Sebastian’s Tale

Everyone in St. Philomena’s Junction knew three things about Sebastian Kuruvilla.

One: he was unmarried.
Two: he was calm about it.
Three: this calm was deeply suspicious.

“Good evening,” Sebastian said one Sunday, standing near the parish hall steps holding a paper cup of weak tea. “Please relax. I am unmarried, but stable.”

Next to him, tea spurted out of Thankachan uncle’s nose. “Stable?” the uncle repeated. “At your age?”

Sebastian smiled. He had perfected this smile abroad: neutral, polite, unprovable.

In St. Philomena’s, marriage was not a personal choice. It was public infrastructure. Roads could crack, buses could vanish, oxygen could become optional, but marriages had to happen on schedule. Preferably before your name appeared too often on the parish notice board.

The village worked like an open-source database. Everyone had access.

“Sebastian,” said Aunty Elsamma later on the phone (following a long chat with his mother), “salary is good, no?”

“Enough to eat,” he said.

“Current height?”

“Gravity-approved.”

“Fair hair?”

“No, original still.”

On this end of the phone Sebastian could tell Aunty was nodding gravely and ticking boxes on her celestial clipboard. He hadn’t seen her in a while. She lived eastwards, the distance presenting additional opportunities to hook into compatible religious communities and widen the pool.

Privacy, Sebastian had learned early, was a foreign concept. Like snow, or dowry-free weddings.

The standard greeting round the Junction was never How are you? But, Why are you still like this?

Like what?
Unmarried?
Breathing?
Believe in free will?

Marriage, at the Junction, was the eighth sacrament, unofficial but compulsory. Clear it and society applauded. Delay it and society assumed multiple defects. Medical, moral, metaphysical.

Weddings too,were misunderstood, more economic stimulus package than emotional compatibility.

When two people say yes, voluntarily or otherwise, gold moves faster than any species of affection. Caterers earn more in a weekend than poets in a lifetime. Dowry is illegal of course. Instead there are gifts, adjustments, blessings, and those ever-popular just small things.

“Small things,” Sebastian’s mother once explained gently, “think forty sovereigns, a car, a bit of cash for emergencies.”

“What emergencies?”

She looked offended. “Marriage is the emergency.”

Parents saved their entire lives for one day of glory. Before the wedding, they were anxious. After the wedding, bankrupt. During the wedding, kings. For six whole hours poverty was postponed.

Sebastian had been raised well. His grandmother had taught him restraint, kindness, silence, forgiveness. Unfortunately, these values worked.

A good reputation in a small town was dangerous. It turned you into property.

His phone rang constantly.

Unknown numbers.
Semi-known relatives.
Fully-invested matchmakers.

“Foreign exposure?”
“Permanent visa?”
“Any… problems?”

“Yes,” Sebastian would reply, sensing an increased tendency to view him as a customised fast food order. “Too many calls.’

Tall. Educated. Minimal bad habits. Values-based. Available with or without settlement.

“Would you like fries with that?” one broker joked. “We also have a nurse from Birmingham.”

When Sebastian said no, gently, society became imaginative.

“Too educated.”
“Confused.”
“Commitment issues.”
“Something is wrong.”

Yes. Something was wrong.

He was not in a hurry.

Even the clergy intervened.

Priests called. Nuns called. They gave excellent marital advice despite never having tried marriage. Their concern was genuine. Their persistence legendary.

“You must not delay God’s plan,” said Sister Agnes.

“I’m not delaying,” Sebastian replied. “I’m listening.”

“To whom?”

“To myself.”

Silence. Then prayer. Then another call next week.

Sebastian had lived abroad, in a city where people lived first and explained later. They studied, failed, worked strange jobs, loved recklessly, separated gently. Marriage was not a deadline but a conversation.

Weddings were small. Understanding was large.

Back home, he met Mariam, a daily wage worker saving every rupee. This was not for rest or for joy, but to buy a car for her daughter’s future groom.

“It is duty,” she said, proud.

“It is tradition,” others said.

While Sebastian thought: Tradition is just pressure with persuasive branding.

He chose to live differently. One meal a day. A mat on the floor. Crisis instead of ceremony. Hospital volunteer. People often mistook him for staff.

“Doctor, may I ask ..?” they asked.

“No,” he replied. “Sorry.”

“You forget yourself,” he was once told.

“No,” he replied. “I remember myself too clearly.”

When cities choked and oxygen became a paid subscription, Sebastian understood something simple and brutal: nothing was permanent. We were all oru pidi charam — a handful of ash, temporarily rented by the universe. So forgive the lad if he refused to rush into marriage to satisfy a well-developed market.

He saw family as responsibility not a KPI, love as alignment not urgency. Marriage was definitely not an insurance policy, and if this approach made him an outcast, so be it. Sebastian was determined not to become a commodity or an investment. Or a bunch of biodata forwarded to a relative by WhatsApp.

Instead, he was one of one.

Somewhere between tea stalls, parish halls, hospital corridors and unanswered calls his story continued. It bubbled gently and occasionally overflowed. The rest, he believed, could wait.

___