Frist cousins Arvind and Asha lived as neighbours in village Khergoon and their parents never suspected that the two were in love. Though they often met each other and laughed together, the relationship was taken as that among siblings. So when Arvind sought permission to go to Vaishno Devi, with Asha in tow, about a fortnight ago, the parents had no hesitation in bidding them bye. The two proceeded with about Rs 1,000 that Arvind could manage fromhis savings as an agriculture labourer.

Today, restless on his bed in the GMC here, the eighteen-year old Arvind seems to be agonised by memories of the recent past. Mumbling a few words after persistent questioning, he revealed that they married each other after paying obeisance at the goddess' temple. The marriage, he tells, was not solemnised in presence of pundits but was performed among themselves.

Coming to Jammu, the newly-married couple lodged themselves in a city hotel, not realising that they would soon run out of money. A day's honeymoon later, as the fears of an emptied purse and possible family ridicule came haunting, the two decided to end their lives. And in the act of taking poison, it was Asha, a school dropout having nine brothers and sisters, who took the first and decisive step. ``She emptied nearly two-thirds of the insecticide bottle into her stomach,'' recalls Arvind. In the process, she saved her husband's life as the remaining poison was not enough to be lethal.

Upset at thestep taken by the two, Arvind's father, Radhey Shyam Gehlot, who reached Jammu on Tuesday along with Asha's father (his brother-in-law), says that had the two made their relationship known, the families would have agreed to their marriage. ``After all what could we do. It was their life.'' Denying that the couple faced any threat on their return, he said though they were not in know of things, the marriage would have ultimately been accepted by all in the village. An agriculture worker with meager earnings, Radhey Shyam feels it was paucity of money more than anything else that led the two to take poison. ``About Rs 600 of the little money they had must have been used in tickets. The remaining might not have been adequate for them even to return home,'' he says.

The family members who claimed Asha's body from the mortuary on Wednesday, cremated it here as they could not afford to take it back.