When the boy and his parents came for the traditional pennukanal ( viewing the bride to be)ceremony they came in a car and it was the first time people of chengannur saw a car. The whole village joined together and rejoiced with Kochammai on her good fortune. But at the church, just before the wedding everyone realized the groom’s family was cheating them all along. There at the altar, was the intended groom’s blind brother dressed in all wedding finery and wearing a dark Rayban sunglass and holding a beautifully carved teak walking stick. It was too late to cancel the wedding, probably the elders knew even if they did cancel the wedding, no one would come forward and marry Kochammai. She is already considered unlucky. How will anyone marry a woman whose marriage failed at the altar!
The wedding went ahead. But after the ceremony much to everyone’s surprise Kochammai’s father refused to send her to her husband’s place. He asked his daughter “Do you want to follow your husband and go to his house?”
“Kochammai shook her head and said no”.
He took his daughter’s hand and walked towards home. Leaving behind a stunned congregation of family members and friends from both sides of the family.
At home Kochammai’s mother tried to convince her husband that the marriage was already solemnised. She told him
“of course, the grooms family cheated us, but the fact remains, the wedding has been solemnised and our daughter is now the boy’s wife.” Besides, although the groom is blind, they are rich and our daughter can live like a queen there.
Appachan didn’t say anything. He sat on the easy chair in the veranda staring at the horizon.
That evening, the priest and a few elders from the church came to the house and tried to convince Appachan to send his daughter to her husband’s house. They argued that the only fault the groom had was his blindness. They asked Appachan,
“what if he became blind after the wedding? Would you then bring your daughter back home?”
Appachan just shook his head and replied, ‘ I didn’t agree to marry my daughter to a blind man and she doesn’t want to go with him, and I will not force her.’
Kochammai never went to her husband’s house and she never re-married again. She passed away a year before I was born but her story was often told in the family as no one in the family wanted to forget how Kochammai’s life had been destroyed. even before she had a chance to live it