Literature repeats itself?

When time gets tough and all leave your side, the only people that you can rely on is your family, though it doesn't happen too often these days, at least in the times that Nirmala's saga was based, families did stick together in crisis, or so is my assumption. Nirmala's family did come to her rescue when her marriage came to a sudden stop, but was it for her good?

Kalyani was bent on getting her daughter married no matter what happened.. she could at no cost have a unmarried girl in her home for long.. even though her age was only 16! and adding to the misery was lack of funds. Kalyani's favorite Panditji would bring matches from near and far, but they all asked for money.. some thousand, some three thousand..but I should say there were some interesting ones that seemed a reasonable, like a zamindar's son, 20 years of age.. good looking; then there's an owner of a printing press, 18 years old.. for a minute there I thought, may be there is something better in store for her, like the famous saying goes, 'Jo hota hai, acche ke liye hota hai'...But I think Premchand (the author) was in chronic depression or was in a sadistic mood of making all others depressed when he penned Nirmala so he continued to add to Nirmala's woes. Kalyani was a very concerned mother, when it came to her sons' future, their studies but wasn't so concerned when it came to her daughters' lives, the ill-fated girl child syndrome! I can't believe the lady gave up good suitors just for a thousand rupees.. Perilous times those were, only for women though.

Finally the lucky one.. a certain lawyer named Munshi Totaram, I am sure the author has some good explanation for the choice of names (remember Rangili?). And so Nirmala was to wed the Lawyer who was more than double her age and had three kids!!! Deja-vu? yes its a la Devdas. Come to think of it, Nirmala was in the same position as Paro was in Devdas, not just that Munshiji's first son was a year or two younger than Nirmala, doesn't that sound like Mahender, Thakur's eldest son in Devdas? Similarity ends there though.. Nirmala did not have any childhood friend providing 'love-relief' in her life . Nirmala resigned to her fate, accepted Munshi Totaram as her pati parmeshwar.. well at least she's married now, I thought as I closed the book for the day, but on an after thought is being married to a man who is good enough to be your father better than not marrying at all? If I had a choice I'd choose latter unless he's insanely rich! or looks like Sean Connery or for that matter even George Clooney. But in this story, the women don't have choice as a part of their vocab!