RELATIONSHIP
OPINION
MARRIAGE IS A B
NATASHA BADHWAR
Conjugal life will never stop throwing curveballs at you . You ’ ll
I hate attending weddings . They are phony , wasteful and irrelevant affairs and I really don ’ t understand why people work so hard to get rid of their money overnight .
The only wedding I didn ’ t mind so much was my own . It had its moments . My friend Reena was still fixing the last safety pins on my cream and gold dupatta when a couple of grown women barged into the dressing room and enthusiastically addressed me as “ Mami !” Apparently they were thrilled to be my new nieces . The shy , beatific bride face that I had been practising disintegrated in shock .
Many hours later , there was the moment when someone handed me a plateful of biryani and it began to feel like maybe it was all going to be worthwhile . It turned out to be impossible to put anything other than a few bits of flavoured rice between my lips because of the larger- than-my-cheek nose ring that I had been balancing on my left nostril . My newly minted , sherwani-clad husband helped me eat , and I was relieved to find that underneath the costume , it was the same guy after all . Someone took a photo of the moment . Years later , you can ’ t tell how petrified we both were at that time , as we giggle at each other with a spoonful of biryani balanced between us .
And finally there was my father . All through my childhood , he had created confusion by wiping his own tears at scenes in the movies when a bedecked but distraught bride is separated from her helpless parents during the bidai . Now , when it was time for his only daughter to leave the marriage venue , he decided to look utterly exuberant and fulfilled .
Maybe it was because we were stepping into a car we had borrowed from my friend Geet , and were going to drive across town , drop my new in-laws off at their home and come back to my own apartment in the city . Who knows ? I would have appreciated some sombreness from my brother and father , but alas , there was none .
When does a marriage become itself ? After your first full-blown fight ? Or after the kids have moved out ?
So really , to borrow from a famous proverb , marriage is like a box of chocolates . Most of us love only one type out of the mixed assortment , and can barely tolerate the rest . Often we read the labels too late and have to smile through the fruits , nuts and dates hidden within the devious packaging . Some of us choose to throw tantrums instead .
The reason I am grumpy about attending weddings is that they seem to have no connection to what marriage is really all about eventually . I am snooty about wedding buffet spreads . More importantly , I am impatient for the real thing . When does a marriage really begin to become itself ?
Does it start when the festivities are over , the wedding gifts have been put away in lofts , and one returns to wearing regular clothes and walking into the jostle of rush hour traffic to get back to work ? Does the transition happen when the bride takes off those identifying red and white plastic bangles that seem to have become so ubiquitous on the wrists of newly married women in north India ? Or does one really arrive when you have your first full-blown fight and feel the whiplash of how badly it throws you off ? Is it further down the road , on that morning when you realise with relief that you have slept soundly all night without having bothered to resolve that nasty argument that had shaken the walls of your home the previous night ? You ’ re no longer afraid of being abandoned due to a disagreement .
For some , it feels like a new beginning when the children move out of the bedroom and they discover that perhaps this is what a real honeymoon is supposed to feel like . Your own bed , in your own home , all to yourself . ( This doesn ’ t last . The kids keep returning with some excuse or the other . The last time I moved into my parents ’ bedroom was when I was pregnant with my third baby , so it ’ s a long haul , folks .)
Does marriage start when the you run out of the
Illustration by SAJITH KUMAR
44 OUTLOOK 26 February 2018