Till Death Do Us Part

Top of Form

Whenever I see happy married couples and their ever-going-strong married life, I simply crack my head, wondering about the factors that sustain such marriages … factors that prevent the conjugal bliss from tumbling down into an abyss.

 Emotional compatibility [EC] is an ability to empathize with a partner’s emotion; level of caring, love and nurturing shown toward each partner. It is not a small matter to be brushed aside. In fact, EC is a far away moon to those partners who have no idea of the different levels of their emotional needs.

They say EC is the anchor that sustains marriages. Emotional compatible partners are like true friends, share their emotional needs and avoid cabin feelings.

 ‘Why did you hide such things from me? ‘What secrets you still have in your mind? ‘Don’t you have faith on me’, are some of the questions couples ask one another when he or she finally chooses to let out the truth lurking in her/his mind for long. This attitude of ‘not-willing to reveal untold truth’ happens only when the partners behave like strangers not having space for other’s emotional needs. Their attitude is naïve, for they think their only symbol of marriage is the mangalasutra the wife sporting around her neck.

 A husband or wife should be keen, look forward every opportunity to make a clean breast of untold truth lurking in their minds. A conscientious wife or husband will always feel bad if they have some grey areas hidden in his/her mind. They will come out with truth though they fear that such revealing may bring havoc to their conjugal bliss. They also know that on what ground their marriage stand and would readily spill the beans. And there lies the ‘Success Quotient’ for a happy marriage.

 Conversely, if a husband or wife starts hiding something from each other because it would create a holocaust in the home, the partners, then, are not doing anything conducive to the smooth going of their marriage. Theirs is only a fake or pretentious living. The fact that they are not truthful to each other ultimately put their married life in a furnace.

 One of my friends told his wife about the physical contact he had with a woman when he was in his late twenties. It was not a big matter for the husband to open up his mind to her. For, emboldened by the harmonious relationship he was having with his wife, he chose to share the long buried secret in his mind. However, what mattered was his wife’s response to such an honest confession. I asked her [she was very outspoken; would always call a spade a spade] about her response to her husband’s sharing with her a bitter truth—I was a bit curious. She looked through me, smiled and said:

 “Err is human. It is quite common that hormones play games with the youngsters when they are in a vulnerable age and make them to do what they don’t want to. Even exposures from media and internet add to the woes of the youngsters and make them go ashtray. That my husband had a fall in his twenties and became a bit askew then should not be taken into account for deciding his trait or character. It is his confidence in me that made him to show a black spot on his otherwise clean premarital life. The emotional attachment we have for each other did exhort him to show the chinks in his past life. It happened because he thought there should be no secrets between us. So, I accepted him as he is and my love for him grew up immensely after his confession.”

 I now saw my friend’s face gleaming, eyes reflecting the real joy of his marriage. Kudos to his wife! She understood his spouse well and her attitude and emotional levels only made him to reveal a hidden truth.

 Here no one compelled the husband, not even his wife, to let out the untold things or talk about a blunder he had committed when he was in his mid-twenties. But then, the harmonious ambiance prevailing in his home and having an understanding woman for a wife, he was able to reveal a thing that had been torturing his mind for long.

 Again, if his wife had nagged him to tell her about the things he hadn’t told her before, the husband, by every chance, would have kept mum. Successful marriages will never find couples spying on each other or trying to find holes on each other’s behavior.

As I said earlier, emotionally attached couples easily identify hurdles to their conjugal bliss and stay clear of them lest they sink their marriage boats in the ocean of misunderstanding.

 The factors that give fillip to the conjugal bliss and  make one’s married life an elixir are lying in small gestures and deportment like, husband and wife watching movies together like true friends, going to comedy shows and talking about the show and laughing together. Sometimes, holding one’s hand brings a feeling of oneness and tranquility to the other. Whenever my wife starts holding my hand, I feel like she is telling me, ‘I love you; live for you’

 These are simple secrets that go a long way in making a marriage more meaningful not a Greek tragedy.

