A thought and a learning...

It’s that time of the year where in India, the wedding preparations in many homes would take a full swing with only a quarter of a year to go for the big fat Indian wedding season. It’s this period where you would see families rushing here and there for the final stretch. While some families would have it all figured out, some would still be making their final calls. Given the grandiose nature of Indian weddings and the amount of organization dexterity it requires, it’s not hard to imagine that at these times, if the couple getting married is extremely busy in deciding what they want to wear, how they want to look, how they want the things to be on the D-day while spending these some final moments knowing the person more and better to whom they are going to commit themselves for the whole life may take a back seat. Some may argue that the commitment and knowing the other person would have happened long time back when they first got engaged then why think now? Well, you know how life is, it changes, people change, their behaviors change, for good or for bad but it changes. And in the bigger scheme of things, we miss to realize these small gradual changes. The initial rosy meetings, those initial moments however romantic they were, do reflect some kind of an effort, honest or otherwise, on the part of both the guy and the girl. Slowly, as the feeling that you are with someone sinks in, you either change yourself or your true comfort zone comes out. Some of those little significant things you did for making the other person feel good about you starts to become a task. You may itch for a break from something that has become a routine now. Not that its bad, you obviously want to be true to yourself as much as possible and be sane but at the same time don’t want your flaws to move you away from the person you’ve come to love since that first spark. It’s that point in your life where the connect is still there but may be its taken away that time away from you which you spent on your own and may be you have not got used to this change just yet. I know the brides and grooms know each other well and probably still do so each day hopefully. But if you ask them what they have learned new about their partner today, they may find hard to articulate it but the moment you ask them what’s happening on the preparations, they will go on about it for next 30 mins. It’s funny to me. I don’t say I behaved differently though, but that’s our culture you see. Marriages in India are big, are like a festival. Yes, sure they are but should they happen at the cost of diverting your time and energy to something that’s going to last one day? Or should you rather have that time and energy spend on knowing the other person better which is going to impact you your whole life? If you were to mask this situation and remove marriage out of it and instead say it’s an investment for the whole life where there is most likely no backing out and ask any sane person to choose, he or she is likely to choose the 2nd option. Think about it. I am confused by the way our society works. I wish things were simpler and may be more focused on couple getting married vs. focusing on looking & behaving like celebrities and calling 1000+ folks to your wedding, 75% of whom you have never met before and are sure to never meet again in this lifetime.

Anyway, given this situation which our culture and we put ourselves in; it’s bound to create some tough situations after marriage. Not saying that if you had known person for like a decade then such situations won’t come up. They still would and there is no escape from this – we all know it and this conflict is an integral part of human nature. In fact, these situations may also happen before marriage. However, the focus should then be on how can you minimize them and keep them at a level that does not destroy your happiness? What Archita and I have learned so far is that in these situations, we ought to remember that we have married a human being. A human who is same as us, who is as fallible and flawed as us. Their faults could be different than ours but they are still faults. Don’t expect the other person to always understand you and don’t doubt his or her intentions. Have a discussion and don’t let it turn into an argument. Remember, you are also in this as much as he or she is. However, simple this may sound; you will still fail to see it that way once the situation comes to your own door (ask me about it :)). The best thing to do in these situations is to be objective and behave without any bias. Ego has no place in the marriage but at the same time it does not cost you your self-identity. No situation and no person will ask for a change in your identity as asking about it would mean they want to change your true nature. The same nature that made them fall in love with you and commit them to you. Unless, you have painted a completely different picture and set different expectations then no one can save you.


So, apart from investing time in knowing the other person more and better, the critical piece is being true to yourselves and to the other person right from the beginning all the way through and at the same time making flexibility (not same as compromise) a part of your efforts to grow together in the relationship. Keep calm and leave the rest to your karma.

No Hiatus anymore

It’s been a hiatus of 2.5 years since I last wrote on this blog. A lot has happened in these months, a lot has been learnt, and a lot has been experienced. Never been in a relationship before, I found myself in an unknown world – a world which demanded my undivided attention, a world which made me feel like a toddler again, a world which showed me a completely different aspect of life. I would not be honest if I said I did not have a good personal life before – yes there were friends, cousins and family events. As much as I loved all of them, there was something amiss. One part of me always felt incomplete and lacked something. When my friends, cousins discussed about the dynamics of an intimate relationship, my views and opinions, although real, lacked a backing of a first-hand experience. I have always felt strongly about what I say and believe in it whole-heartedly but one thing that always gave me that resolute was personal experience. This personal experience was not there when it came to life-partner sort of relationships.

