How Grand pa met Grand ma...

This is my favorite story...And  every time I get a chance to narrate it to anyone interested,I re-live the excitement that I had when I first heard the story from my grand aunt(My grandma's elder sister).

Am not aware of the right time-lines these events took place..guess it should be around 58 years or so before based on the age of my eldest aunt..

My great grand father was a feudal land lord  and an art teacher in Kerala .My great grand mother was his second wife and they had five children and my Granny was the third one..Her elder sister was married of quite early and she and her husband was settled in Singapore then...During the course of his business interactions,her husband met this sufficiently rich unmarried gentleman who was doing very well in his work front,but was lonely as he had left this home and family back in Kerala years back..This gentleman slowly became a regular visitor at their house and became like a member of their family..And My Grand Aunt took it as her responsibility to ensure that this good man finds a suitable bride and get settled in life (She says that she was afraid that he might find a Singaporean or Chinese wife..What a loss it would have been!).

With this noble cause in her mind,She sent across the details of this person to her father back home and asked him to forward this proposal to one of her cousin sister,who was already in her 30's and hence apt for this man in terms of her age and was other wise also a good match..But her father had other plans..When he went through the proposal,he replaced his third daughter in place of the cousin as the bride..The only issue was that she was only 19 and the bride-groom 44..but it was difficult to get a such a good 'boy' with out making any compromises right? Age was anyways such a small issue..

So he replied back to his daughter with a photo of his other daughter(Which my granny says was her first photograph ever and a photographer came home to take it, as till then she was not allowed to travel outside the house except for temple visits) enclosed in the envelope..After few initial debates ,the elder daughter also agreed to dad's idea and showed the photo to the 'boy' ..Looking at that photo,I guess I know why there was not much resistance from that side..

The issue of bride was resolved , but there arose a new issue..Where will they get married ? Bride and family was in Kerala and the Bride groom in Singapore ..And he was not ready to go to Kerala then..My great grand dad found a solution to this also..he said why bother coming here, we will sent the bride to Singapore and the wedding will take place there..So it was decided that the bride,accompanied by her elder brother will take the ship to Singapore and the the ceremony will take place at bridegroom estate there.The elder brother ran to the tailor to get his coat sticthed and started preparing for his first trip abroad..as far as the bride was concerned..she should have been fighting mixed emotions of fear, longing and god knows what..(but till today she always told me that she was blank then..) no one had even asked her opinion..

Things went as decided except for a small twist..great grand dad decided that he should accompany his daughter and not his son..and uncle's new coat..never saw its way outside the cupboard(heard that he was upset about it for along time ;))...My Grandma who had till that day never even ventured out to the city from her village,took a ship to Singapore and the very next day of landing there was married of to Grand pa..

Now If you are wondering what happened afterwards...Well its sweet..They had a long happy married life with 6 healthy children..Fourth one being my father..And after my father was born they decided to come back and settle in India..And my father celebrated his first birthday in the ship on their way back...