Image courtesy: Google

  

Art of Luring

The new flat we recently moved in was not the marvel of the new-age construction, but was a self-contained one far better than the ‘hovel’ we lived in before. My grandma was all smiles. She was excited to see the big, spacious Puja room. She said: ‘Eswar, it looks godly, having an aura of Divinity’. In no time she began arranging things in the Puja room, decking up the walls with framed photographs of many Hindu gods.

That she was not able to feed the crows in the new flat as she did in our old house made grandma a bit sad. A Pucca conservative Hindu woman who steadfastly follows ‘sastras and sampradayas’, she would invariably offer the first scoop of rice to the crows as soon as she finishes her morning Puja. She would partake of her food only after feeding the darkies.

She would always tell me that feeding the crows is like feeding our pithrus [ancestors] whose manes the birds represent.

The kitchen grill in our old house had an open and shut door. Grandma, keeping open the door all through the day, would feed the crows with something or the other: balls of rice, pieces of chapati, idlies and dosas. Never a day went without her feeding the birds which would line up the windowsill when she opened the kitchen window early in the morning.

Grandma grimaced when she could not feed the darkies in the new flat. For, the kitchen grill here was closed with sun mica glasses not having an open and shut door. The kitchen too had only a faint gleam of light reflected from the sun mica glasses.

She was bewildered when my neighbor told her that one had to go to the terrace to feed the crows. The terrace was three stairs away with steep steps and without banister. With arthritis-ridden knees functioning symbolically, there was no way of grandma climbing up the stairs to the terrace daily to feed the crows.

So, it became necessary for me to hire a carpenter to cut and remove the sun mica glasses and put up a makeshift wire mesh across the window grill so that grandma could lift the net and feed the birds whenever she wanted. My euphoria of being a tad smart in opening a new and innovative way for grandma to carry on her daily ritual was only short-lived. For, not even a single crow came to our windowsill, not to speak of their looking at the rice ball grandma offered them with utmost reverence and respect. To her dismay, the crows flew in fleets outside out kitchen window, ignoring her offerings.

The little psychoanalyst in me soon discovered that the crows had no flair for rice and dhal since they were getting mounds of them from every household in our area. I then brought into action all my tactical and Machiavellian skills; decided to offer the crows some crumbs to lure them to our kitchen windowsill. Of course, I did it on the sly since grandma never liked to pamper the birds with costly food stuffs other than rice balls.

Viola! The moment I placed a piece of a cake on the sill, I saw a throng of crows flying down to our kitchen window and picking up my new offerings with a flourish. Grandma was stunned when she saw a troupe of crows lining up on the window sill. She couldn’t believe her eyes, but was happy as if she got manna from heaven.

However, the darkies became rogues and refused to take the rice ball offered by grandma after they had tasted crumbs. ‘Easwar, why don’t they take rice balls?’ grandma muttered mawkishly. ‘Look, grandma’, I tried to console her. ‘They’re always munching on rice and dhal. Maybe, they like a variety of food. Why don’t you give them biscuits or bread?’ ‘No … no,’ she retorted. ‘It’s against Manu Dharma. Crows are our ancestors. We should give them the same ‘padayal’ [offering] which we offer to our gods.’

Soon, the responsibility of feeding the darkies fell on me as grandma was disgusted with them. Fortunately, the dark winged creatures and I became friends. They now started behaving themselves and feeding on the rice balls I offered them. Grandma became curious.’ Why, Easwar? Why they don’t like feeding from my hands? I do offer them the same rice ball as you do. And what magic you do to make them behave?’ she quipped and went away.

There is no secret or magic behind what I did. My friends and I are only mundane creatures. Since we don’t know anything about Manu Dharma, we oblige each other—they come to the window frame hearing the Puja bell and on my part I offer them rice balls coated with crumbs or jaggery. It’s a case of ‘you scratch my back and I do yours’ … a sort of win-win game.

My friends, I hope, would never betray me. For I always saw them cleaning up the rice balls without leaving any trace of their feed being mixed with extraneous things. Nowadays, they are more adept at hoodwinking grandma than me, their master.

Image courtesy: Google