You Just Know
Last Thursday, my fellow dancers and I were sitting around, talking at the end of Bharatanatyam class with Kausalya, our professor. Everyone was asking my best friend about her enormous engagement ring and future wedding plans. Kausalya always tells us interesting aspects of her culture or her life in India. She then told us that she had an arranged marriage when she was twenty-four and now has a twenty-two year old daughter. She and her husband live in India, but she travels to Massachusetts one semester a year to teach a couple classes.
One girl asked Leah if her fiancé is "The One" and our professor asked, "One what?" We all chuckled and explained that we meant "the one man for Leah". We tried to explain what soul-mates were, but though Kausalya nodded and laughed with us, it was clear she didn't quite get it. She just looked around at us, seven girls and one boy all about twenty years old, as we tried to think of examples she would understand. Then she asked simply, "How do you know?"
How do you know? And how do you explain to someone who has lived in a marriage of respect but no love, that you just know you are meant to love someone?
One girl asked Leah if her fiancé is "The One" and our professor asked, "One what?" We all chuckled and explained that we meant "the one man for Leah". We tried to explain what soul-mates were, but though Kausalya nodded and laughed with us, it was clear she didn't quite get it. She just looked around at us, seven girls and one boy all about twenty years old, as we tried to think of examples she would understand. Then she asked simply, "How do you know?"
How do you know? And how do you explain to someone who has lived in a marriage of respect but no love, that you just know you are meant to love someone?
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