Til death do us apart...

I was feeling a little down the whole of today. And the fact that I was just about to regain my health after two weeks of fever, cold and cough has nothing to do with it.

I was actually at the Marriage Registration Department today to obtain certain documents pertaining to my client's annulment and the amount of people queing up and waiting there to get married just amazed me.

Couples and families of different religion and races were scattered all around the department waiting patiently for their names to be called for the registration. There was even a couple who decided to get married at the department but failed to do so as the bride's passport (yeah, she's a foreigner) had expired and the registrar needed them to renew it before their marriage takes place. The poor groom was trying his best to exhaust all means in order to get married today, but all his pleas went to deaf ears.

And amidst all the chaos, laughs and happiness all around, I couldn't help thinking if the happiness would last for a lifetime or if it's just a moment spark as it most often happens.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I have immense respect on couples who stick together in both happiness and hardships...but at times I feel that people tend to be more excited at marriage than at being married itself.

My sister recently announced that she wants to get hitched to a long-time boyfriend come June this year. Plus, a colleague of mine invited me to her sudden engagement last week and informed that she would be getting married this July.

I have this great itch of asking my sister if the man is right for him? I mean, I know her boyfriend for many years now, but I couldn't have spoken to him more than 10 words in all these years put together. Not that I haven't tried to but it's just so difficult to put up an intelligent talk with him. So, you can't really blame me when I wonder what my sister would have been talking to him all these while. Plus, my sister is a hot-tempered person and I've seen her shouting her head off at him...that too in front of others...Geez! Is that the amount of respect you have on someone who's going to be your life partner? I mean, I would lose my self-respect if I end up with a person who keeps shouting at me in front of a third person.

Then there was this colleague of mine. She fell in love with someone, but it didn't work out. As she was nursing her broken heart, her parents arranged for her to get married to someone else...who happens to be many years her senior...And on top of all that, this girl went along with everything her parents said and at the same time, hating her would-be to death. Why would anyone want to go on with a marriage that they are not interested in the first place?

Does marriage serves as an escape route whenever a person faces a failure in life? Or is marriage a license to dominate the other partner indefinitely?

I always thought marriage is something wonderful, something sacred and pure. Deciding to share your life with another person because you want to and not because you have to...confused? See, as a human, you can never decide on what sort of parents you want, or your siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. If you have bad parents and relatives, well....that's your karma then. You can't really do much about it, you have to live with it.

But you alone can decide on your life partner. He's the person you've going to spend the rest of your life with...you have to see his face everyday, talk to him, cry with him, laugh with him, and literally live with him...and all because you want to...no one can actually force you to get married...there's no duress here...you make the choice and live with it. So why do people opt to get divorced or annulment after marriage?
Because you just realized that the man is not the right person for you?
Because you can't go on living a lie?
Because marriage is such an eye-opener that you realized that you are better off without it? or
Because good marriages are like dinosaurs...they don't exist?

To me, marriage is a commitment...not to be broken. You don't make commitments easily, but once made, don't ever break it.

But what really triggers couples to retract on their commitments? Misunderstandings? Lack of respect for one another? Why these changes? The world changes, so people are likely to change too...but why is there a change in one's attitude? One's character? One's personality? Why is it that a person who once looked upon you with so much of love and care, has only anguish and hatred in his/her eyes now? Has the world really changed like one claims or have we just not taken some time out to think before making vital decisions pertaining to marriage?

Why should there be a break in a link to the commitment? Why do your spouse who loves talking to you day and night during courting period, hates the very sound of your voice after marriage? Where has all the eagerness of waiting to see your loved one's face gone? How did two people who talked about anything and everything under the sun at one point of time, has nothing more than two words to say now?

This more or less makes me think that people are looking upon marriage just as another happy occasion; a ceremony to be celebrated with family and friends...but marriage is more than that...I never thought highly of people who get married is an extravaganza style...marriage, according to me is an union of two people and to a larger extent, their families. It should be joyful, divine, personal, and at the same time, meaningful to the extent of not losing even an inch of the significance of marriages in the first place. It need not be grand and luxurious...what purpose does a grand ceremony serves really, when two people have decided in their heart to share their life together? Marriage is that...marriage is uniting these two, unknown strangers to lead a life together, the feeling of sharing and caring for a person who is not related to you by blood...that someone who will be there for you because he/she wants to... to know that there's a person in this world, who is no way obligated to you, nevertheless willing to risk his/her whole life for you, who's willing to throw the whole world behind him/her, if that is the only way to be with you...I know, I'm being filmy...but that's what you should feel about your spouse...that's what families are about, isn't it? Wouldn't our parents have done everything under the sun to help us in times of trouble? Wouldn't grandparents compromise their granchildren's taste and style of life even if it's totally contrary to what they believe? Wouldn't children have rushed to their parents the moment they hear a bad news about the latter? That is life...caring and loving each other...and compromises...I still would have let my grandmother to watch her Tamil soap operas, knowing very well that the tempting Lipstick Jungle is playing on Star World at the same time...my sister would have let me have the last piece of the chocolate cake even though she might have crave for it herself...or taking mom for her grocery shopping, even if that's the last thing you wanna do in your life...

So when these care, these love and these compromises can be made for your family members, why not do the same for your spouse? Why should there be a barrier by the name of ego in between of the two? Why should life with your spouse be any different than that with your immediate family members?

Life is not complicated, actually. Nor is it complexed...We are the ones who are making it complicated. Take a stroll in the park and see where you've misplaced the missing puzzle in your life all these while...it is never too late to go back to rectify our mistakes...the only problem lies is when we refuse to take the attempt to do so...