ദാമ്പത്യ ജീവിതവും പോത്തിറച്ചിയും

ഒരു വിവാഹ ഒരുക്ക സെമിനാറിന്റെ ഇടയിൽ ഒരു പയ്യൻ ക്ലാസ് എടുത്തു കൊണ്ടിരുന്ന അച്ചനോട് ചോദിച്ചു. 'അച്ചാ, ദാമ്പത്യ ജീവിതത്തിൽ ക്ഷമയ്ക്കും സമാധാനത്തിനും ആണോ കൂടുതൽ പ്രാധാന്യം?' വളരെ സരസനായിരുന്ന അച്ചൻ ഒരിത്തിരി നേരം ആലോചിച്ചിട്ട് മറുപടി പറഞ്ഞു. 'ക്ഷമയ്ക്കും സമാധാനത്തിനും പ്രസക്തിയുണ്ട്. എങ്കിലും ദാമ്പത്യ ജീവിതത്തിൽ പോത്തിറച്ചി വലിയ പ്രാധാന്യം അർഹിക്കുന്നു എന്ന് പറയേണ്ടിവരും. എനിക്കറിയാവുന്ന ഒരു മറിയാമ്മ ചേട്ടത്തിയുടെയും ഔസേപ്പ് ചേട്ടന്റെയും കഥ പറയാം.

വിവാഹം കഴിഞ്ഞ ആദ്യ നാളുകളിൽ ചേട്ടൻ എന്തെങ്കിലും കന്നംതിരിവ് കാണിക്കുകയോ ചേട്ടത്തിയെ ചീത്ത പറയുകയോ ചെയ്താൽ വളരെ ശാന്തമായും സമാധാനമായും ചേട്ടത്തി അത് കൈകാര്യം ചെയ്തിരുന്നു. നാളുകൾ കുറച്ച് ആയപ്പോൾ ഔസേപ്പ് ചേട്ടൻ ചേട്ടത്തിയുടെ ഈ നല്ല മനസ്സ് ശരിക്കും മുതലെടുക്കാൻ തുടങ്ങി. തോന്നിയവാസങ്ങൾ കൂടുതലായപ്പോൾ ചേട്ടത്തി കുറച്ചൊന്ന് ഉറച്ച ശബ്ദത്തിൽ പറഞ്ഞു നോക്കി. കാര്യങ്ങൾ വഷളായത് അല്ലാതെ ഔസേപ്പ് ചേട്ടൻ നന്നാവുന്ന ലക്ഷണമൊന്നും കാണിച്ചില്ല.

അങ്ങനെയിരിക്കെ ഒരു ദിവസം, ഒന്നും രണ്ടും പറഞ്ഞു ചേട്ടനും ചേട്ടത്തിയും കൂടെ തെറ്റി. വഴക്കായി, വക്കാണമായി, എന്തിനേറെ പറയുന്നു, ചേട്ടൻ ചേട്ടത്തിയെ കൈവെച്ചു. തികച്ചും ശാന്തയായിരുന്ന മറിയാമ്മ ചേട്ടത്തിയുടെ മനസ്സ് കലുഷിതമായി. ചേട്ടത്തി, മൂത്തമകൻ അന്തോണിയെ ചന്തയിൽ പറഞ്ഞുവിട്ട്, രണ്ട് കിലോ പോത്തിറച്ചി മേടിപ്പിച്ചു. പോത്തിറച്ചി വന്നതും, ചേട്ടത്തി നല്ല പൂവരശിന്റെ പലകയെടുത്ത് രാകി വച്ചിരുന്ന വെട്ടുകത്തിയുമായി പണി തുടങ്ങി. ഔസേപ്പ് ചേട്ടൻ അടുക്കളയിലേക്ക് വന്നപ്പോൾ, പോത്തിറച്ചി വെട്ടുന്ന ശബ്ദവും വേഗവും കൂടി വന്നു. തികച്ചും നിഷ്കളങ്കമായി ഔസേപ്പ് ചേട്ടൻ ചോദിച്ചു, ഇത് എന്നതാടി ഇത്രയും ശക്തിക്ക് വെട്ടുന്നത്?

അന്നാമ്മ ചേട്ടത്തി ആ ചോദ്യത്തിന് ഒരൊറ്റ മറുപടി മാത്രം പറഞ്ഞു. ഇങ്ങനെ വെട്ടിയാൽ ഒരു പന്നിയുടെ കഴുത്ത് മുറിയുമോന്ന് നോക്കിയതാ!

അന്നുമുതൽ ഔസേപ്പ് ചേട്ടൻ എപ്പോ മൊട എടുത്താലും ചേട്ടത്തി അപ്പൊ തന്നെ മകനെ ചന്തയ്ക്കു വിടും. ശേഷം ശുഭം.'

Kitchen Sink Teacher

I’m sure you must have heard the advice, ‘Couples should settle their disagreements before bed time’. This has been one of the age old pieces of wisdom passed on to us from generations and is supposed to be the mantra of a healthy relationship.

There is no denying of the benefit of this fact, provided you could truly achieve this! Keep aside the theory for a moment. Practically how often did you have a situation in your relationship that you just couldn’t solve the issue between you and your partner before bed time? You ended up sleeping on either ends of the bed or worst case, in different rooms. If you are smiling after reading this, I’m sure you understand what I mean.

