"Hey, Shikha, are you in there??"Neha yelled from the hallway. She walked in and threw herself on Shikha?s bed. "Katti padi rakhe ko bhanya!" "I really need your advice on the red saree mamoo chose for me. Red looks too pakhe bhanya! How about the pink---it?s a young and happening color, hoina ta?" Neha chattered. "Why is it so important?" Shikha dragged her eyes away from the lecture she was preparing for her students the next day. "Doesn?t anything matter to you Shikha? I mean, marriage, boys, life? I envy you. Mamoo and Buba have always set their expectations high on you. What are you going to do with your Phd. in Psychology anyways?" Neha was irritated by Shikha's obvious indifference to her wedding predicament. "Neha, what?s bothering you? You have been nitpicking about everything. Is it saree or the groom?" Shikha scrutinized Neha?s irritation. "My life is not as perfect, disciplined or smooth as yours Shikha. I am trying to make it so by agreeing to this marriage. I know it will be good for me ?and for everyone. Actually, I am lucky to have Binod. Just pre wedding blues!" Neha sighed as she hugged her knees protectively. "Taipani daar ta lagcha. Anyways, come with me to the saree store tomorrow. Maybe we can spend some time away from home and you from university. Lately you?ve been withdrawn and if I am not mistaken, you?ve been putting on weight. I hope my wedding is not depressing you." She ended cheekily as she left the room. Shikha turned back to Carl Jung. "The greater the area of unconsciousness, the less is marriage a matter of free choice, as is shown subjectively in the fatal compulsion one feels so acutely when one is in love. The compulsion can exist even one is not in love, though in less agreeable form." Despite his, what Shikha called, vague and disputable writings, Jung did have a point there. Although, Jung, she felt was more of a social phenomenon than a scientist, he was as important as Freud in this particular class she taught on Ego and the Unconscious, at the university. Neha, she thought, fitted into this particular Jungian notion of the unconscious compulsion to marry?unconscious motivation triggered off by parental influence, in this case. For Shikha, the notion of marriage held no psychological cohesion, just a symbolic one. In fact, the last 7 months of having Jeevan in her life, convinced her. ********* Jeevan was her high school crush back in Kathmandu. A pimple faced, ponytailed, sixteen year old Shikha, kept it to herself. Jeevan was beyond her dreams because he inhabited every girlish fantasy. She could only watch with a knot in her budding chest, as Jeevan hung out with his buddies and graduated out of school and her life. Seven months ago, Shikha met Jeevan again. This time during a conference she had attended in Boston. Cambridge was the perfect walking city in which to fall in love. Harvard square which began as a colonial village had enveloped her in its quaint 17th century structures. She had succumbed to his easy charm as she had to the surreal circumstances of their meeting at the Octoberfest. Two weeks and miles of walking around parks, through museums, libraries, bookstores and hours of cuddling in her motel bed, spurred him into purchasing an antique ring. It was a make-shift engagement ring she consciously accepted. Her feelings, she had no control over. The next day, they parted, he to LA and she to DC. Emails and addresses had been exchanged, the date was set for Jeevan to come to DC on December, for the New Year. He was in-between jobs. He didn't make it. *****************to be continued**************