A 'Bloody' Valentine's Day Story -  Saga of Love turned to Hatred

by Melka Miyar - Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje  
for Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)   
 
Names changed

Mangalore, Feb 14:  Valentine's Day is a special and memorable day in the life of a young person for several reasons. It is decisive day which may end in either success or failure depending on one's luck, committment and fate. Not all are lucky in love, and some of them are not lucky even in the kind of partners they choose.

Here is a story of a couple who completely forgot the world last Valentine's Day and entered into holy wedlock, so much so that they even forgot their own parents. It was an inter-caste marriage, but not the perfect one. Just four days before their first wedding anniversary, the highly jealous and suspicious wife pierced a broken soda bottle into her husband's body, leaving the unfortunate guy badly injured and bleeding, and now recuperating in hospital.

Well, to go back in time 24-year-old Sudhir was a very talented dancer. For the past five years he has been running his own dancing school in Ullal. In addition to teaching dance he also performed in many places around Mangalore city. One fine day he performed a dance at Manasa in Pilikula, where his present wife Shobha watched his performance and instantly fell head over heels in love with him. Cupid's arrow did its job both ways as Sudhir too fell victim to love at first sight.

After a few meetings their affair bloomed and their love story took a serious turn. Shobha started demanding marriage from him and even threatened to commit suicide if he did not marry her. Although Sudhir too liked her, he was not in a position to agree immediately to her demands as he had two younger sisters of marriageable age in his family. Being the eldest and the only son in their family, he had several responsibilities on his young shoulders. But Shobha on her part refused to budge from her stand and wanted immediate marriage.

Unable to bear the pressure, Sudhir finally relented and married Shobha at the registrar's office on February 14, 2007, sadly without his own parents' consent and presence. Then began the saga of daily squabbles and torture. In Sudhir's own words their marital life turned into martial life barely within 15 days of their tying the knot. Thus their family life began on a tumultuous note. In the midst of all these problems they managed to find a rented house at Kujumagadde in Kumpala, and began residing there.

As Sudhir was a dance teacher by profession, young girls interested in learning the art started coming to his classes for training. This became the major reason for most of their bickering and fights.

Sudhir's own profession turned into a nightmare for him.  Shobha would always become suspicious about Sudhir's motives and his dealings with his students. Quarrels became a part and parcel of their life and the fights were so loud and vocal that even the neighbours could overhear and soon they started informing Sudhir's parents about these regular unfortunate occurrences.

The frequent misunderstandings worried Sudhir's parents so much would rush to the couple's house to intervene and pacify the two no matter what time of the day or night. Sudhir had callously forgotten them earlier, but the caring parents would return to their house only after brokering peace between the two and bringing about a semblance of calm in the environment. Depite all efforts on the part of the parents, Sudhir and his wife continued to be at loggerheads throughout the year.

Things came to a boil on February 10 this year. A young lady came to Sudhir's house for taking some dresses for a dance recital from him. This minor incident was sufficient for Shobha to see red. All hell broke loose and in a fit of temper, she smashed a soda bottle and rushed at Sudhir aiming his chest with the jarred edges of the bottle.

Fortunately for Sudhir, he managed to dodge and she merely succeeded in piercing his left leg. If that was not enough she even bit him in several places all over his back and shoulder. To add to his trauma some of the neighbours too joined in, siding with Shobha and attacked Sudhir assuming that he was the culprit. Badly injured and unable to bear the pain Sudhir fell and rolled on to the ground.

Finally, one of the neighbours taking pity on him and got him admitted to the Netaji Ellappa hospital at Thokkottu. Earlier too Sudhir had complained against his wife several times to the Superintendant of Police. Now it had reached a stage where there was no turning back.

Today Sudhir is firm that he will not return to his wife and is adamant to divorce her. Even his own mother Kavita fears for her son's life and feels that one day Shobha will kill her son, if he continues to have any relation with her.

On the other side, Shobha blatantly denies all her wrong doings and is demanding that her husband go back to her. She did not have the basic courtesy to even pay a simple visit to her husband in the hospital where he had been admitted badly injured due to her. She in fact is blaming and bad-mouthing him to all and sundry that Sudhir is a womanizer. But Sudhir insists that it is Shobha who is a highly jealous and suspicious woman, and responsible for all their problems.

In the midst of all this domestic drama, Sudhir's parents are weeping and ruing over the fact that Sudhir himself is responsible for the pathetic condition he is in by going ahead and marrying such a woman without their consent.

Only time will tell what the outcome of this story will be. This has been a story of a love marriage which began on Valentine's Day, a world-wide lovers' day and ironically it took a tragic turn just days before Valentine's Day. Indeed a lesson for all young immature lovers who jump into matrimony without thinking of the pros and cons and forgetting everything in their urgency to get married all in the name of 'love'.

That is probably the reason why they say love is blind.