The Jewel of My Life

Many years ago, during my college time, one day my mom and I was having a casual conversation about life in general. When the topic came to married life, mom said, ‘Marriage is a like buying a lottery ticket. If you are lucky, you will get a good partner’.

This was early 90’s in Kerala when arranged marriages were pretty much the way of life. The concept was quite strange for people from Western world when they heard that you could marry someone without falling in love first. Quite sure it still sounds the same but let us say it was a way of life. We found happiness in discovering love together and since both parties involved heavily invested their time and effort for such a beautiful discovery, most of the times the result was cherished quite well.

A few years later, by the time calendar was nearing the end of 2009, I treaded the same path and took a lottery ticket myself. Our initial days were in Bangalore where we started setting up our life together. The process of discovery was not easy I must admit. There were many things we did not know each other and every day we figured out something new about ourselves. Not all findings were pleasant while there were adorable ones that kept us going.

As we look back, we realize that we have replaced the calendars sixteen times and the biggest realization we have today is that we are still discovering each other, all the while enjoying the feeling of being in love! If someone told us this in 2009, I am certain that neither of us would have believed that.

Having said that, this post is not just about love. It is also about the moments when the love of my life was instrumental in decisions we had taken together in life that defined our future. All such decisive moments now feel like glorious chapters of our past.

Be it, shaking myself out of my comfort zone and making me believe that I can take on a new challenge, or staying together while crossing the seas and settling in a new country, or jointly rowing our family boat while adding two tiny bundles of joy during the last decade and half, or motivating me to venture into unknown territories outside work and proving to me again that the limit I can stretch is not even the sky, and above everything else, being there as the calm during all storms we endured and pushing herself in believing in me more than what I believe in myself, this ladies and gentlemen is the true reason for the post.

As we celebrate Valentine's week, I want to acknowledge the real leadership that reminds me everything that I knew I could do, but more importantly empowers me to believe that I could do much more. It all happened with that one lottery I took way back in 2009.

Today, I want to tell my mom, I was lucky not just to win the bumper prize, but it was a priceless gem that destiny had kept in store for me. It must be a sheer coincidence that her name is Ruby!