Not to worry, this is something every couple in a ‘healthy relationship’ experience at least once (smiles widen here) in their life. What is more interesting is to know what happens the next day morning. Are you sulkier than what you were last night or you really feel refreshed? Can you say the same thing about your partner as well? If either of you don’t feel better, then the issue of last night will most likely get worsened.

If both partners are in fact feeling refreshed in the morning the chances are higher for the issue to be resolved in a few minutes after they are up. Now the question is how do some people achieve this? How can someone who literally fought like cats and dogs a few hours back mend ways and live happily ever after? What is that secret ingredient these people add to their sleep?

I really cannot speak for every one of these magicians out there who does their tricks in different ways. But I can definitely vouch for one such magic which was taught to me by a rather unusual teacher, the kitchen sink!

Have you ever tried to wash a heavily stained dish at home especially towards the end of a tiring day? How much ever hard you scrub it, even with the soap, you’ll find it next to impossible for the utensil to be deprived of the stain. Here is when you’ve two choices, especially when the dish you are trying to clean is testing your patience.

Choice one is to leave the dish in the sink and do nothing. Guess what will await your return to the kitchen next morning? A much more hardened stain for which you’ll possibly need a Himalayan effort to clean up.  

Choice two is what smarter people do. You take a deep breath and tell the dish that we’ve seen this and more. Once you get the psychological advantage over the dish, then you add a bit of dish wash liquid and fill the dish with water. Enjoy the beautiful view of bubbles reflecting the true colours of the dish while you head to the bed by leaving the worries at the kitchen door. The next day morning after you return to the kitchen, all what you have to do is swipe the dish with a brush by giving a gentle stroke as you would give to a baby. The dish will be squeaky clean and will reflect your smiling face just like in a mirror!

Bringing you back from kitchen to the rough evening between you and your partner. Just think that the stain on the dish is similar to the fight you had. You’re not able to resolve the issue and you’ve the same choices.

You can decide to leave it dry and make things worse the next day. Alternately both of you tell the fight that we’ve seen this and more. Once this is done, mutually agree that you can solve this issue, but probably need to sleep over it. This is the water and soap which will do the magic just like how it did for the dish. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see the positivity in you the next day morning when you get up. What you don’t realize is the fact that the stain is nothing but your ego and the mutual agreement is the secret ingredient that helped the ego melt away over the sleep.

All what is left to do is to give each other a quick hug and make up for the fight because love is the strongest emotion mankind ever experienced! 

My Shoes Teacher

It had been a while since I bought a pair of leather shoes. So I decided the other day to go ahead and get a pair for myself. I had obviously tried it before buying and was quite happy about it. As expected I started wearing it to office the next day itself.

Day one was all good. The happiness and pride of getting a new shoes reflected fully on my face.

Day two, things started getting a bit prickly on the toes.

Day three, a slight bruise started developing above my heel.

Day four, the bruise gave way to a painful cut.

I started wondering if I did the right thing to buy this shoes. I was pretty sure I did all possible checks before deciding to buy the pair. Thoughts started flowing in of going back to the store to check with them what was wrong with the shoes.

Day five, since I didn’t have another pair to wear, I applied a plaster to the cut and wore the shoes again. It felt good, though still painful.

The story continued for a few more days and before even I realized my cut disappeared. The shoes made me feel so good that I couldn’t even believe that this was the same shoes that was painful for me. Now I can’t imagine going to the office without wearing this pair of shoes!

By reading the story till now, if you have drawn a parallel to a couple in a new relationship, don’t be surprised. While this may not be the case with all relationships, there are quite a few that go through such a strain.

As is the case with a new pair of shoes, everything will appear hunky-dory in the initial days. As the days progress, the couple may start experiencing a strain with respect to their shared life. This is quite natural, just like how the shoes started getting a bit prickly on the toes.

There could be times when the indifferences between the couple may escalate to a level where it turns out to be similar as the bruises or cuts given by the shoes. People at this stage start questioning about the choices they made with their relationship.

But don’t lose hope yet, since just like what happened with the new pair of shoes and your legs, it is only a matter of time before a truce is reached between the couple. There is a catch here though! A plaster on your legs did the trick with the shoes. What is the equivalent for this when it comes to relationships? You need a plaster made of patience and reduced ego.

When a plaster was applied to the bruises and cuts on the leg, it healed itself with time. In an exact manner have patience and give time to the bruises and cuts on your relationship. What appears to be an irreconcilable difference today will prove to be a matter of a simple misunderstanding if you give enough time to reconcile. Complement your patience with the virtue of an ability to reduce your ego. You will be truly surprised to see the wonders that get created in a relationship when you create a healthy mix of these two!

A word of caution though. These are things that every couple go through, new or old. The combination of patience and reduced ego may not come handy right from the beginning of a relationship. It may need to be cultivated as a habit over a period of time. What it requires is a conscious effort and an ardent desire to bring in positive changes to our life.

Just like many other life skills that we learn, this definitely is another life-saving skill that we all need to learn and apply all through our relationships. May you be blessed to acquire the skills of patience and virtue of reduced ego to enjoy a fruitful life together with your sweetheart! 

