Unconditional love

A colleague of my husband once told him many summers ago that he should take care of two vital things in life. One- never marry without accepting a dowry; and second- never give birth to a child without a sex-determination test!

Alas my spouse did not follow either of the two advices.

Mind you this colleague is a highly educated, well to do,upper-middle-class officer with the Indian Government.

It’s such a pity that we Indians think this way about marriage and family.

Our highly skewed sex-ratio reflects this mind-set. Middle-class Indians mistreat their daughter-in-laws because her family did not “gift” them the certain brand of car or they did not laden her with yellow metal! I am not even talking about the rest of the Indian population here (they even kill for a car, fridge, house, job).

In the movie Two States, Ananya argues with the groom and tries to reason with him “Is your worth equal to an i-Ten car?” But sometimes it’s the daughter herself who wants to go loaded with consumer durables as she feels this will earn her the respect in her in-laws house. What a pathetic way to earn your place in your future house!

Open any newspaper and read the matrimonial, chances are the boy wants a fair, convent educated, and feminine girl of their own caste or community. The demands come disguised in words like “make your daughter comfortable, her future secure” etc.

Why do people of our country, especially in Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat, despise the birth of girls?

A lady’s pride and position in her family is measured by how many sons she has! She too wants an assurance that she is able to produce at least one or two sons. So they go to any extent to ensure the male lineage is intact.

I have had complete strangers come up to me in Punjab and Delhi, asking me if I needed help in giving birth to a son. “It’s 100% guaranteed” they shamelessly told me.

How can people respect their mother-land when they have no respect for their woman?

How can you respect your wife when she reminds you of your bank-balance?

How can you ever love your daughter when she only brings thoughts of her impending marriage to your mind!

So then isn’t the love for your own family coming with conditions?

A man who can’t love his own family selflessly and unconditionally is a man only half alive.

Opposites Attract!

He was reading aloud again, pacing up and down.

It all makes no sense to me why my husband is appearing for his L.L.B. exam at the far end of his 4^th decade?

How much he loves to study! After we had both completed our post-graduation together in 1990s, my husband decided to do a full time M.B.A. from a foreign university after a gap of 15 years as a student. And now he has enrolled for a degree in Law from Mumbai University and today he is giving his law 5^th semester exam!

I, on the other hand, hate studying in spite of being in the field of education.

When we both sit with our laptops it is funny to notice how different our choice of reading is. He reads about government policies, property prices, and share market (ugh!). I will be reading a friend’s blog or writing something or downloading music.

Things get worse in the food front. We are like chalk and cheese! I will happily never enter the kitchen for the rest of my life if someone provides me tasty meals. My husband on the other hand finds cooking very satisfying and a stress buster too. He plans out his menu, searches for exotic ingredients and sauces, lovingly selects his veggies, chops them just right and churns out gourmet dishes which we drool over on weekends.

I make friends faster than you can spell the word “Friend”. I open up to complete strangers while the husband has his mouth shut like a Swiss bank locker most times. 

What’s the Indian Railways good for other than reaching your destination? You guessed it! The journey itself! I get comfortable with all my co-passengers and all the while have to bear husband’s poker face.

I love crime thrillers and psychopath movies while he can’t stand them. His taste in music mostly revolves around old Bollywood hits while mine range from Deep Purple and Bob Marley to nonsensical Honey Singh!

The differences are endless and too many to list here and as we complete 23 roller coaster years of togetherness, I romanticize and pen this for him.

We have changed in little ways in our effort to reach out to each other (like he actually agrees to finally adopt a pet dog in spite of his childhood fear of animals). I have learnt to quietly leave him alone while he watches his favourite channel- CNBC (Do they speak Latin on it?). We accept each other’s eccentricities and give each other space to develop our individuality. Maybe it is the differences that keep us interested in each other. We never hesitate to debate and argue our point of view and speak our minds openly, the cacophony never allows monotony to kick in.Most of all I think we complement each other like sweet and savoury flavours in a dish that destiny has designed.

Married life is never easy, more so when you have opposite personalities living under one roof,but what the hell,easy is boring! 

The Lament

Deep in the depths of my heart she lies
Silent and aloof,
Visitor in the dark of the night
When sleep eludes.
 
Whispers I hear
From a face I never see
Images like shadows
Forever haunting me.
 
The soreness creeps in
Like mist upon a valley,
smoggy memories cling on
like some lingering fungal disease. 

 
She left like the retreating tide
Leaving grime and dirt behind
I grope but cannot find
Solace nor peace of mind.
 
Slowly sinking into the murky deep
choking in frivolous juvenile pranks I seep
The Angel of death awaits
Release me to my fate.

5 Annoying Questions!

1) How much are they paying you? (Actual meaning- What’s your salary?)

What’s it to you man? Will you increase it? I will be lying if I say I don’t work for money. It feels nice to see my bank balance grow in long digit numbers adding up month after month. But my real payment is when the kids I have taught grow up and come back on Facebook to say “hi Ma’am, Remember me? I am a doctor/ engineer/ CA/ stand-up comedian ” …you get the picture, that’s when I get my actual pay check.

2) You only have one child? (Emphasis on one child in a slow drawl… actual meaning: one daughter? *Shocked tone!*)

Why didn’t you go in for I.V.F, surrogacy, artificial insemination, adoption, cloning? Other desperate measures that could increase the human population by one more and your family would look so much more normal? Unlike now when you three look so lonely!

Poor you! Who’s going to cremate your body, without a son?

And there is no such thing as having too less in our country, more the better, you would look so good with a brood of screaming kids around you!

Your only child looks so lonely, no wonder she is so thin! No appetite for food without her siblings grabbing the last slice of pizza from her hand, she will never know the joys of wrestling for remotes, bathroom space and privacy! Tsk, tsk! She must be having mental issues fending off her boredom and loneliness no?

3) You don’t look Assamese?(Actual meaning: You are dark and people of north-east are  supposed to be fair and have mongoloid features and go to church)

Well just maybe you have your geography and history all mixed up. The people of Assam inhabit a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic society. Negroid, Dravidians, Tibeto-Burmese as well as Aryans had been the important groups that lived in Assam. Migration of people to Assam from North India started as early as the 4^th century .They introduced Hinduism in the North-East…….Blah blah blah!

Are you sure you can sustain more of this sociology/anthropology information, because I don’t mind carrying on.

4) Where are you from?

This is the most difficult to handle. I presume I am a homo-sapien and since homo-sapiens came from Africa and Eurasia some 200,000 years ago I too presume my ancestors came from there.

And if in case you mean like the larger picture of where we as humans came from? I would love to sit and have a chat regarding the cosmic theory vs. the Christian/Hindu concepts of man’s evolution!

Unless of course if you mean in the recent past , then I came from home and my home is at present in xyz city and before that it was in xyz city and before that ……I think I need a drink now (head to bar area).

5) Hello! Who is speaking?

Since you called and you dialed those numbers, you will have a better idea, no? As for me I am still trying to figure that question out myself! Why am I continuing this conversation? Hangs up phone!