As a student of life, I missed out on seeing a world where the actual balance of life comes into play. At a stage of life, when I was doing well professionally and when I was ready to embrace a personal change, Archita came into my life. We have been together since Jan 2012 and 1 year into marriage, I must say that I now understand some of the things, good and otherwise, I heard about intimate relationships. I now understand why some relationships succeed and why they fail. As a principle of life, I have always been open to anything new that comes my way – not that I don’t have any idea about it, but I don’t have pre-conceived notions either. I take it as it comes; adapt myself as per the need and make the best of it. Following the same, I entered into this new world. Being the person I am, I always need some goal – some kind of timeline and I must say this runs into the genes of my family. First thing, we as a family did was to start planning the wedding, the when, the where and the how and it had been just 20 days so far that I had known Archita. Thinking retrospectively, it may seem a bit scary that knowing someone for just 20 days and we were already in the middle of committing each other for life. If I were a person with some experience in this, I would have been a lot scared and completely deny taking this step but incidentally, I was not. May be there was some astronomic connect or some strings the Almighty pulled that we all were moving ahead without an iota of doubt. May be that’s how arranged marriages work, I thought to myself. 29^th Jan 2012 was the day when both families committed to this arrangement and much to the surprise of all who know me; I was not around that day. I chose to give only virtual presence to the entire ceremony through Skype and much to her disappointment; Archita had to begin representing the both of us socially from that day onwards. Not that I did not want to be there but I wanted to avoid going to Mumbai only for a weekend when I had just came back from a good 2 weeks break and resumed work. If I think back now, may be that comfort of not being there physically and still both families and Archita taking that step without hesitation was something that gave me confidence and belief that this relationship has a potential to be committed to. I don’t know, maybe that’s why I was willing to risk this big step on my 26^th birthday. Anyway, things began for us from thereon. We had chats during the day on whatsapp and then Skype in the eves – compensating for my over-working nature, time difference worked in our favor as by the time my work day ended, her work day ended as well. Initially, I had to make special efforts to talk and interact with her as it was not my usual routine so to say. But as days passed by, I began looking forward to the Skype calls and drew myself away from my usual plans. I remember spending hours and hours over the weekends watching the English TV series I was addicted to but all those hours had come down to a minimal level since we began to start knowing each other through virtual medium. With all these interactions and the emotional connect arising from thereon, I think I wanted my trip in India in May 2012 to go on forever – just felt that time should stop by for once. I had a fantastic time in that trip, stayed with her for almost all days travelling in Mumbai and Gujarat, meeting all the closed family members and friends – our first memory, our first public appearances. Months passed by immersing ourselves in the preparations for the wedding, it was almost like a project – coordinating travel for 150 odd people from Mumbai to Surat, booking tickets, budgeting, planning the events, choosing what to wear and all that comes-in with an usual Indian wedding. My being in Singapore did not really hinter the way the plans were executed much to the help of some awesome friends, a superb brother (may I be I will write about him someday) and obviously Archita – she just impressed with how she had already emotionally married me – making my plans as our plans and making everything under my responsibilities as hers. I can’t thank her enough for that gesture and her family’s efforts in really fading away that line of what a family’s responsibilities are when it comes to an arranged marriage situation. May be I had come misconceptions about arranged marriages but then may be those were just misconceptions which got cleared away one by one. May be that’s the reason I was willing to go a bit overboard with having a reception the same day – I was against it, I did not want to have that purely from cost standpoint but then eventually I went along with that idea considering that Archita’s family and Archita wanted to have it. The wedding made me realize quite a few dreams I had and I remember discussing some of them with my close friends. Now when I look back, I really don’t remember planning to achieve them but the way things had gone in my life from 2011 onwards eventually helped in achieving those hidden dreams. I would not say it was a big fat Indian wedding – we did not aim it to be one, we wanted a wedding which reflects who I am and who my partner is. It is the way we wanted to be and after discussing with Archita during and after the wedding, it looks like we just had that – our wedding, our way.  

Since the wedding, we have had a whole new life, both Archita and me. We have both realized how different the virtual connect is from the real world interactions. Nevertheless, one year of the journey together has given both us that hope, that much required boost, that missing piece to see life till the very end of it with a feeling of being complete within…

This has not come with so much ease as one would want to be and neither has it come at the expense of being happy. But more on my experience from the maiden year of our marriage in my next post…