The Second Chance

‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ is a recent Malayalam movie that got released starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Biju Menon. Soon after the movie got released, a controversy started doing rounds about one of the scenes in the movie. This is the scene where Koshi, the character played by Prithviraj slaps his wife.

Later when a journalist questioned Prithvi on him going back on an earlier promise he made, of never acting in scenes that are outrageous to a woman, he made a very interesting remark. He mentioned that this was the only way to factually represent a problem that exists in our society today even when the parties involved are highly educated. What was even more fascinating was the statement that followed. He said ‘Kannamma’ the character who is the wife of ‘Ayyappan’ hailing from a lesser educated background would’ve walked out of the marriage if it ever happened to her.

You might have guessed where I’m heading to, with this narration. If the guess is that I’ll be touching upon the importance of giving due respect to the women, then guess again! It isn’t that the topic is less important. On the contrary it is one of the most critical topics to be discussed in any forum that talks about relationships. But enough and more has been said about it. Hence I want to focus on the possibility of a second chance each one is capable of giving the other in a relationship.

How often have you ended up in a situation where you misbehaved with your partner to an extent that you made him or her feel that it is not worth living with you anymore? The affected party in such situations have two options ahead. The easier option will be to decide that your partner is not worth to share your life with even for another day. Quite a few take this decision and find the ‘easy way out’ of the relationship. But I really want to talk about the others who take up the more challenging option and lead themselves as well as their partner to a more meaningful life in future.

Option two is where you give a second chance to the one who inflicted pain in you. Definitions can be very relative when it comes to severity of mistakes committed to you by your partner. A slap on a face could be an unpardonable offence for someone whereas for others it is pardonable once if they see hope at the end of the tunnel.

Most of the couples in their early years of relationship are truly in a state of ignorance about each other. You will really know someone only when you start sharing the same roof. This state of ignorance, especially during the initial days, leads to behaviours that may easily be misunderstood as non-compatibility by both parties. This is where a second chance stands crucial. It is absolutely essential to realize that these initial misunderstandings, if amicably resolved on time, will lead to something very beautiful.

Still doubtful? Ask this question to any of your loved ones who had been married for a few years. During the initial years of marriage were there incidents that made them believe that they had to call it quits? Ask them if they could even imagine taking the first option and if so what would’ve happened? I am pretty sure the answer will be all the beautiful moments they experienced together as a couple till date happened only because either of them gave a second chance to the other.

Giving a second chance to your partner isn’t a bad thing but it is equally important that the recipient learns to respect this decision. It requires mutual effort to ensure that the second chance is utilized in its right spirit and more importantly understand that there isn’t a third chance!

May you have the grace to provide a second chance to a loved one, if required and the ability to accept the fact that you are now given an opportunity to make things better! 

Age no bar

One of the most common terms you see in a traditional matrimonial advertisement is ‘Age no bar'. It is a declaration of zero conditions regarding the age of a potential future partner. While this is to find a possible match, I was fortunate to witness another flavour of ‘Age no bar’ during my school days. This time it was all about love, the love I was quite lucky to see between my dearest uncle and aunt.

Chittappa, that’s what we call dad’s younger brother in Malayalam and Chittamma for his wife. This was a time when internet slowly started making its presence felt in the houses in our town in Kerala. Chittappan and family were settled in US. One of those days, Chittappan had to travel alone to India. It was quite unusual to see them not being together since they were seldom seen apart when they travelled.

Chittappan that day, reached our home after a tiring flight. He freshened up and got me to connect the internet for him. Soon Chittamma was online on Yahoo Chat, one of the widely used chat engines those days. Voice chat was yet to be common and hence Chittappan had to type the statements in the chat window.

Let me give you a social background in Kerala while this was happening. I’m talking about a Kerala that was 25 years back. Those were the times when most parents very rarely expressed their love openly for each other. Words of love were hardly spoken, especially in public between the father and mother. I don’t really recollect my parents giving a hug in public. Any behaviour otherwise were not among the accepted norms in our society then.

While such a social behaviour existed, it won’t be an exaggeration if I say I was absolutely stunned when I saw the words Chittappan typed on the chat window. It was that time of the year when jackfruit was available in plenty in Kerala. As expats they must have shared a special love towards this fruit since it wasn’t that common in US. He asked her, “Chakka venodi chakkare” literally translated as “Do you need jackfruit darling”?

It may sound quite silly to be surprised at so simple a statement. But honestly, it was one of the biggest shockers of my life that someone who were of my parents’ age can speak like this publicly. It was something short of a taboo in a society where I lived. That day, I guess, changed my perspective about life. A realization of the meaning of love hit me hard. Chittappan and Chittamma, through their expression of love taught me one of the most valuable lessons in life. There is no age limit for love and more importantly do not hold yourself back from expressing your love to a dear one!

They were one of the earliest love birds I’ve seen. They taught me the happiness of being together. In a world when people get scared to be in a commitment let alone getting married, Chittappan and Chittamma were God sent real life examples for me to strongly believe in the beauty of a married life. The joy of the life they shared always reflected in the smiles they adorned. I’ve never seen either of them walking around with a frown. They appeared to me in a perennial state of bliss.

