By Juhi:
As I look at married couples all around, in grocery stores, shopping malls, or baby shops, I wonder if they really love each other. I wonder if they ever planned their old age days, did they plan anything at all after their honeymoon and kids?
I am going to attend my uncle’s wedding. It is an arranged one. All the relatives and the friends are invited and a grand party will be organized. Everyone will wear fancy, attractive and expensive dresses and dance, enjoy, have good food and then set back to their respective homes. Bride and groom, after many hectic days, would prefer to sleep and then more rituals will follow. Eventually, both of them will get used to it and apply this “getting used to” philosophy for rest of their lives.
In India, most people marry in the same way. Some get lucky enough and find their love of life in the person they marry, but most of them end up having forced, monotonous and most of the time, a miserable life. However, they stick wide smiles on their faces, trying to validate the theory of our ancestors that “for the sake of society, marry someone who belongs to the same caste, religion, has good job and family background, and love will happen eventually”. Why don’t people understand that we can’t arrange marriages, they get arranged by themselves when the correct time and person arrives. Marriage is an important affair and it involves the person with whom we have to share the rest of our lives with.
How could we take such a big decision by referring to some papers or consulting priests? Our life is not about the alignment of stars, it is about us, people around us, our objectives, believes, habits and families. We consider betting in sports as a serious crime, then why do we bet our lives in the institution of marriage?
We will have to change the definition of successful marriages. It should not be about big fat weddings or “no divorce” marriages or couple with children doing fine. It should be about couples falling in love everyday and growing old together not because they have to, but because they want to.
Why can’t people get little more pragmatic and realistic about marriages? How difficult is it to realize that everyone of us wants happiness and peace, not compromises?