Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

I stepped outside my home yesterday, as usual fiddling with my mobile, not looking where I was going and .... no , I dint fall, thanks for thinking the nicest thought that comes into your head.... I see this couple passing by, I absent mindedly turn back to my mobile and see that the lady has stopped and turned around and was gesturing to me. She says "Chennagidiya" and I go "hmm, smile ,neenu(darn I should have said neevu)?
she nods and then I realise who she is.
Now, the area I live in, at one point of time, fully belonged to just one man. A landlord / zamindar if you will. He passed away and split it up among 5 sons, all of whom have their houses on the street that I have my house on. The village turned into part of Bangalore, land got sold to all those new settlees and people like yours truly began to call that area theirs.
Now, the family of those 5 brothers still continue to have farms and have cows , so there's a whole lot of village atmosphere yet when you go to their homes. The menfolk sell milk in the morning, the women will help clean up the gobar, they have a dozen or so servants running around.
Now the children of this household grow up in an atmosphere of zamindari whilst having to do proper physical labour without shying away from it and yet go to colleges like Jyoti Nivas or Christ and see the 'other' crowd.
Now when I used to go to college, this lady (go back to the beginning of the story, in case you forgot who the lady is) and me used to occasionally go together. She was the typical homely traditional type, who nurtured hopes or should I call them dreams of graduating and becoming a working woman, independant. She was one of those soft spoken girls who had an ever ready smile no matter what.I lost touch with her and heard a little while later that she had given up studying for marriage. The only thing that came to mind then was fury.Now, here was someone who felt studying would make a difference in her life, someone to whom it mattered that she was educated, someone who had a dream.It was all squashed for a mere marriage. And as a bystander there was nothing else I could do anyways.
She got married and left for some faraway place.
And yesterday, for RamaNavami she had come home to visit her parents and passed by my place. We got to speaking, where are you now ... Are you working? She says , I think wistfully, "I am a proper housewife" and smiles.
Truth be told, she looked so beautiful and at peace with life that it didnt seemt to matter that she wasnt working or that she even remembered what she wanted 8 years ago.
ANd best of all, she still had that smile on :)