The flow of life is such that two distinct streams of water join hands in Holy Matrimony and flow together as one river. The love for each other nourishes the banks of this river thereby sharing the happiness they experienced with others. I’m so thankful to God that I’ve been a recipient of such endless love from a very beautiful river that flowed through my life.

A couple of weeks back, Chittappan slightly changed his course to join his Creator leaving behind a legacy along with Chittamma for an entire generation to learn and live on in the spirit of love.

May you all be blessed in this New Year with the presence of such wonderful people who enrich our lives while they are around and even after that!

Fall in love... gracefully!

Here is one of the most widely circulated jokes about marriage:

“Getting married is like buying a new phone. After a while you get a feeling that you should have waited for a better model"!

Though the above joke is one in bad taste, the truth remains that most people after sometime of being married tend to question themselves of the big decision they took. If there is someone who had not experienced this, he or she must either be a saint or not lived under the same roof right after they got married. It is quite natural that this happens and don’t get worked up if you are one who had these thoughts or are having them at present.

There is one big difference though between a phone and your spouse. The model of the phone you bought is a fixed one and will never get better with time. Whereas your spouse is an evolving model, the one for which the best is yet to be seen. What more, their best is in fact in your hands! The key is for you to realize that the power of making the relationship work is in your thoughts itself!

Never ever have the impression that this is a challenge only for newly married couples. Every couple go through something similar once a while though in varying degrees. When it comes to newbies it is just the lack of experience that makes the situation look more challenging.

One of the biggest mistakes many of us make when we face this situation is letting the mind have a free run. We let our thoughts go wild and attribute all possible reasons to why the relationship is strained and why it won’t work. What we underestimate is the power of our mind. It is a double edged sword where our thoughts marry our behaviour. The more frequent and constant our thoughts are, higher the chances are for our mind to consider that as the truth.

A double edged sword perhaps is one of the most dangerous weapons. Don’t use it right, you may risk getting yourself killed! Master it, you won’t need any other weapon. So how do we use this power of mind to our advantage? The secret is to fall in love, gracefully, to the same person whom you find difficult to accept. You won’t be able to do this alone and will need the help of a mutual friend of yours, ‘time’. Use that wisely along with reassuring yourself that things will change. Nothing remains constant for ever. Shower yourself with positivity that drains out all those negative emotions that surround you. Do something that your partner loves even when you may not appreciate it. Learn to walk a different path though it may be challenging.

Do these for a while. Before you even know you'll notice a significant change in your chemistry. The mighty dislikes in the past will start looking like insignificant nothings. The hatred you had gives way for sheer happiness. Concerns on longevity of your marriage becomes a thing of the past. All these tell you only one thing. You have fallen in love! Trust me, it indeed is a blessing to experience this beautiful feeling.

While it seems easy to preach the thought, practising something like this is a huge task in itself. Hey! Who ever said it is easy to learn the double edged sword?

The Purse Holder

I received an interesting message on one of the WhatsApp groups the other day. The message said money has different names based on the context. For example, money is called offering at church, fees in school, tax for government etc. It ended with the question, “When a man gives money to his wife what do we call it?” I gave it a thought and before sending a response I showed the message to my seven year old son. Promptly came his answer. His said ‘sharing’. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better answer!

When it comes to a family united through marriage, one of the key factors that will form the basis of everyday living is the cash flow. The obvious question that gets raised many a times is, who is the purse holder? I do not plan to prescribe a recommended way of money management here. All what I intend to do is share a point of view. As the case is with a few other sensitive areas in marriage, this is a decision which couples need to take with a lot of prudence.

The concept of bread-winner associated with men of the family has become a matter of history in many of the families we see around. Women in the past were either not allowed to learn or earn. This obviously led to the man of the family being the sole earning member. Some men associated the earning potential to a sign of power and demanded that they have the final say on the family spend. There were others who literally outsourced the management of finance to their wives and only considered them as mere bread-winners and were least interested in managing the distribution of resources.

Both the approaches mentioned above had its own flaws. The former was quite chauvinistic whereas the latter befriended lethargy. A middle-line seems more acceptable especially in today’s families where earning member is still one person. This is all the more important since the member who remained non-earning is due to their choice than by design.

Most of the families today where women choose to take a break from work due to parental responsibilities do that out of a choice they made for the family. This doesn’t make them any less important than the earning men of these families. In fact their decision needs to be respected even more since if they had decided otherwise the men in these families would’ve never been able to celebrate Father’s Day!

The important fact that needs to be remembered and understood by a couple is that money earned by one or both, is the money earned by the family as one unit. The amount does not belong to the person, instead it belongs to the institution called family. The family members have equal rights on the amount. It is only incidental that one chose to work and the other chose to be a home maker. One is not a premium service than the other. Both these vocations have their own sets of challenges and we’ve heard enough and more stories of how men are known for belittling the volume of work done by the home makers. A true man will always see him at par with his wife and never at different levels of value chain in the family.

There are different ways to ensure that the non-earning member of the family is equally empowered when it comes to the matter of money. Getting supplementary bank cards, maintaining a home purse and ensuring a constant supply of cash, sharing the banking and cash management channels with each other and ensuring transparency in every bit of cash spent are a few tips that can work well to maintain a balance between the parties.

