Playing Games with Marriage

After a thought provoking blog like ‘To be or not to be’ ( it was thought provoking, isn’t it, please say so, can’t accept 1339 words getting wasted ), once again a marriage topic. People are going to think that I am obsessed with the subject. Well I could be, only as a subject and nothing else. But this is more of fun stuff.

Games2Win has launched a game called as ‘The Great Indian Arranged Marriage’. Well let us first give it to their Humor and the liberal use of oxymoron in a game title. What is so great about an arrange marriage I don’t know, but the CEO claims that their website gets a lot of international traffic, so like the famed Indian mysticism, this can also be sold successfully.

The game has a tagline stating ‘Celebrate the sacred union of two hearts – The Indian way’ and a monkey initially jumps up and down before the much meaningful graphics takes over. Now this is fun, celebrating sacred union of two hearts ( I had a typo stating ‘scared union of two hearts, later corrected ). The game has various stages and starts with a phone call between the prospective bride and groom with an army of relatives listening on either side. Then it goes on and on with various rituals coming into play, like Engagement ceremony, Mehndi, Sangeeth, Wedding, Reception etc. Would become more popular if they go well into the night, but that’s not the case to be.

Anyway, I was imagining Sid playing this game after his account of a long ordeal that is the marriage event. Best part is that you can choose to lose the game in the first level itself by telling something crazy on the phone. I didn’t want to venture further. But I presume that you would have that opportunity to call it off at any point of the game.

Now that is something. Holding the key to escape anytime!

To be or Not to be

A Shakespearean quote would be the apt beginning for this piece. This is not got anything to do with the dilemma of Hamlet of whether to live or die. Or what could death bring as against the known miseries of life. Though maybe something equivalent! Has the same intensity and trouble in deciding. It is about to be or not to be in marriage!

Diwali eve brought a friend home. I invited him because he was alone at his place ( wouldn’t call it a home ) brooding over his loneliness with only rum to accompany him. I have known him for many years now and he along with his wife made awesome company to us in the early days. They met in college, promptly fell in love and married against the wishes of their folks. But they were a cool couple, with her competing with me in drowning bottles of beer and laughing loud. He is a pretty sedate guy, but has a great sense of humor. They had seen their share of trouble and had come out of it and have a lovely daughter as proof.

And then suddenly things went sour. No one knows why! She simply turned crazy. Skirmishes turned to violent fights. Somehow there was always an artificial high, buying of property, changing cities, promotion in jobs that kept the marriage going. And then the bubble burst. They started living in the same house but used different bedrooms, with a daughter caught in between. While, this arrangement was going smooth for a while, at some point of time, even that got collapsed when she started telling her daughter things unmentionable even in my standards of audacity & transparency. And that was it for him. He moved out of the house and found himself a place. It was definitely not one sided as I write it to be, as we were friends for both of them and counseled both of them on various occasions. Used to take both their versions with a pinch of salt, but what made me think in his favor was what she was poisoning the kid’s mind.

This guy was all sad when he called, because his daughter was not visiting him for Diwali, because her mother is planning to take her to a friend’s house. While we were talking this stuff, a call landed in his phone and it was his daughter. He was being escorted by an uncle to whom she was dumped to for Diwali by her mother. That was a shocker. She didn’t allow the kid to visit the Dad and neither was she willing to celebrate it with her, but palmed the kid off to someone completely unimportant. And the daughter wanted to see the dad. It is a different story that she made it to our place and we had huge fun for about 30 minutes. But she made me cry when she left. A kid all of 10 years, being poisoned by mom, with huge love for dad and wanting to be with him, but had to lie to her mother about seeing him and go to some corner of the city to celebrate Diwali with neither of the parents, with them being alone to themselves. How cruel it can become?

I have had my share of friends who wanted to separate; somehow to all of them I have advised patience and asked them to work it out. There was one girl, who already was living alone, but I persuaded her to go back and the next time I heard of her, she was heavily pregnant. With these guys also I made that attempt. Not because I am against divorce, but something tells you in your mind that there would still be something left to be tried. And it comes from what you know of the couple, their stubbornness, their love to each other, and their willingness to compromise on beliefs for the other. When I realized that part about my friend’s wife, I asked him to quit for his own goodness. We knew about the kid, we anticipated this shit, but still there was only a limit someone can take. Another friend of mine, when it was getting a little bit too much for her that included abuse, simply went to office one day and never went back home. And what kind of ordeal it would have been for her, to take a decision of leaving a 7 year old son, who is now at college but she hasn’t seen him again. Another friend of mine has been visiting the court for almost 10 years now, because the divorce is not by mutual consent. That joker of a husband of hers, who ensured that she went through sufficient abuse, claims that he wants to live with her. Maybe he thinks the abuse is not still sufficient.

