Money or Honey

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This is a genuine story and believe me, I'm not making this up. On 8th September 2015, Janvi, a distant cousin of mine was supposed to get married in Mumbai. She was 24, bright, beautiful, highly educated and one of the best souls I'd ever met. Her parents had been in search of a guy since the start of the year. They had only wished for a financially stable and a great, matured guy. The kind of expectations they had for a guy was actually very less when compared to their daughter. Such a perfect girl was very difficult to find and even more difficult to have. An ideal girl for any guy. Finally they, settled on to a guy and that rascal's name was Rishabh. He was an MBA from IIM Ahmadabad. What else would one want? He seemed to be a really great guy, but few of us had always been suspicious about him. The guy was selected in the month of April itself. The two were really happy with their upcoming relationship and my uncle and aunt were even more happy. They had finally got what they had always wanted. It was nothing less than a dream come true. My family and I had seen almost everything in front of our eyes. That flow of emotions between the three of them was just so joyful to watch. I was really happy for my sister. I felt that this couple is absolutely made for each other. Soon they were engaged. Things were going so beautifully that one can't explain. I had never seen my sister so happy. But who knew that her happiness was supposed to exist for a limited period of time. One fine day, the father of my cousin's fiance called my uncle and in a very short and straight manner said that we don't want your daughter and this marriage, I'm really sorry for the trouble we have given you. My uncle was broken into several pieces from within. The lifelessness which I had seen in his eyes at that point of time still brings chills to my spine. How fearful that situation was. My cousin had lost all her expectations to live. My aunt was very sensible as she didn't let herself break but tried to motivate my cousin. I knew that she was the one who was affected the most. The three of them had gone into severe depression for a very long time. Our family decided to give them their space but we used to give them a visit not very often. Soon we got a news that Rishabh has tied a knot in Indore, with an Indore based girl. Undoubtedly that girl would have never been as great as my sister. We came to know that Rishabh and his family had backed out of the relationship with us because he had received an 'offer' from an Indore based business tycoon for his daughter's marriage. Dowry or whatever you call it, he was offered a hotel and an enormously big plot in Mumbai itself from them and these selfish people slipped over it. My uncle was an upper middle class and he was doing the best he could. He had planned to gift him a Toyota Innova and that was the best he could do. Is money so important? Are relationship so spineless? In this era , people rightly say that it is impossible to trust anyone. My uncle, who had risked everything for his daughter had only one simple dream to get his daughter married to reasonably good guy. My aunt, who had never wanted anything for herself couldn't just see her daughter marry. My cousin, who is still reluctant to marry and has no such plans any time soon now. She has left all her expectations to start a new phase in life. Our society and more importantly our generation needs to think sensibly. Money or Honey is a big topic to debate on. -Thank you-