The approach could be slightly different in families receiving two sources of income. A few families I know have decided to use one of the sources for daily expense and the other one is saved totally for investments. There could be many such different ways of money management.

We all need to sit and think which approach suits us the best and implement the method as long as we learn to appreciate the fact that the purse is held by both the parties and together we are responsible for what goes out from it. May you be blessed with the judiciousness for spending well for your families! 

What do you think?

Think about some of these situations in your daily life. You are planning to get dressed for an outing with your family and your wife is deciding on the dress to wear. A few days later you both are at an apparel store to select a new dress for her. A couple of weeks back, your wife was in the process of designing a greeting card. Later during the month she is planning for some of the activities for kids’ school. These are just a few scenarios when my wife will ask me one of the most common questions, ‘What do you think?”

I consider myself lucky to be consulted by my better half for my opinion on numerous occasions, big or small. This simply means that she values my opinion and considers it important to know my perspective before she takes a decision.

Honestly there were times when I got worked up for being asked for so many occasions that sometimes I’ve requested her to decide by herself. I have given it a thought many times about this most common human trait and could reach only one logical conclusion; the age-old theory of ‘social being’.    

Whether we like it or not, we humans are designed as social beings. Our basic nature is to live in a society surrounded by similar living beings. Given this fact, it is all the more important for this social being aspect of humans to play a pivotal role in a family. When you decided together to share your life with each other it is a promise to share everything including your time. Though for the law it is a contract between two parties, for the two souls it is much more than that.

I realized to my happiness that my wife asks me for an opinion not because she is incapable of taking a decision herself. On the contrary, in most of the matters she is more capable than me to take decisions. In fact by asking me for an opinion she boosts my self-esteem, without both of us even knowing it. Behind the scenes, this simple act of reaching out gives a pat on the back for my ego by letting it know that you are in demand. Hence it is all the more important to listen to the question and respond in all honesty.

There is an equally important fact to the other side of the picture. One of the interesting observations I’ve made is that, the opinion I provided may not have been applied exactly the way I prescribed. I’ll be deceitful to myself if I say I was never miffed at this. Having said that, I’ve learned to accept it, since this is what I was referring to earlier as the other side of the picture.

Asking an opinion does not mean asking for a decision. Your opinion may or may not be acceptable for your dear ones. Accepting your opinion does not make it more valuable than the rejected ones. The opinion you shared, whether liked or disliked by the other party does not change the status of your opinion. You should gracefully acknowledge the end result irrespective of the opinion you provided. That nurtures the positive relationship between two equal minds.

One of the key things that will make a difference is to be absolutely truthful when you are asked for an opinion. You are being asked not just for an opinion but also to know the truth. In a genuine relationship, there is no place for pretentions. The only care that you may want to apply is the way you put across your opinion, especially if you want to communicate something unpleasant. You can go on admiring the beauty of a rose flower on a stem, but cannot keep mum about the sharp spines that could hurt! Being truthful sometimes could be painful, but being dishonest can be quite lethal.

Next time, someone asks you for an opinion, imagine your ego getting a high-five and revert to the query with your honest and valuable response.

So, what do you think?

Times when you failed me… my love!

Close to a decade of bachelorhood, away from my family,

A new person, a new life and I started complaining about ‘My Space’.

That’s when you taught me the feeling of togetherness,

And failed me first time… with your love!

When petty differences started to show up,

And silly fights soon became my second name.

That’s when you taught me the power of walking the same path,

And failed my ego… with your love!

Then came the toughest of tests in our life,

Where I lost all my hope and was destined to flop.

That’s when I saw the angel in you,

Who failed my despair… with your true love!

Soon enough my career hit a roadblock,

And struggling seems to be the only way of life.

You stepped in again and showed me the path out,

And failed my anguish… with your love!

Time and again I proved to be difficult,

Losing my temper among many other things.

To your full credit, you held the fort together,

And failed my qualms… totally with your love!

Promise I do, again and again,

To happily fail for you, all through my life.

If and only if, that true and pure heart of yours,

Continue to fail me in your love, forever!

Accept… Not Expect!

After a few days of getting married, my wife and I travelled to Bangalore where I was working. She had decided to join me in the Garden City and we started setting up our house. After the initial days of settling down, she started experimenting with her culinary skills. As ‘customary’, my mom had told her about all my interests and being a loving wife she tried to cook some of those dishes which I like. Many of them were quite tasty but living the life of a proverbial husband, I immediately applied a benchmark of my mom’s cooking.

Words of expectation floated around. She tried to change some of the cooking styles to meet the expectation, but soon enough I realized a major fact. My mom cooked in ‘her own’ style which she developed that our family loved. The same logic should really apply in my wife’s case as well. She has a style of cooking which should be supported by giving her a freehand. This alone will help us as a family than having to perform under pressure of expectations. As soon as she was made comfortable with this acceptance, our kitchen exploded with never-before experienced flavours! I now have a new benchmark for taste.

I mentioned the above instance just to highlight the importance of acceptance than having expectations which many a times become unjustified. This is not just true in case of a couple, but equally important for the extended family members as well. I’m not quite sure how much have the male of our species experienced this pressure tactics in our society which still heavily leans towards its patriarchal nature. At the risk of being biased, let me highlight the case of girls this time.

