For all those who have viewed India only as a country which is a stricken with social stigma, this daughter’s efforts to bring a smile on her 52-year-old widow mother’s face should make you think again.
Having forgotten to smile whole-heartedly in the last 32 years, 52-year-old Anitha Chembuvilayil’s daughter Aathira Dathan went a long way to bring back happiness in her mother’s life. How did she do it? She reunited her mother with her true love, one she lost 32 years ago.
In what may be considered taboo for many in India, Aathira got her mother married to her true love G. Vikraman, a 58-year-old CPI (M) politician. What makes the story even more heart-rendering is the fact that Vikraman too had waited for her for over three decades.
Aathira wrote about the unsuccessful love story of Anitha and Vikraman on her Facebook wall, starting from the time when her mother was a kid till July 21, 2016, when she finally married her true love.
Here’s their story.
In 1984, Anitha, daughter of an Assistant Engineer in the Indian Army, was a class X student in Kollam, while Vikraman was a teacher at a coaching institute, and a member of the CPI (M).
It was during a party when the two met each other and fell in love. However, Anitha’s father was against the relationship. He thought that getting his daughter married to a much older man, a teacher and a CPI (M) leader, was beneath his status.
He forced his daughter to leave her schooling and conveyed to his daughter that Vikraman’s life would be in danger if they continued their relation and got married.
Let with no option, Anitha never met Vikraman again and later got married to another man chosen by her family.
Vikraman, with a broken heart, left the city and moved to Chavara. There, he spent three decades as a political activist but never got married.
After the birth of two daughters, her husband, who was also an alcoholic, committed suicide. Anitha not only gave her daughters a good life, but also provided them with good education.
Years later, Vikraman came back to Ochira after his retirement from the party. Here, he stood for the panchayat elections and coincidentally met Anitha again.
When she told her daughters about Vikraman, the two decided to get them reunited.
However, Anitha and Vikraman wanted the two daughters to get married before them. Just two months after the marriage of younger daughter Athira, the two finally got married after a long wait of 32 years.