There is this that ‘Tipping Point’ when people decide enough is enough. And I think that happens when they don’t see any future in the relationship. It cannot run on past glories or what the society prescribes. For many of them, it is the stigma associated with the act of divorce. Especially women, but my friends had been bolder in that context. They knew that it is not the society that sleeps in the other half of the bed. It is them with that demon and they better handle it themselves, rather than wallowing in misery inside, but put up a brave front and a fantastic show for the society. After all, the society would not be there when you want them. At its convenience, it becomes too decent. Non-interfering and it may include your own folks. It is your decision and you need to take it. And the only thing that matters is that whether you look forward to peaceful time with the partner for the rest of your lives, if not and you are sure that it is going to be terrible, if you don’t quit it will be a mighty waste. And surprisingly, we don’t feel accountable for our own happiness; we somehow think that it is martyrdom that is fashionable. We feel that giving into one’s own pleasure is crime and we always have to think about the rest. BS it is. Maybe if you really feel that way, atleast you should start feeling accountable for you own sadness. Don’t pursue happiness, but atleast ensure that you aren’t sad.

I was listening to a very wise man in TV this morning. A college professor who talked so very beautifully about Hinduism, Manusmriti & Samskaras specifically! Only when you hear and understand what the religion has prescribed, you will come out of the shallowness that we all seem to have presumed as intelligence. The Veda’s were oral forms earlier. They are believed to be Anaadhi ( without beginning ) and they always existed as sound waves in the Universe and our great ancestors had the power to make meaning out of those vibrations. The flip side to that was, it was passed from person to person and we don’t know which interpretation is right. This morning the Professor said that Divorce was allowed as per Vedas and he listed out a few reasons on what constitutes the ground for divorce. But when I hunt the Net, all mention on this subject is lopsided. They claim that women can’t divorce, but men can. And in the same breath there is also some supreme glorification about women’s role in a household. Even the Prof was telling how in Brahmin rituals we have the lady of the house standing behind the man and touches his shoulders through a Dharpam, because a wife is called Sahadharmini and that means she is a part of your dharma and you fulfill your destiny only through that partnership.

Anyway, the more you try to seek solutions from outside, the more you get confused. To my friend, if I had talked about Manusmriti when this crazy woman of him was sending anonymous letters to the tax guys about frauds in her husbands business, he would have bashed me up transferring all the anger he had on her against me.

I am convinced the laws of the society are just roadmaps for life. If you are sure, where you want to go, why the hell you need maps for!!!

Kindly Adjust

I happened to go through an article about Pondy cuisine and that prompts me to write this. Looks like, there is a national trait called ‘adjusting’!

Everyone everywhere wants someone to adjust. Be it a crowded seat in a bus, accommodating more people than what is possible in a small car, giving lesser money than what is due, not keeping timelines, everywhere this trait is evident in full glory. It is taken for granted in this country that people will adjust.

Maybe this is because of the famed tolerance the religion has inculcated in us. Hinduism without being asked, kindly adjusted many practices and heresies and thus was born Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

While in many occasions this trait has worked for good, I also believe that is the weakness of the system. Let us look at a few good ones. India is cultural bedrock for the world I would dare to say. The religion thrived because it was willing to adjust and hundreds of missionaries and thousands of invaders could not manage to kill it. Within the nation, with so much of diversity, we have always been willing to adjust and accommodate in many things starting from basics like food. You probably will have the most adjusted Chinese food in the whole world only in India. While catering to the taste buds of Indians, they somehow manage to retain the Chinese flavor. And such attitude always gives room for two different types of restaurants. Authentic Chinese and Chinese! You name it; you will get all cuisines of the world even in a place like Ratna Café, but cooked the Indian way.