From the day a proposal comes to a family, followed by seeing the picture of the girl, this expectation game starts. The family starts discussions about how the girl is, how she should be etc. Once the wedding gets fixed, these discussions become even more intense. More such conversations take place among the relatives as the wedding date approaches. Expectations hit the roof as soon as the bride sets her foot in the house. Everyone has something or other to say, irrespective of any trace of logic present in their statements. Most often the groom is oblivious to these conversations and the bride is left at the mercy of a bunch of strangers who will be showering her with an avalanche of these expectations. The ordeal has just begun!

Life goes on and just like how performance reviews happen in the corporate world, the new bride gets reviewed time to time based on the expectations that were set up for her. The relatives seem to have quite an uncanny ability to judge the new bride on every possible occasion. The discussions go from her choice of dress to the style of ornaments and many more such topics which suddenly seem to take an elevated level of importance. What could be surprising in some families is the fact that this performance review does not stop even after many other ‘new brides’ join the family. The show goes on.

One of the possible psychology behind this behaviour is that historically the family would’ve built an expectation about how the girl for a guy should be. By virtue of seeing the boy grow up from childhood they want their would-be daughter-in-law of the family to have certain traits to match the guy. What they do not realise is the fact that the girl who is coming into the family comes with a definite personality which she developed in most cases over a period of three decades or less.

While some families realise the importance, what many still don’t practice is the art of ‘accepting’ instead of ‘expecting’. You should be able to accept the new member of the family with all her positives and negatives. The more you try to mould, at times even break, her personality to induct her into your boundary of expectation, you’re potentially pushing her to a point of no return where she either snaps or develops an attitude of indifference!

May the good God bless you with the providence of acceptance than setting expectations! Let the family be blessed with the young new mind who comes in with hopes and prayers. May you all experience the bliss of a soul that can rejoice in your acceptance than having to constantly live under your X-ray eyes of expectation! God bless!

Good Enough? Not Enough!

It has been a year and a half since our last vacation. Reasons were multiple, for not able to travel somewhere since our last trip. What mattered most was that we finally decided where to go and started planning for the trip. Since the trip was planned for a couple of weeks, two hands were not enough for the preparation. Hence my wife and I both started getting things arranged such as hotel bookings, train bookings, sight-seeing tours etc.   

As we started with the activities related to the trip, we noticed an interesting phenomenon. Most of the times when I come up with an option which I thought was the best after an ‘extensive’ research, was not found good enough by my sweetheart. Many a times I returned the favour too. Our differences in opinion at times reached a pinnacle that we almost dropped the vacation plan!

Couple of weeks into the planning we now realize that those indifference got us much better deals and a great value for our hard earned money. We were fighting for a just cause and not just for a cause!

A trip planning is just one such example were you’ll observe this behaviour in the life of many couples. When it comes to spending money on something that is required for the family, there is a possibility for us to think that what we searched and found the best-in-the-world offer whereas if we extend our search a bit more, we could possibly get an even better deal. For the majority of us who are constrained with a limited set of financial resources, it is important that we develop a mind-set that gives real value for our money.

The indifference between the couples do not just bring the best, out of the deals for the family. Believe it or not, it also leads to couples discovering each other more. The very reason why one does not agree with the other is because of the fact that they’ve not really understood each other to the extent of knowing what their better half needs. Hence such indifference should not be perceived as a negative experience, instead is a step that takes the family forward together. Imagine the surprise and the happiness thereof when you discover a whole new nature hidden deep inside your partner!

While it is really helpful to discover each other more as a couple, it is equally important not to overdo this. You should ideally know where the limit is and draw the line accordingly. It is a useful common sense to know that a rubber band while can be stretched, will snap at some point. Many times this common sense is what will help you know the extent of discovery you should try to make. Just like a rubber band, you as a couple should learn to stretch each other without affecting the elasticity of your relationship.

The philosophy of ‘Good Enough? Not Enough!’ should really be applied with a genuine interest between the partners with the sole objective of bringing good for the family. There is a very high possibility for egos to work out during this conflict. It is equally important to apply the principle that for a relationship to really become beautiful you should keep an open mind to listen to the other side of the story. Learn to accept the fact that, what you thought as best for the family may not always be the case. This simple act of acceptance alone will take you a long way into the future as a family whose marriage was indeed made in heaven!

May you be fortunate enough to be blessed with the power of acceptance which probably is one of the most pivotal and beneficial skills to attain in a married life.

God bless!

Flashback Funda

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Apr 2018

The scene reminded you of day one of battle of Kurukshetra. The royal family was at war. The only difference compared to Kurukshetra is that, the opponents are the king and the queen themselves. Both are ready with their army fully equipped with weapons. Infantry, cavalry and artillery are all summoned. Even the mightiest of the weapons including ‘Brahmastra’ will be available to be deployed if required. Both the king and the queen are fuming with rage. A mighty war is about to begin!

All of a sudden comes a sage cutting right through the battalions that are all set to fire their weapons at each other. He is carrying a huge canvas on which he projects one after the other, every single moment of happiness the king and queen spent together. Right from the days before they became one, through their courtship, into their lovely marriage and their beautiful children, all unravels in front of their eyes.

