Love Marriage Life lessons indian couple newly married

She Is A Woman Of Science But What She Did To Me Was Nothing Short Of Magic

( words)
*For representational purpose only.

Like most men of my generation, I didn’t want to get married. What is this big deal about marriage?

Our generation is completely functional even without marriage.

You can have all the fun, sex and the good parts in a “live-in” or a “no strings attached” relationship.

Then why get married? That was the biggest question I asked myself for a long time.

But there are many reasons at play like your mother’s emotional drama and being the last bachelor in your gang (with some friends already having sh*t**ng machines, i.e. kids), thus being the victim of everyone’s favourite question – when are you getting hitched? 

For someone who was a commitment-phobic, the very thought of marriage was a huge leap of faith.

But what do you do when you meet someone who performs an open-heart surgery on you? I found a doctor girl who injected something into my mind that made me say “Yes” to her. But like most men, I caught cold feet right on the day before our marriage.

Thoughts like “should I run away?” “am I ready for this?” and a million other questions ran through my head.

So I decided to write down reasons to convince myself why I was getting married. Now after a month of being married, I am rewriting the same with the lessons learned.

For one, she didn't steal my last name! I was always the first one to laugh when I saw my so-called feminist friends change their last name to their husband’s and put a status like “I stole his last name”. First things first, I never did an RC registration of my wife in my name.

Nor did I do anything great by marrying her to take away her dad's name; after all, he had taken good care of her all this while.

After marriage, when she asked me what should I call you, I said “my name”, which is so much better than fancy titles like “ichayan” or “chetta”.

Tinder may seem better but life is not always about swiping. As my friend Akhil said “Marriage is an outdated concept, it serves no purpose in this modern world. You introduce more and more rules to your life, which you don’t want to follow!”

When you are single you have all the women in the world. When you are married you have one.

But there is a difference. When you hook up with a woman, you wake up in the morning with this nagging thought, “When will she leave my house?” When you are married, you wake up to her.

You learn to enjoy the trivial things in life - morning walks, planning and decorating your house, carrying home cooked food to the office and having someone to go back to at the end of the day and wait for their welcoming hug.

To those that say I will think about marriage later in my 30’s and 40's, if you keep swiping every woman left, you’d be left with nothing right.

Yes, you may perpetual hunt for a dry toilet floor. I am accustomed to sleeping with my face on the pillow and like Spider-Man on my bed. When you are married, you lose half your bed space, half your hangers and 3/4th (if not more) of your wardrobe.

The biggest struggle so far is that I can s*** only on a dry toilet seat and hunt for that in the morning. But these are trivial things you learn to enjoy and adapt over a period of time.

If you think you can’t adjust or let someone occupy the other half of your bed, then don’t get married.

It’s important to have lived with horrible roommates who put up with you in life before you get married.

In life, you may feel that the cuckoo has stopped singing. When you've fallen head over heels for someone and were left with a broken heart, a commitment phobia and a lack of belief in yourself thinking, “Will anyone stay?”

People who know me will tell you that I am the most pessimistic writer. Of the 100 poems I’ve written, 98 of them have a sad ending.

So when the first thoughts of marriage entered my head, the most obvious response from my brain was “run baby run”.

Then she came like a surgical strike.

Over a period of time, talking to this woman made me realize what I’d been missing. The secured perimeter of marriage allows a woman to come into your life and pour her heart out without the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ unlike when you are dating.

So, I was sure she would catch me if I fell.

For months, I couldn't write anything, the poet in me snapped, but yes, I am sure he will be back soon with some new inspiration to write.

Marriage is the time when you forget porn. Being a Christian, I had to attend a 3-day marriage class and 90% of the men there were getting married to have this one thing they coveted the most; “A virgin hole” or a “100 pavam in gold”.

It was a truly shocking revelation for me to see how desperate Malayali society is and how over-hyped the idea of virginity is among them.

Sex is better in marriage (at least in the initial years, I believe) and you have it more often than when you are single. My Google AI must be wondering why this guy hasn’t been visiting his most visited sites anymore.

I didn't go in a Benz for my wedding but chose my dad’s Etios. The flower decorations were flying off the car and we were jumping from our seats with my chauffeur dad speeding at 100 km! We treat marriage like royalty and spend bizarre amounts of money on wedding functions and guest lists.

Despite my pleas for keeping the wedding small and simple with just about 300 people, the guest list touched 2000 and I hated every bit of it.

You don’t need to feed 2000 people and pose with them until your jaws hurt.

I apologize to all those whom I didn't call for the wedding but you didn't miss anything! There was nothing fancy and I advise everyone to have a small wedding.

Spend the money on hiring a good photographer and a lavish honeymoon. Those are the only two things that you will talk about after 25 years.

Or simply run away and get married in a registrar’s office. That’s so much better!

Another important lesson is that you don’t go broke after marriage. Siddharth, who was almost always broke at the end of the month till he got married, gave this advice to me. Marriage makes your financial management better and gets you the best bargains (you should see her bargaining).

This is of course apart from the hit that your savings have taken for the wedding. Now, there are two earning members and the bills are split and you can enjoy those things that you couldn't afford alone.

Secondly, you know there is someone you need to take care off and your unwanted online shopping comes down.

To those men who are afraid of marrying a working woman, 'suffer boy suffer' in the name of tradition, you will now have to bear double the GST all by yourself.

Most importantly, marriage is not about having kids! Luckily, I have not yet reached the stage where the family starts badgering you with “When is the little one coming?” “When are you starting a family,” etc.

This world already has 7.5 billion people with depleting resources to be taken care off. I don’t want to add one more to it.

I didn’t get married to have kids or extend my bloodline!

Take this example. My father is a thorough gentleman and so priest-like, yet his son turned out to be me! If tomorrow I have an urge to raise kids, I will adopt one from an orphanage. At least I would be correcting someone else’s mistakes.

So celebrate when your wife gets her periods. Karma has not punished you yet.

But mistakes do happen in the dark, so kindly excuse if you see me changing diapers in the future.

Also, don’t forget your friends after you get new relatives. This is for those who forget their friends once they get married. Those who vanish from their social life and are confined to the comfort of their bedrooms only to spy on each other and whom they are talking to.

Have your friend circle and introduce them to your partner. When you start a fire, your friends are better at putting it out than your parents. Invite them home for dinner or take her out with them for their parties.

Put a password on WhatsApp because your life still needs those little secrets.

But don’t push your friends aside for that extended list of relatives you are now answerable to.

And lastly, love her like there is no tomorrow.

Above everything else, love her; love her with all that you have got.

With every poem, every quote, love every inch of her body and soul. She is someone who has trusted you enough to be with you for the rest of your life. Show her your best and when you fight, make sure that you don’t go to bed without a kiss.

There are certain things that you need to experience in life to know how they really feel. Being married is one of them.

Finally, stay single as long as you wish. I am not advocating marriage here but am simply sharing my reflections on marriage.

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