But look at the flip side of this trait. We accept the most immoral and corrupt criminals as our elected leaders. We don’t care whether bigamy is practiced by a CM, but arrest a guy if he is a commoner. Because we adjust! We adjust with poor customer service. We adjust with bad time sense. We adjust with vulgar behavior. We adjust with lousy leaders at work. We accept mediocrity. We accept husbands as God. We adjust with thieves as maids. We adjust with drivers because they have their idiosyncrasies. We adjust, we adjust and we keep on adjusting. That was one funny and thoughtful campaign by VIP for their briefs. But how true it is! We can’t say no to someone who wants jostle in our car when we look forward for a peaceful 2 Hr drive with good music. And that someone will not even matter to us.

The nation is infected with a malady of not being able to say NO. In bold letters to anyone! You are asked, whether you like it or not, you adjust. And nothing happens out of good spirit. When it really comes to a situation to adjust, they won’t. In a 5 star beach resort, the steward would not allow me to sit in a table, because the restaurant is supposed to open 10 minutes later. A mobile phone that is just 3 weeks old malfunctions and I don’t have the service guys quickly fix it. When it is needed, no adjustment is made.

I am just wondering, whether people cannot say No, or is it that they will say No when it involves effort from them. If they are not directly impacted, maybe they will adjust.

I am at loss completely to figure out. But I will adjust!

A Funeral where you smell your own flowers

A friend called me a while back saying that he wanted to share a quip with me. I am still trying to fathom why he chose me to say that. Jokes apart he did it in right earnest because he knew I would love this.

The one-liner goes like this ‘Wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers’. Awesome quote! Now you know why I pulled his leg about the choice. I am increasingly getting annoyed at these wedding functions and lavish ones at that.

I try to figure out who exactly is celebrating? Is it the parents who put up the pomp? If so what are they trying to achieve? The fact that their wards are getting wedded?! The fact they have plenty of money? The display of joy and relief having reduced one member of the family! (I was only mentioning about the count, don’t read anything between the lines and take reduction as a word with face value and get into some philosophical analysis, though that is what I want you to do). Or is it to showcase whom they have found for their children!

Any which reason it is, it beats my imagination. If you have plenty of money, bloody well use it somewhere else where it is valued more. I have 5 elder sisters who got married and we should have spent a fortune on that ( ok, one was a smart person, didn’t allow us that option ). And for 10 full years lived in front of a wedding hall seeing marriages happening every third day! I now visualize that as lambs being taken to slaughter. Invariably there will be one nasty comment or other from the audience, a mean old aunt or the groom’s entourage in all marriages. Millions of bucks in food which is not appreciated and a bunch of beggars standing outside for the leftovers! Sickening feeling it was. And I am certain not a single soul including the relatives care a damn about how they live afterwards and whether they are compatible.

If it is a question of having fulfilled a responsibility of getting a child married off, how can that be true and if it is so, are you sure that you fulfilled it to the best of your ability. The mean family sniffing around like hyenas for largesse is where your daughter goes to. And does your responsibility end with that? Obviously not! You are always worried about how the folks live together but stay at a distance because you are not supposed to be interfering.

And the couple themselves! What a big waste it is! You don’t know how the well made up gent or lady next to you would turn up to. The very same quality that has endeared the other to you is the one you would get to hate the most. Oh she is so brilliant you would say when you want to get married, but can you stand living with a genius if she is screwed up in head? The attitude that looked so very hip & cool will become detached and self-centered. The sharp focus you loved will become single-mindedness. The happy-go-lucky nature will become irresponsible in a future date. The pride in which you showcased your partner saying ‘look what I have got’ will turn out to be exhibitionist tendencies of the other. The interest in which you shared about going out for dinners will become a allegation of laziness to cook. The neatness that you displayed will become an object of ridicule & irritation and you start assuming that you are suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Any damn thing you take, it becomes a question of taking a vicious about turn in the future. And to that you add yourselves responsibilities like mortgages, kids, routines and you complain about them. Actually I would say, we should not have any weddings at all and if we need to, it should be a hush-hush affair that no one in the world will know and one day you will wake up and wish that you aren’t wedded after all and that is true.

OK, this is my own blog and I cannot put a disclaimer saying ‘These are the views of the author and the publisher does not necessarily share them’. How I wish I could!!!