Veer Zaara in reality....I don't know!!

This time I start with a short real-life story which gave me that push to settle those conflicting opinions about marriage in my head. I will admit it outright that there are many things which I don't know clearly about in this story and doesn't make me much of an objective person to pass any judgment on any thing...so please don't assume I m being judgmental here, I am just trying to resolve the questions raised!!

There is a smart, intelligent guy and there is a beautiful, intelligent girl with a lovely smile. I don't recollect but mostly they are of the same age. They lived in a small town and the parents of the guy and the girl knew each other. Both the guy and the girl would be in their mid 20s. I don't know whether they were in love with each other or not. Only thing I know is that the parents of the girl did try to get their daughter married to this guy. But the father of the guy objected to this alliance stating status, money and power differentials between the two families as the reason. The father of the guy was working in a higher designation compared to the father of the girl in the same organization. Its not the end of the story here. Guy gets married to a different girl and this girl gets married to a different fellow. I am not sure whether the guy made any protests in front of his parents when he was getting married for the first time. However, I am aware that this beautiful intelligent girl did try to resist it when she was getting married for the first time. But she gave in, I guess.

After 12 years, both the couples are divorced and the original guy and the girl get married. Meanwhile, the beautiful intelligent girl has a son and she gets more qualified earning a doctorate. No clue whether the guy had any kid or not and what he did with his career. Some of my readers or the spectators of this event would say its a beautiful ending as they are united after a long wait of 12 years. In that case I assume people are of the assumption that they did have feelings for each other which were suppressed but weren't dead and resurfaced when they were again single. When I first heard of this marriage the movie Veer Zaara came into my mind where the couple gets united after 27years long wait (actor is in jail for a crime he didnt commit and the actress was forced to marry a guy her father decided for a political alliance and then divorces him immediately).

There would also be different opinions that if there were mutual feelings between the guy and the girl they were kept alive all through this 12 years and those feelings are the only reasons their individual divorces happened. Keeping their feelings alive they trampled the hearts and lives of their respective partners and are giving a bad example to their kids. While writing this there are so many troubling arguments in my mind, I might get off-track at times. So please bear :)

This time around the father of the guy gave his blessings for this marriage which he so vehemently objected 12 years before because of such inconsequential reasons(according to me atleast). What had changed in this 12 years that his reasoning made a U-turn? I think people would say I am opinionated but if it had not been his objection for a useless reason in the very first place this couple would have been married in the very first place and maybe not led to the unhappy endings of the respective partners(maybe the partners better off now)  Not one person I shared this story with said one word against this father's actions. Is it because he is too old now to make his wishes enforced and had to give his acceptance grudgingly so he is not to blame...

Now the guy...though I hardly know him but if he did have feelings in the past did he try to protest against his father?? I think he should have. If he had feelings and he didn't then I don't have words for him because I know people personally who wait for ages to be together with the person they actually love. Nothing filmy here... At one time I felt didn't he behave opportunistically. After all, he rejected this girl and her family and married someone else. Once his marriage failed and then when he realized this lady is available lets get back to her. One would say maybe he never rejected her, the situation was so that the didn't have control and had to give in and this time when he had the opportunity he wanted to do what his heart truly wished for. Could very well be the case... I guess we are mostly the puppets of  situations which we are in :(

The girl...when I look back at this whole story I feel she might had felt something for our guy from the begining. But did she keep it alive all this 12 years, no one except her could be the true judge of that. My argument here is even if there was something is keeping it alive wrong?? If I love somebody with the conviction that he or she can make me happy and I trust the person more than I trust myself then I feel its really difficult to just kill it completely. I think I am able to say it because I have been living through this for the past six months and inspite of numerous tries to just let it go I just can't do it. The first thing everyone says is to move on but move on to what?? A different person whom I would inevitably compare with the one I felt I was destined to be with or to loneliness. Loneliness because I had made him a part of my existence and however much I try nothing or no one can be a part of that existence of mine!! Comparison seems to be wrong but it is natural and inevitable in our brains. Then how do we say it is wrong??

Is moving on a sign of strength and holding on to my feelings a sign of weakness?? And just because everyone wishes me to be perceived as strong so moving on is the right thing to do because if I don't move on I m being unfair to the person I am presently with. Someone said that this girl going back to the guy and the family who rejected her once shows her sense of self-respect is low. To a certain extent, I do feel its justified but when I love a person with such a conviction and I only truly understand that why this union didn't take place in the very first place then this whole sense of self-respect or dignity takes a backseat and no one else can say anything on it. If two people love and trust each other then they would regard each other's dignity much higher than their own's...This again I am saying because I have felt it so deeply that my mind always gives in to my heart and makes me forget everything about my self-respect and I guess that's what true love is and till date my love has never failed me on it even if he is married now.

