The marriage preparations were abruptly stopped. As usual, there was no provocation for it beyond a sharp exchange of words, and egos were bruised on all sides. The boy's father, Thakur Narhari Singh, flew into a rage when his plans for the young couple's future were challenged by the girl in front of her father and other family elders.

But what really set the stage for what happened next was the way in which the disagreement became a war of words. In the typical swaggering style of a feudal lord, the Thakur had pronounced that he would wait for exactly 9 months to become a grandfather and that his newly married son should set about propagating the clan forthwith.