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The Mush Register

LOVE CONQUERS ALL Evans West, overseer, Power Sanctuary, with wife Saleen

Evans West

Her conservative father attempted suicide twice because she wanted to marry an African. She was locked up in her room and tortured. When this did not work, he made her believe he had changed his mind. He even came to Chennai to meet me. Only to warn me to `stay away from my daughter'. He went back to Bangalore and lied to her saying, `That boy beat me black and blue and humiliated me.' He even shed tears as he related this to her. She swallowed the lie — hook, line and sinker. But when I went to Bangalore and asked her to marry someone of her parents' choice, she realised her father's deception.

Saleen

I realised it was pointless to wait for the day when my parents would accept that we were madly in love. We resorted to The Special Marriage Act, but made a commitment that we would not live as man and wife until our marriage was solemnised in a church. So, the first seven months of my married life was spent in my father's house. One day, Evans knocked on the door and produced a copy of the marriage certificate. My startled father had to let me go. Evans was daring enough to fix the date for our wedding with just Rs. 147 in the kitty! That money was not even sufficient to meet the cost of the cheapest wedding cards in town. Evans begged the owner of the printing press to do the job for that measly sum — "Love marriage. Please help me!" Six days before the wedding, we did not have a singe paisa. The marriage, however, turned out to be grand affair because help came from all around — from the wedding sari to the cake.

(As told to PRINCE FREDERICK)

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