this she will undergo a transformation. A possible name change, start wearing a burqa, will no longer seek darshan before a ‘sreekovil’ to receive prasada which was so much part of her 20 plus years as a Hindu. Why confuse religion with love or relationships. Union of two souls doesn’t mean a union of religious beliefs. How does this conversion for love differ from the missionary conversions (allegedly lured with imported milk powder and bread) or other such conversions of the weaker population?

Hope ultimately the sanctity of love would triumph. It may one day help us to accept relationships above gothras, diktats of khaps (a new term into the vocabulary of the Indian urban populace) and religion among other boundaries we have collectively raised over the centuries…