Teeny Tiny Shots|✓

Bright Pink Cheeks ✓

Tags: arranged marriage/rural setting/developing relationship

Word Count: 4k words

Prompt idea: sk299906

Kirtana heaves a sigh as she sits on the mat, her back resting on the wall and hands on knees. The pallu of her saree lays crinkled on her lap and beads of sweat adorn her young and plump face.

Oh, how she's willing to sacrifice anything to just take a small nap right now. It would be so easy to just lay back on the cold floor and close her eyes. Away from the burning of the stove, the heat, the utensils, the kitchen and that incessant shouting of her mother-in-law who has recently come back from her pilgrimage in the mountains along with her daughter.

Now don't get her wrong. She isn't complaining. She knew this would happen. As a girl born and brought up in a typical, rural, patriarchal society, she was conditioned to be like this, a housewife; was conditioned to "work in the kitchen and help your future family, Kirti, and don't ever be disrespectful to anyone, ok?"

When she was in her village, now and then she used to hear the horrors of having an agonizing, problematic mother-in-law who'd demand for babies 24/7, sons, to be precise. But she hadn't ever experienced it first hand because of course, this was her first marriage. Destiny though didn't make her wait more than she should, quickly giving her a husband and a loving mother-in-law (note the sarcasm).

The rumour is true by the way. Her mother-in-law is problematic and does demand a grandson all day long.
So yes, she is tired. Why did she have to come back, again? The first week of her marriage (having it been only a month to her marriage till now) had passed on smoothly, just her and a familiar stranger and the awkward silence between them. It was better than the constant complaints of Shyam's mother.

However, apart from the mother, gratefully, she truly doesn't have anything to complain about in this house, definitely not her husband who stands a head taller than her, slight stubble adorning his face with unique hazel colour eyes (the only feature she could engrain in her mind by taking in shy glances during their wedding ceremony) that crinkle when he sighs or smiles.

She still doesn't know much about him, though, nothing other than his appearance, and name. Shyam, his name is Shyam. At least that's what she remembers from when her parents had introduced her to him for the proposal of an arranged marriage.

Arranged marriage.

Being a wife in an arranged marriage wasn't what Kirtana had ever dreamt of, not after reading those stories about princes and princesses in those secondhand books that were passed on to her by the rich neighbourhood where her mother worked.

Like every other girl, she too had wanted a love marriage, a loving husband and a loving relationship. However, love marriage had always been a taboo in her village, something that gave pain to the parents and was symbolic of disregarding their love. So yes, it wasn't hard for her to convince herself in favour of arranged marriage as supposed to the former. Regardless of that, she had never imagined agreeing to a proposal as quickly as she had done with this one.

Not because it was a love at first sight or something like that but because of her parents' greed for the acres of land that Shyam owned, the fact relieving them of presenting any dowry to Shyam's family. That, and because anywhere would be better than listening to the continuous noise and babblings of her four younger siblings; the youngest being 7 years old and her being 21.

The overpopulation of her siblings was also one of the reasons why she didn't want to extend her family. She didn't want that, didn't want to take care of children when she was barely a woman herself.