Happily Unmarried

Here are some of the quips that people have gotten from me, when they asked me when will I marry...

1. "I am, weren't you invited?" 
2. "I am, we eloped over the weekend, don't tell my parents!" 
3. "Very soon, but I am planning to invite 500 of my closest folks, so you may not have the invite to my wedding." 
4. "I like women!" Well some truth in there. I love the women who stand for something, but not romantically. That makes me straight (in an utterly crooked world, of course!) 
5. "Most of them don't know that you don't say 'return back!' Nor do you." 
6. "All the men I liked, turned out to be gay and don't like women." Men don't like women anyway, I think beyond a few days, years or months of dating. Have you seen all the married jokes? And how they always are targeted at wives. It is a global concept. 
7. "I am desperate, but can't find someone. Can we find me someone for the night?" Now this one is an immediate Indian moral-swatter, with certainty. They walk away immediately!
8. "Why are you married?" Replies - "Because you have to." Me - "Didn't you know you had a choice? I am exercising mine." 
9. "I have super-powers; I have to go out in the night in a latex suit and underwear to save the world." 
10. "Just as you guessed (and gossiped), my family needs my money!"

"Breathe in Experience, breathe out poetry" - Muriel Rukeyser

Literature has always intrigued me. And poetry further confused me. Always tagged as a grammar-nazi wherever I went, it was hard for me to understand during school why poetry eluded me so. 

While my English teachers endeavored… - no that’s not the British-English spelling, that’s just the Microsoft-autocorrect taking over my years of prim and proper Wren-&-Martin education in English grammar! Anyway, while my English teachers endeavoured everyday to explain the literal and implied meaning of a Wordsworth or Tagore, I felt there was something whose core I failed to access. Now, standing at the thirty-fifth year of my life, I discovered that I had missed in them a kinship to my own feelings and experiences.

The other day, I picked up a copy of Selected Short Stories by Oscar Wilde. I have always been taught that Oscar Wilde is classic. And just by one short story he answered me why he was. He had made birds and statues come alive in a way that it almost made me wonder if I was reading poetry, a fairy tale or just a story. Just a story? No it’s never just a story! It’s probably someone sitting under a tree lost in thoughts for hours, looking at the world going around him, drawing a parallel world in his mind and then penning it down on a piece of paper with accurate, coherent words or many a times with invented words that make complete sense and even blow you away. The reader in that moment of his reading lives the story too. Word by word, page by page! He sits with his book in the corner of his room where the real world for him has vanished into a haze. Such is the power of a story. Therefore, it is never just a story.

So then, are you a fact or a fiction-worm? In answering this lies a difference in orientation, I have observed. When you ask this question to ardent readers, you will get as clear an answer as when you ask pet-lovers if they are a cat person or a dog person, or non-vegetarians if they liked their meatloaf rare or well-done. While there are bi-bingers, more often than not readers will tell you with certainty what they enjoy reading.

My world of reading as a child was always spun around fairies and dacoits and kingdoms and neverlands. The stories told by kiplings and brontes of the world took me to a place far, far away from home. As the eldest child in my family, I would be put to sleep or be woken up with strange tales of elves and poisoned apples and true love’s kiss. In contrast, a friend, who likes non-fictions more, told me he has been through most of his childhood figuring things out as they are. And in saying so, he reaffirmed my silly little, hypothesis that kids who do not grow up with hearing these strange tales are more likely to appreciate non-fiction. Fact-seekers, you are cautioned not to take this as a real foolproof theory as my sample size of research is really minuscule.

And, this is not to say that the world of non-fiction readers is any less - less interesting or less engaging. However, fiction-readers like us are at a real risk of believing in these stories so much so that our locus of identity lies outside of ourselves -- in the book that we are holding up to our noses, hiding behind them as if they were clothes that made us invisible. Such is often the magnetism of literature. On the afternoon of the first monsoons, people like us cannot not escape into this world. It overwhelms your senses for anything else.

And now when I read poetry, I understand why my child-mind could not make complete sense of it. Poetry is closer to spirituality, closer to expressing a sensation with slaughtering as few words as possible. It is a certain maturity in literature that can only be attained when you have learnt to reflect inwards. To appreciate poetry either you go deeper and deeper into the self or higher and away into the universe. For the poetry-buff, the space in between the self and the universe is only a chain of incessant events within a black hole of ethereal solitude. So now when asked that question “which book would you like to keep if you were to be deserted on an island for years”, I think it will definitely be The Geeta or a Rumi or a Tagore. Each time the world around me continues to happen I know that poetry would most certainly take the shape of my mind as I read them over. Such is the beauty of their soulful interpretations.

“Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” 

-       Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Disciplined in love!

The first slap from him resounded in her head like the crashing of an exquisite piece of glass vase on a hard, granite floor. She had not even noticed that the impact of it had sent her reeling in a corner, her body shaking with cold chills on a hot summer’s afternoon. He stormed out of the room that started spinning around her. Then darkness descended mercifully and she did not remember anything else for a while.

When she slowly regained her consciousness, it was not without a feeling of sunkenness… and guilt! “What have I done wrong?” “What did I do to piss him off? Must have been something, I am sure.” He had returned after a smoke and was watching TV in the other room. She kept replaying the heated conversation in her head that had led to the moment of the whacking.

Trisha was an engineer from one of the top institutes in the country, had landed herself a job in a fiercely competitive corporate environment and she was better at her work than most of her peers. Brought up in a very progressive household, she was a well-read feminist. She could discuss politics and scoops with equal ease. She had excelled over a number of her peers to be placed during the campus-recruitment. She had been loved by her friends and teachers, through her growing up years, for her spunkiness.

She was also madly in love with Aneesh – they have been friends since school, shared class notes and helped each other through every exam. They had been married for the past couple of years. He had kissed her under a tree in full monsoon showers, and she had kissed him right back. He had moved into her two-bedroom apartment, brought his car with him. She helped him with writing his resume and making his presentations. He warmed dinner for her, lovingly woke her up and fed her from his plate while she would sit there dozing off. She loved that about him. Their parents visited them now and then.

What she was scared of was his anger that had revealed itself in the past one year. The more they had grown into the relationship, the more control he started having over her life – the friends she kept, the amount of time she spent on the phone with her family, and the number of hours she invested at work. His reactions were incrementally unpleasant, sometimes even neurotic. At times, she returned home to find an intimidating look on his face. On one such evening, after returning home, she had made an attempt to give him a hug to make up for the extra time she spent at work. She was met with an abrupt shove, followed by a curse under his breath. After a few such instances, now she has learnt to quietly and dump her laptop on the sofa and head straight to the kitchen.

Today, in the middle of her futile explaining she felt a blinding clap on her face! One that was not only broke her spirit, but also shut down her mind. For the rest of the night there was a flurry of emotions going through her. She was trying to think of what she had said or done. At times she went livid with anger with every muscle in her body protesting this humiliation. Then it occurred to her how much he loved her. She thought of the kiss under the tree. She thought of what her father had always taught her “a strong man never hits to control.” She also thought of her mother who hit her to discipline her, but also loved her to bits.

Some five odd years later........

Trisha was now in Singapore. She was on the phone after a long day at work. Her mother’s concerned voice spoke from the other end. “How did you tolerate that idiot for so long, Trisha?!......”

Trisha has been hearing this rhetorical for the past year or so. Eversince she separated from Aneesh. She was quizzed by her friends, his friends, his family and her family. His friends and family made ill out of her intentions - “If he was such an abusive guy, how could you not tell immediately? It took you seven years to chicken out. And who knows… you are in a high-profile job, you must have tried to dominate him and the relationship!” Hell had been raised about her broken marriage for the past year.

It was exhausting. People asked this question to empathize with her or to doubt her. And she had asked herself this question over and over again - every morning when she woke up, every night when she went to sleep. It was exhausting.

Over the years, she had also slowly made up her mind that Aneesh was not good for the relationship. She had come to guard herself and the relationship from him and his volatile moods. White lies had crept in to save her skin. She was never dishonest or had any ill-bearing, had not had any illicit relationships. But lying had become a survival mechanism for her to save herself a few slaps here and there that had become the order of the day. She had not spoken to her parents, to keep them from judging Aneesh or her relationship. After all it was her relationship! She was responsible for it, wasn’t she? And not that he hit her all the time. He loved her too. Many a times, he only threatened to hit her. Lately, that had been enough. Then one day she just was not thinking -- she walked out. Aneesh was as broken as she was! He threw tantrums, called friends. He pursued her, knelt down before her. But she was no longer thinking.

Today was their seventh first-kiss anniversary. Her heart still pined to be owned in a relationship, to be held and hugged warmly. She was talking to her mother with whom she shared her deepest thoughts. She told her how she missed him. Her mother started off with the usual rhetorical, “How did you tolerate this idiot for so long, Trisha? I cannot believe he hit you. You are educated, you are strong and independent. Your father and I did everything to make sure you get the very best of everything.”

