© Candce Feit/The Globe and Mail
Veer and Puja Bharti faced violence and disapproval of their love marriage because they are from different castes.
New Delhi- They met on the bus to college in 2005. Soon he was cutting class all morning to ride the bus and make sure he had the chance to talk to her. Puja Bharti says she knew within moments of speaking to her now-husband, Veer, that it was love. And she knew that this love was going to be a big problem.
Veer and Puja are from different
jati in the Hindu caste system. And although they have thoroughly modern Indian families who sent them to earn college degrees and urged them both into business, neither family would tolerate the idea that their children should have a "love marriage," as it is known here.
Mr. Bharti's father confronted him about the relationship in 2008, and when he refused to renounce Puja, beat him up and threw him out of the house. He moved in with friends in another city, found a job and started saving money in the hope of persuading her to elope. Her family, meanwhile, began a campaign of physical assault and emotional abuse that escalated until, one day in September, she overheard her brother saying the time had come to kill her, since she stubbornly refused to marry any boy the family chose for her. So Ms. Bharti ran away and used her last rupees in a payphone call to Mr. Bharti. And he in turn made a call to a number he'd read in the paper, and saved just in case.
He called the Love Commandos. And they kicked into action.