Its also true that when one gets married keeping such feelings alive are very difficult once you get engrossed in your own small world. My own experience...if they are true somehow they survive the test of time or maybe people find a way to keep it alive.However do we actually have control to keep those feelings alive? This is something which I fail to understand. If they are meant to die they will but what if they aren't?? Isn't there a reason for everything good or bad happening in our lives which can't be understood everytime. Does it mean that my marriage is baseless from its very begining and hence those feelings are alive. Or is it because those feelings are alive that's why I am not giving my hundred percent to my marriage and thats I find it unfulfilling...Chicken and Egg ;-)

I don't know what the situation was with this girl's 1st marriage from the begining. Staying together, trying to make it work and then failing after 12 years. Whats wrong in it?? Don't people stay in meaningless marriages for years or maybe all their lives. Couples fall out of love too when everything seems perfect. Everybody isn't same. Some people just snap and can't live it further...

I don't see a point in others deciding or influencing how to live with my partner however much experienced they are because they don't live my life. I live it myself every moment....

Marriage and an unending responsibility of keeping everybody satisfied and happy...

To begin with, I dedicate this entry to my first roommate Neha who is getting married today. Fact is even though I am not there with her in her special moment, I am really happy that she is marrying the person she loves after a wait of quite a long time. May god bless her with all the joys she could ever imagine of :-)

The unfortunate thing is when I share such piece of news with my folks it backfires. They ask what is wrong with you. One thing which my mother has correctly guessed is our generation doesn't want to take responsibilities, be it a girl or a boy. No offense to all those readers who are shouldering a lot of responsibilities happily but I am sure there are quite a few(like me ofcourse) who avoid taking different responsibilities of their own volition.

Few days back I heard about a couple seeking divorce because the wife has not transformed herself completely from a girlfriend to a wife, a mother, a cook, and a house-keeper. Fact is the wife is a working woman with a 5 year old son and it was a love marriage. Seems quite easy to expect so many different roles from your wife. Maybe we are among the last generations which has seen their mothers (mostly housewives) cooking, house-keepering, welcoming hosts and waiting for her husbands every evening/night with a smile on her face. Unfortunately, things are not completely the same. Most girls getting professional degrees would like to have their own career and a source of income. And if a day has 24 hours for the husband, it definitely has 24 hours for the wife too. If a guy is so appreciative of his sister working, his female colleague working then what is the problem with the wife working. It doesn't end here.

Apart from the household's numerous roles with its responsibilities there are other social roles which comes in the form of husband's family members, relatives, friends which needs to be fulfilled dutifully . And unfortunately in the initial phases when the bride is struggling the most to accustom herself in the new environment, there are people who are waiting to find faults if such roles are not fulfilled to their expectations. And who will convey the expectations to her...ofcourse not any one of them. She should have some divine vision to anticipate their expectations and fulfill them. Someone would like to stop me here and say in India marriages are between two families, not two people only. My counter question is how many times has the husband been blamed for not fulfiiling his new social roles. I remember one incident when I had a get-together with my school friends and everybody came with their spouses except one girl. Her husband was not in office, he was just staying back at home. They didn't have a kid. She didn't have dinner with us as she was supposed to go back, cook and have dinner with her husband. We felt bad that she couldn't stay with us for dinner as we were meeting after 14 years. Though I ignored it then but I questioned myself later had it been a guy and his wife wouldn't have come over would we have just ignored the matter like that or would the guy have skipped dinner with his friends....I am not sure what is the answer. Depends on person to person completely but I have a feeling chances of the same thing happening which happened with my friend are pretty slim...

Coming back to my mother's categorical statement that our generation doesn't want to take responsibilities, my answer would be I am not prepared for it (maybe intentionally I don't myself to get prepared ever ;-) ). When I am already overwhelmed with my present situation and facing troubles in making everybody happy, why would I like to take on more roles and more responsibilities to make things worse( its not easy to make everybody happy and the reality is this days people don't get satisified easily). . Maybe everyone is not cut out for so much roles in life. One would argue that in a workplace employees seek challenging assignments, more responsibilities, different roles etc. In return they get promotions, recognition, bonuses etc. What does the wife get after putting in so much...financial stability,  respect, love of her husband and his family members....My argument for this question would be:
If she is working financial stability is not a big incentive for her...
If someone has seen the movie English Vinglish, one would realize how many Indian husbands respect their wives who are not working and if she is working then chances of fault-finding in domestic responsibilities are much more higher
And isn't love supposed to be unconditional....