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…