Suddenly, she went into a tizzy. She snarled at her mother………

-   “Do you remember, Mom, that you hit me so many times when I was a kid? I used to hate it! There were nights I cried into my pillow not admitting my tears to you because I was a strong kid. I did not speak to you for days. Why didn’t you think then that hitting me was wrong?”

-  “Yes, but that was different. I wanted you to be the best kid ever. And you know how much I love you, Trish!..... This is very harsh of you to compare me with him”

-  “Yes mum, but in my head I revolted when you hit me. Dad never raised his hand on me to control me. But you? ”

-   “Oh c’mon elders who love you sometimes hit you to discipline you. And look I agree that you were not so bad a kid, but I had you when I was only nineteen. At that age I was dealing with so many things within a joint family. Ha!... What did I know about parenting then! You were my first baby and I wanted people to see you as the best child!”

-   “People who, Ma? How many of them are here with me today to see what I am going through!”

-  “That’s not the point, kid. You’re in India, not some western country where they do not allow you to hit the child. And plus people here have some moral standards!”

-   “And what moral standards are those? Who decides those standards? Where are they written down? When did I sign up for them? Oh Mummy, I love you so. You are my favorite person on earth, Mum. But do you still not see what you did? As a little kid when I was hit, I looked around me to see if anyone else had been audience to my humiliation. Inside of me I tried to steel my nerves for the impending slap, and put up a brave front when it came. I started lying to you about little things that did not matter. And as hours went by, we cooled off and made peace. Over the years, my mind made peace with the idea that the person who loves you can occasionally hit you. Do you not see that even though Papa and my education taught me that a man hitting me was a bad thing, the little kid in me believed that he could hit me if he loved me? This is how slowly I made peace with Aneesh also, Ma! Every time he hit me I second-guessed myself; thought I was flawed. The little child in me justified him!”

There was a silence. A long pause, broken only by a sigh! Trisha was surprised at how precisely her mind had connected the dots in one moment of deep anguish. For once she has been able to answer with clarity, coherence and conviction, the rhetorical about her abuse!

Slowly, her mother spoke up. “My child! My sweetheart! ….. I ask for your forgiveness today. When I hit you, I considered it right, because I was hit by my father too – but who also loved me very much. I was young when I had you. I did not realize how I was damaging your adult mind. I did what I thought was right, what I was taught was right. I am very sorry, my little angel.”

Tears welled up and rolled down Trisha’s eyes. She sank down to the floor and started sobbing. Her mother wept too, consoling Trisha, apologizing again and again, caressing her little girl with her comforting words from miles away.

That night Trisha thought a cloud lifted from her mind. She finally felt liberated. Her mother’s remorse finally brought her to the peace of the right kind - after many years, she could now tell the difference between love, discipline and abuse without the child in her bundling them up together. Her heart still pined to be loved and held, but no longer by any person who had the capability to damage her soul.

Save thy soul!

I am not against marriage. I am against mediocrity in relationships. 

She may be the person who gets up in the morning to make him breakfast or babies. He may be the one who dutifully fetches groceries and some extra sweets when her parents are around. For many of us the very mention of these things has painted a picture-perfect marriage in our heads. But for me it hasn’t. A marriage is of course doing things for each other but the society does not determine for you what those things are.

But in India they do. They see a single man or a woman and they humor you with “when do we see you married?” “It’s not that difficult to find a guy/girl. May be you’re too choosy!” “How can a pretty-face like you be single?” They never understand when you tell them that you cannot get married for the heck of it; that you need to feel the glow in your heart for someone to be able to say “I do.”

So many of us, especially here in India, get on with a marriage which eventually becomes a routine. You jump onto a matrimony website, find several pictures that call out to you, check out the “About” “Education” “Salary” family details and hit the “Send Interest” button. Not to take away the role of these websites as a space in Cyberia for people to meet, their pseudo-ability to quantify (or filter) compatibility between two unknown people is bizarre and far from reality!

Discussions start, you start liking each other and then bingo! - sooner than you think the D-day arrives. The rites, sights and sounds cloud your mind with happy thoughts. Then from day one start the observations, judgement, expectations and getting to know each other. Since you are already married, the more convenient things to know about your spouse (for those of you who would even make an effort to know) are – what she likes to eat, where she likes to go, what he likes you to wear, and how he expects you to conduct yourself.

