[email to family]
> Your
> mother dear is busy matchmaking. Heeeeeeee she is having a
> blast. Good luck to you.
Well allright there’s something I must say here. So contrary to popular
belief, I actually have been giving heed to some of the advice you people
and also some of my friends have given me. I must say, to stay a bachelor is
too damn tempting, and its too easy. I think I’ve reached the stage where
I’m not emotionally dependent on others any more and I’m quite happy being
alone, for any length of time (and equally happy being with people too). So
finally now I can say I really have the choice whether to get married or
not, and no longer see it as an inevitable compulsion.
First of all let me clarify that I DO NOT now or ever have ever see marriage
as any kind of solution to any problem.
Having said that, in the past couple of years, I’ve changed my belief that
its going to be the *cause* of many problems. I’ve seen that problems will
always be there, irrespective of one’s circumstances.
Actually I had written a very long essay on this topic, almost exactly a
year ago. Here is the summary: I understand that common sense, rational
thinking, philosophy, etc simply dont work in romance. Its just a matter of
following one’s heart. I do believe in the theory that for every man, there
is some woman somewhere, and destiny would make them meet eventually, so Im
the least concerned about ‘missing the train’. I had a few big concerns
about marriage itself, but I solved those over time by myself with some
thinking. For eg, my biggest fear was losing my freedom… I believe in
living a very simple, uncomplicated life, and that marriage would force me
into an infinite rat race forever. This assumption I doubted, not that I
disbelieve now, but I know there are other possibilities. When I realised
there are a lot of girls out there with the same if not better kind of
thinking. I also have a long list of pros and cons about marrying earlier
(upto 28 years) and later (30+ years), which I dont want to list here… but
just FYI… I have looked at the consequences of both options, and I usually
try and take a balanced approach i.e. around age 30 in this case.
So… right now whats happening is that I did register in a matrimonial
site, and expressed my interests and all that a few months ago.
I thought should I make a list of all the characteristics I expect in a
girl. Nah. That’s crazy. Its like giving a marks sheet or exam and asking
someone to answer it. And quite possible that a girl who scores 10/10 I’ll
still discover was the biggest lifelong mistake I made. Also possible a girl
who scores 2/10 I might find to be THE exact person for me. So in this case
I decided to totally, well almost, abandon all logical analytical
methodologies.
So after registering, I’ve kind of let it simmer in the background and
forgot about it except every once in a way. Some girls expressed interest in
me, I saw that the only common thing was caste so I declined them, then I
saw some girls I really liked but they declined me, and that’s how its been
going on so far.
But recently, I saw one girl whom when I read the profile I thought WOW
she’s EXACTLY the kind of person Im looking for! I expressed my interest to
her, that was on a Friday. For the next few days, I found myself just
thinking about her all the time. I suppose that’s what is being in love all
about, has happened to me before but never to this extent. So then on Monday
I came to work, checked my mail, and saw a Declined message.
I was really disappointed.
I felt frustrated and angry, asking again and again “how could she have
rejected me straightaway without even thinking of even speaking to me!!” and
felt “am I not good enough for her, what more can she expect from any
man?!”. Then I recollected the number of girls whom I had rejected so far,
and it filled me with pain thinking how they mightve felt. I had rejected
them all based on the assumption that they had just randomly clicked on me
just because of the caste, and probably the assumption is true, but there
were chances that atleast one of them was really interested in the actual
profile. I immediately asked the admin for my profile to be deleted and got
disgusted with the whole idea of marriage, and how love is the biggest
misery. But later on when I got a mail for confirmation for deletion, I
cancelled it and let it be. I consoled myself that that girl would get a
better guy than me, and everything happens for the good.
