Marriage, The Forlorn Desire

Marriage is a potent attraction, so it was for me. Right from the age of six, I had an implicit desire of getting married but unfortunately child marriages in India were banned long before I was born. However, this implicit desire remained incarcerated in my mind and it kept on burgeoning and never seemed to subside.

When I entered into my teens, I had already married hundreds of beautiful and gorgeous women including movie stars, TV stars, super models, etc, in my dreams. I had spent my honeymoons and also had two kids, one sweet girl and one naughty boy. At that time, I was totally against the system of monogamy, 'Only-One-Marriage' system was not acceptable to me. I had disparate views. I wished either Government should allow polygamy or 'Each-One-Take-One' system must be changed to 'Each-One-Take-Many'. I used to praise the lives of Muslims who enjoyed the legal right of keeping four wives. Sometimes, when my rage against this mono-wife system reached to its saturation point, I used to pray to God to change my religion but nothing of such sort happened.

In my late teens, when I had realised that marriage was a lot later issue, I started craving to have a girl-friend but like it is truly said ' more you find love, more it runs away from you ', I remained single with no feminine friend except my cat Dolly. Dolly and I shared the same grief, lack of a heterosexual partner. Whole world seemed to mock at my loneliness. It appeared to me as if people were pointing at me with their fingers and saying, "Look at that bovine young boy, he doesn't have a girl-friend." At such moments of embarrasment, I would usually pray to God to take me back into heaven, where, I assumed, that I won't be subject to such emotional torture.

When I entered college, there were too many girls in my class. I was in fact captivated by few of them but to my stark disaster all of them were pre-occupied and those who were not, did not acknowledge my application. I was cloaked with the layer of distress and during that time I kept vacillating between the two alternatives, either to die or to marry someone, but unfortunately I couldn't stick to any one of them.

On 12th of January 1993, I was confounded to see that God has seen my biodata too. I was finally bestowed with not one but two girl friends on this day. I met Riti in train, she was reading a book on Hindu Marriage and I being the first year law student started flaunting my knowledge on the subject to which she felt impressed. Our conversation ended when my station arrived and thank God till then we had exchanged our phone numbers. I met Tulika outside my building. She was my new neighbour and she had asked me to help her in carrying her luggage till her apartment. Within fifteen minutes, all her four suitcases were transported to her apartment and within that time my exuberant spirits had ambushed a vacant space in her heart. She found me 'an interesting guy' !

Both my achievements had left me marveling at myself. My spirits, my courage, my confidence, my attitude were all resurging. Conversations with Riti on phone were as common as were the phone calls of my dad?s clients. I had even started teaching Riti some very important Hindu Marriage sections. She always extolled at my legal knowledge on the subject and left me dreaming of my future intimate moments with her. Visits to Tulika?s apartment were equally common and when one day she insisted me on having lunch with her, I was sure that my marriage was not far, after and all for the first time in my life someone, other than my mom, was making lunch for me.

My studies were being affected a lot. Except Hindu Law, I knew no other subject. Clandestine meetings with Riti and going out for dinner with Tulika had become my schedule of the day. My days were full of happiness. I had never been so happy in whole my life. I was thanking God day and night so that he may not get angry and snatch away all this from me but I think my special offerings to God for giving me so much happiness weren?t acknowledged and as usual, the most loved things are ephemeral, the happiness of my life was also planning to leave me. Tulika asked me to help her propose Amit, my other neighbour and I discovered that Riti had been reading all that Hindu Marriage stuff because she was seeking divorce from her husband !

My world was pulverized and razed to the ground. The layer of distress covered me again. My once jutting spirits were hammered to attain their original position and it seemed to me that they were muffled and padlocked too because they had indeed stopped working for me because I found myself unable to speak to a classmate who had herself approached me to ask me my phone number. This imbued me with plethora of rage and my whole rage was against God. I indignantly castigated at him and abhorred him for giving me such a miserable life.

Nothing exciting ever happened in my life after that. I became too engrossed in my studies and nearly forgot Riti and Tulika. It was my 21st birthday when one of my classmates invited me to her engagement party. I was stunned to realise my classmates were getting married. I suddenly got an exciting feeling that I too was nearing the age of marriage. This feeling revitalized in me, the desire of getting married. The idea of getting married had always fascinated me, as I have said earlier. This time I decided to keep clinging to this idea and talk to my parents but I couldn?t gather courage to talk to them. I was thinking, why were they so passive to me? They don?t even think of my marriage.

Dreams and imaginations had once again found a place in me. I started marrying film stars again. I started spending my honeymoon and even started thinking my kids? names. Those sensual dreams and imaginations had encumbered me so strongly that I was totally dreft away from the real world in which film stars never marry a common law student.

My life continued with lack of feminine entry but I kept going to marriage parties thinking that in case of a last minute dowry dispute, when the groom will leave, I, like the movie hero will come forward to marry the bride. But this never happened though I kept waiting and praying for it in every marriage party I attended.

At the age of 25, I had started feeling that either I was not destined to be married or marriage was allergic to me. Perhaps, my sadness was now clearly apparent on my face that was why my friends and family members had started calling me ?Devdas?. I had even decided to abjure all wordly desires and go to Himalayas in search of peace of soul but then my life took an aberrant change.

I was practicing law and had devoted all my time to my profession. It was then, when God finally pitied on me and sent me my would-be-wife, as my client. Her name was Aditi and she wanted to sue her company who had not paid her five-month salary. During the case, we came much too closer to each other and I found in myself same old desires burning but I wasn?t sure because this had always happened to me whenever I was near feminity. Perhaps, it was destined from above, Aditi herself averred that she had started liking me and I didn?t let my chance go. I held her hand and proposed her thereon in the courtroom, when judge was about to pronounce his judgment on our case. We won the case.

I decided to marry her but there was one obstacle, my parents, who, I knew, won?t agree to my marrying a girl elder to me. But Sachin Tendulkar had already inspired me and successfully I was able to convince my parents by reciting his example.

Finally, I was married. My childhood dream came true and my life no longer remained miserable. With the license of consummation, there came lots of happiness too. People too had stopped laughing at me because I was no longer alone. My wife Aditi, is just a wonder girl. She is not a moviestar but it's ok for me. Not everyone marries a moviestar. The most important thing in a marital relationship is happiness and Aditi has given me every scintilla of happiness that sometimes I think, if one wife can give me so much happiness, how would it be if I had four wives !