By the time the differences begin to arise, we are expecting a baby. Another new turn of events, few distractions and a newfound happiness! Sooner than you can think the room is filled with diapers and feeding bottles.

It’s only a handful who wait for the right one – the one whom they do not marry just because society tells them to. They marry the person who can challenge them, push them to be better, treat them to be equals. They wait for life to carry them on its wings, to make them dance in the rain like kids, to be blown away by every kiss as if it were their first. They have known their share of tears, and live in the same society. But they do not need a marriage to validate who we are. We are complete even without it.

Whereas you probably envy our vacations and our independence. One day you meet that old friend from college, perhaps an ex-flame, and you realize the fakeness of your life. You perhaps meet who you were. You meet your ex-self - one for whom life was a passion not a routine! And you want to claw back in there and find yourself. Or probably you had buried yourself too deep into mundaneness to make much of it. And you carry on – sometimes posting happy pictures of you and your better half on social media, sometimes calling it a seven-year itch, sometimes condoning your extra-marital. And life for you goes on. Do I hear your protest? - “Your life is not so bad.” Well, trust me singlehood is not so bad either. All you have to do is learn to love yourself. 

Nature engineered for you to procreate and carry on with the human race, not for you to become a husband or wife. So until the few of us do not have our hearts stolen, we refuse to be bitten the bug of averageness.

Downgraded to a lifestyle!

I have heard this rhetoric from my friends and colleagues many a times “Why don’t you change that phone?” I take one look at my Blackberry Q10 (that’s sustaining a broken screen at one of the corners) and try to think hard for a few reasons I should switch to a new phone. 

I can make calls using this, it’s a 4G - so I am connected to the world. The QWERTY helps me to type into it quicker and faster and therefore write error-free emails…. Well almost! Though I was a grammar Nazi since school, I do use the standard caveat at the end of all my emails, “Sent from handheld, ignore typos.” The camera is a bit shoddy; but then I have a high-end DSLR to use whenever I wish to take great photos. Fine, I cannot use some of the shopping apps. Then again I look at my phone, and the whole of technology’s conspiracy panning the human race smiles back at me “upgrade and integrate, baby!”

I stand in front of the mirror wondering whether I should team my blue jeggings and moto boots, with my peach anorak or my sheepskin-bomber? Perhaps at the next end-of-season sale, I am going to buy a new trench-coat and blame my purchase on the falling leaves. And suddenly I am staring into the mirror at this strange woman that resembles me, and begin to wonder at what point in thirty-something years of life she had learnt to use such precise fashion jargons to describe a piece of outerwear with approximately the same functionality.

I remember how elated I was when I got my first paycheck! It was my first baby step into a world of personal freedom - freedom to do the things that I would like to do, freedom from waiting for my meager pocket money every week like a wage-worker. That was 2003 – over a decade has passed by hence. My career has given me the opportunity to see the world, to understand how to manage people. But how do I feel about my paycheck? A part of it the government has already grabbed. Add to that the rents and bills to pay – for a nice 3-BHK apartment in the heart of the city, for organic, gluten-free food, for driving a swanky German car. “Of course this month I can also pick up a pair of chic urban furniture through online shopping discounts. Oh and some red wine for the dinner invitation at this colleague’s place! Nah not that much money to spend? How about using my platinum credit card – I can break it out into EMIs” Easy Monthly Instalments. Easy, very easy! As elated as when I got my first paycheck? – Just reached the shopping mall, who has the time to think!

Do you remember the first time you invested some money into your pension account? That was the first time you decided that you will work until you retire no matter what! That investment will be accounted for in your 80C, so that you can save some of your money from being fleeced away by the razing hand of the State. But don’t worry - M/S Freeloader has a different way to dig into your account and take all the money out. There are ads that activate your worst fear - “what happens when I die, is my family secure?” And you buy that much-awaited term plan, further making sure that you take it upon yourself to have a job all your life, no matter what!

Complicating our lives is an easy and convenient trap now. The more we can earn, the more we can afford, the more we are insecure and the more we are trying to buy everything that makes us feel secure – from our lives to our skin color, to the shape of our noses, to the devices that we use.

I am now thinking of this man that I once saw on one of my trips to the mountains – he was carrying a big log of wood on his back strapped and fastened to his head. He had walked several miles up the hill that day to be able to carry that log that would last him a few days of warmth and fire. And I am sitting in my office on the nth floor of a skyscraper (that news tells me is built several kms above an underlying seismic fault line) and wondering how am I better off than that man carrying the piece of log on his back!