Upto now, I have had many aspirations in my life. Ive wanted to travel and
see the world and live a highly adventurous life. I ended up doing that
without ever planning for it. It just happened. Ive seen so many things, had
so many amazing adventures, only a very small fraction Ive shared here, due
to lack of time to narrate everything. Ive developed the habit of speaking
to total strangers, and in most cases I find that he or she sooner or later
feels very close to me, gets beyond superficial conversation and starts
talking about his/her deepest interests. We end up feeling that we know each
other very well. This is something I really love, just discovering the
world, unfettered by any barriers. Which I would never have been able to do
with a wife tagging along. I’ve been in some dangerous situations as well,
and I’ve never cared, Ive come to believe theres some invisible force caring
for me and guarding me all the time.
I remember when I was a kid, I had climbed a high cupboard, and Daddy was
sitting down on the floor and sorting out some files. I slipped and fell
from the cupboard. Daddy just reached out his arm and caught me. In just
that split second. His reflexes were absolutely fantastic. And he put me
down, and got on with sorting his files, saying nothing, not even “be
careful”. Anyway, I myself was a bit jarred and took some time to recover
from the shock then, so his words wouldve been superfluos. (Nowadays when I
recall my Dad I feel more and more that there was much more to him than I
had ever known about). But now that I recollect it, I feel this force was
in the form of my Dad then. I sometimes feel my Dad, Tata & Ajji & Mama are
always around helping me. Ive faced several serious crisises, and something
happens, or someone or the other has always turned up to help me out. Ive
learnt that in times of crises the best thing to do is just patiently wait,
with a calm and alert mind, and its always worked. Something like this I
doubt if I wouldve ever figured out if I had been married, and this is just
one example.
So I would probably marry someone who wouldn’t be someone who would want to
“tag along” but is capable of being independent herself, this is probably
the only expectation I have. But then even here, its possible that a very
dependent person changes over time – an example is my own mom, the way she
has changed past few years has been unbelievable, I feel she can become the
prime minister of India or something.
Anyway the main point is that I just want to reassure everybody that
everything will just fall into place over time. No need to be concerned
whether Im going to be a bachelor forever. At the same time, while I don’t
totally rule it out, I do not believe in the idea of arranged marriage. Main
thing is its not natural, both parties usually end up putting up a pretence,
highlighting their positives and covering up the negatives as much as
possible. So whatever Amma is doing may or may not be very useful, but as
long as she’s having fun let her freak out!
Ive come to believe that the world is a research center, where we make some
discovery everyday, and marriage is also one of the experiments 🙂 I would
much prefer to come across a girl just by chance than to see her for the
purpose of getting married, as per arranged marriage, it seems to me at this
point in time a very remote possibility that it will work out.
Cheers,
Sanjay
PS: has anyone read this book “Bridge Across Forever” by Richard Bach? Well
I havent yet, but I read the review and it kind of seems to have exactly
what I had in mind. And its a coincidence that I came across it just when I
started thining along these lines.
Summary:
Much truer to an autobiographical style, “Bridge” is the story of how
Richard and Leslie found each other, and what happened after. Richard always
knew that there was one woman out there for him, his soulmate, but had a
very hard time finding her. This book picks up where “Illusions” left off.
Richard quits his flying to find his soulmate. The first part of the book
leads you through the choppy starts and stops of many relationships. Then he
begins a purely professional relationship with a beautiful actress named
Leslie Parrish. This grows into a friendship based on long chess games, huge
bowls of ice cream, and much respect. Still, Richard is sorting through the
many other women in his life. When finally he realizes that Leslie is the
one for which he has been waiting his whole life, he finds that he is not
ready for the commitment that a soulmate deserves. The remainder of the book
is their struggle. Richard is trying to become less self centered (something
that is at the very core of what he is), and Leslie is trying to deal with
Richard. It is a great period of growth for him; one with which we are all
familiar in one way or another. Too much more would give too much away, but
I promise that I haven’t even touched on the best parts of all.
http://www.duke.edu/~ar2/bach.html
While all that may sound very glamourous, it should also be noted that in
real life, Richard and Leslie divorced.
http://www.duke.edu/~ar2/bach2.html
So one thing Ive learnt is that its impt to take everything with a pinch of
salt 😉
Leave a Reply