'People who tell you otherwise are either psychopaths or plain delusional.'
I can't get over the fact that Bollywood's 'hottest couple' is getting hitched. I can't get over what we, as a people, consider a hot couple.
Sure, they're widely loved and have earned their stripes (in a manner of speaking) and sure, it is a joyous occasion on many counts... just not on counts that actually count, if you ask me.
They must be walking on clouds, giving in eagerly to the force of tradition, the extra fawning over, the general feeling of superiority over everyone and everything around them.
'We are the chosen ones. This is unlike anything anyone has ever experienced before or will in the future,' is the symphony playing in their brains.
Did the bride wear Sabya, Manish Malhotra, or delusions of grandeur about marriage for her big day?
How many days do you think it will take for the novelty and the fanfare to wear off?
What does a wedding afterparty look like for a bunch of movie stars?
Is it a party at all?
Is it being a party a good sign?
Do we measure good signs in a marriage on the tape of longevity?
In a paper titled 'Marriage in Literature' by academician Kate Wilson and poet-playwright Anne Riddler state that 'The surface which marriages customarily present to the world are misleading. Indeed, one of the central paradoxes in this most intimate of relationships is that although almost everyone has some personal and immediate experience of it, and although there is a vast array of social research that has looked at marriage from the outside, we do not in fact know much -- other than from our personal experience -- about marriage from the inside.'
To a layman like me -- I was never an industrious student -- this points to a fact.
A fact that the simpleton bartender Steve Brady tells his neurotic attorney ex-girlfriend Miranda Hobbs over an accidental dinner in Sex And The City: 'No one really knows what happened between two people except for the two people.'
Whatever information does come out of couples, whether in marriages or other forms of romantic relationships, it can't be relied upon.
So what does it say about me if I am spewing all this negative sh!t about someone's wedding?
Some will say I am projecting, which is the most predictable reaction to my textual outburst.
But I'm also hoping that there'll be a few who nod satisfactorily, who may read this and feel less crazy for the way they feel about their marriages.
All this is not to say that there aren't some universal truths about holy matrimony. And I'd like to put them on record for good measure.
I wish for more and more women to consider the idea that, despite all the marketable bullshit they are fed in bite-sized, sugar-soaked varieties, marriage is not a level playing field.
Not even if you're making more bank than your spouse.
Not even if you 'redefined' traditions by filling their maang with ek chutki sindoor instead of the other way around.
There are no happy marriages. People who tell you otherwise are either psychopaths or plain delusional.
Marriage is not the same as dating, living-in or being engaged.
Things get stale/spoiled faster than avocados in Indian summers.
And I saved the best for the last: The first few years of your marriage will be pure hell. More hellish than your worst nightmare.
If you ever feel like you're struggling, don't hesitate to tap into your support system. Friends, colleagues, parents, siblings. Literally anyone would do.
But please bear in mind -- everyone has their nose stuffed in their own bag of fast-rotting avocados. Which means to them, your bag of avocados may or may not look like the batch that needs the most urgent attention.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