The fuming faces slowly reains the lost emotion of love. With every passing image, the anger that was deep down got pushed aside by the soft and gentle feelings. By the time the projection ended the king and the queen were looking at each other in their eyes. They reached out and hugged each other not realizing that their army of millions have been replaced with a beautiful bed of red roses!

Now, bring the above scene to your homes. Replace the king and the queen with you and your sweetheart. An argument or two led the both of you to face each other to be battle ready. Your arsenal is prepared automatically with all the reasoning in the world to sling mud at each other. You even kept the secret Brahmastra ready, the one complaint that you’ve been hiding deep down in your mind which you never bothered to open up and speak with your partner.

So who is the sage that comes in between? That’s none other than your emotional intelligence that you need to apply in such a situation. Take a step back and probably with some efforts try to bring into your mind all those beautiful moments that you spent with your loved one till date. One after the other let your mind be in a slideshow mode that projects all the awesome memories you cherish.

Voila! You’ll be surprised to know that you no longer are in a mood to fight. What is even better is that you have found a way to work around the argument that led to the bitter mood earlier. This is nothing but the ‘flashback funda’!

We live in a world filled with a lot negative emotions. It is quite natural that we could get influenced by many of them in our daily lives. Knowingly or otherwise these come up between you and your sweetheart on a daily basis. Many a times these lead to arguments and eventually an exchange of heated words or a complete silence for a duration that’s not known.

When we are mentally ‘at a state of war’ it is quite difficult to think of alternate options to bring back the peace in our lives. That’s exactly why we need to put our minds through an exercise that is guaranteed to work wonders. Your momentary anger could be nothing compared to the magnitude of happiness you experienced till date in your life. It is important not to let that anger spoil the value of happiness you invested in your relationship.

Who doesn’t like to look at an album filled with wonderful images from the past? These are moments that we preserved for future. These are the slices of life that we want to go back and live again. That’s exactly what flashback funda proposes to you. When you are at a point where you think life is not fair, bring back your memories and remind yourself, this is just a passing phase. Life had been fair to you indeed and that exactly is the reason you enjoy what you have now.

May you have the wisdom to press the pause button on an imminent ‘war’ and the prudence to bring back to your minds the moments of celebration from the past. This is guaranteed to sustain the peace in our families and allow us to enjoy our life the way it should be.

God bless!

Deputy of God!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Mar 2018

It was a few minutes past midnight on a cold and dark winter during January 2018. My two year old daughter woke up screaming ‘Amma’! She scrambled out of the bed and dashed towards the living room through the darkness, totally ignoring my attempts to pacify her. I switched on the light and it took a couple of minutes before she realized that we were still in the middle of the night. Fortunately I could calm her down and soon she was back on the bed sleeping peacefully through rest of the night.

This was just a beginning! One of the many incidents that made me realize that we’ve a very special person in our family, whose absence is too significant to be filled by anyone else. A few hours before the incident, I had dropped my sweetheart at the airport. She had to leave to India, alone, for an unavoidable trip for 3 days. With full confidence and days off from office planned, I took charge of our little ones, 6 year and 2 year old assuring her that everything will be alright. Little did I know what I was signing up for!

Our son had earlier showed signs of a developing cough and cold. It was as though the cold and cough were scared of the mother that soon after her flight took off, it broke all barriers. He was coughing and sneezing badly. I had initially planned to send him to school the next day, but with this, I decided otherwise. I couldn’t have imagined what I’ll end up with this decision.

I’ve two little monsters on the loose in a recently moved in house void of a very important person and there I was, like a man on a boat sailing on a seemingly peaceful river in an unexplored jungle with a blind turning ahead, beyond which awaits a steep waterfall to take me all the way to the rocky bottom into a mysterious abyss!

Next three days were filled with lots of incidents, some of which were thankfully managed and others where I felt like being driven to my wit’s end. I always thought and was even proud of myself that I am one of those husbands who helped their wives at home, the ones especially without a maid, so as to bring in an element of balance in the family. I was totally mistaken.

There have been multiple times during these three days when I stopped for a moment and wondered how in this world did my wife manage to do all these in a day?! All of a sudden I found myself attaining an enlightenment on the world of a ‘maid-less housewife with kids’ and the battles they’ve to fight on a daily basis while their spouses think that the petty issues they face in offices are nothing short of a World War.

I am now blessed with a completely renewed respect for such super humans who qualify for a title nothing short of ‘Deputy of God’. The amount of challenges they have to juggle around with are simply endless. This is something which others in the family will never get to know unless experienced first-hand.

It is quite natural for a lot of us to take our dear ones for granted. We’re not tuned to look at the daunting tasks each of our family members go through every day, especially the ones who choose to stay at home and look after the kids. This does not mean that the work done by the traditional bread-winners are less important. From the incident portrayed above, I would even strongly recommend every bread-winner in a family to go through such an experience which I’m quite sure will help you turn out to be better human beings and even result in a more loving family.

After what seemed like ages, finally the day came when the life of our family returned. We picked her up from the airport and as soon as we were all together back home, we gifted her with a beautiful picture frame where the letters read: “World’s Best Mom”!

Dedicating this to all loving mothers across our families and all those fathers who take an effort to appreciate these unsung heroes!

God bless. 

Demons from Heaven!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Jan 2018

I remember seeing an advertisement a few years back. A young father is shopping with his son in a supermarket. The little boy keeps a big packet of chocolates in the shopping cart. The father keeps it back. The son promptly returns the packet to the cart and stands there with his arms folded as if challenging his dad. The father keeps the packet again on the stands. The kid takes a deep breath and starts screaming on the top of his voice. The whole supermarket comes to a standstill and stares at the kid but even more at the dad. The ad ends with the face of a completely helpless dad with a caption showing the brand of a contraceptive urging the viewer to use it!

The above scene is not completely alien to us. We all must’ve seen or experienced similar scenes while shopping. There are quite a few couples in the world today who get influenced by the message passed on by such an advertisement and decide not to have kids in their lives. For them, kids are nothing but a nuisance or little devils. There are also a few couples who decide not to have a second child for the same reason or think that they have served their purpose as parents in this world by having one child. Ads like the one I mentioned above masks a complete spectrum about kids from the viewers. A prospective parent or a bride and groom to be who sees such an ad won’t see the other side of fence. Though having kids can be argued as a purely personal choice, here are some of the thoughts related to parenting.

Yes, kids can be demons at times, but they are demons from heaven! No kid in this world has ever asked their parents to bring them to this world. It is a choice that the parents make. Hence as parents it is not ethically correct for us to blame the kids for their behaviour which by itself is inherited from us or our ancestors.

One quite interesting fact which many of us don’t realise about parenting is that both the ‘parents’ and the ‘child’ share the same age, especially with the first child. A parent is born on the same day as the first child. Parenthood is a completely new experience for the couple who till that day didn’t experience a third person in their life. The magnitude of change that brings in with this new status in their life is huge, most often a bigger change than getting married itself! Obviously it will take a long time for anyone to get adjusted to such a change.

Your second child arrives and a magic happens! Without you even realizing it, you mature yourself as parents. You are no longer the same novice parents when you had your first child. Being more matured as parents equips you to handle the tantrums of kids better. What’s even more interesting and at times embarrassing is the truth some of us realize that you could’ve loved your first child even better if you’d known what a child really needs. It is very similar to getting experienced in a job that makes you do the job better than having no experience at all.

There is more to parenting than just the experience of being a parent. You will become better in managing finances since you’ve to now plan for additional member(s) in the family. Every other expense in life will now be multiplied with the number of kids you’ve. Decisions on careers many a times get influenced based on kids. Some of us stop working altogether whereas others have to shift jobs to ensure financial freedom and security. Without these little devils we would’ve just continued working where we were earlier. The choices you make on almost everything in life get influenced with kids. The movies you see, the cars you buy, the vacation you plan or even a simple decision as a restaurant to have dinner are just a few examples where kids directly or indirectly influence your decisions.

All these and more are nothing compared to the beautiful sight of your little ones hugging you dearly and sleeping peacefully looking forward for another bright and beautiful day where they can spent time with the God that they can see in this world, that’s none other than you!

Here is wishing you a beautiful parenting experience which is nothing short of being one with God.

Wish you all a very happy new year! God bless! 

Licence to Love

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Dec 2017

One day during a casual walk I noticed an elderly couple coming from opposite direction. The husband was walking ahead in full stride with the wife slowly following him with a half drooping head. This picture reminded me of a common sight from yester years with respect to the bedroom arrangement for a couple. You may have even seen this in some of the movies from the past as well. There will be a bed which is used by the husband whereas the wife either sleeps on a mat on the floor or on another bed placed separately from husband’s bed.

Those were the times when there were clearly marked boundaries for expressing your love towards your sweetheart. Times have changed and life now zips through a fast lane where new trends get set with the blink of an eye. Even in such a jet setting time we still have people around us who believe in limiting the display of love to the person they chose to share their life with!

A lot has to do with how history influences us with respect to how we express our love to dear ones. Before the colonial era people living in the present day India used to have an absolutely free way of disclosing their love. With colonisation quite a few constraints came into place and we being a product of such a constrained society, continue to follow most of these customs even today. Hence many such acts including an innocent kiss or a hug or an embrace is considered as taboo or non-acceptable in most part of Indian society till date.

Being afraid of these social norms, a lot of us restrict ourselves from truly sharing the emotions we carry deep inside, even to the ones with whom we are licenced to love. Ask yourselves these questions. Do I knowingly or unknowingly stop myself from expressing my love to my better half? Do I ever think that I need to express only this much love towards him or her? If the answer is ‘yes’ to any of the above questions probably it is time that you start thinking about a change that you need to bring in your life.

We live in 21^st century now and who is stopping you from displaying your genuine love towards your loved one? Why do we need to still adhere to the rules from colonial era that stops us from opening up our hearts and let the most significant other in your life know how much you love them?

We all live in a time when we dedicate ourselves more towards the social media that revolves around us than those innocent souls that long for us. We make it a point to post in Facebook about our recently acquired model of phone, but find it odd to acknowledge our love for dear ones on a special day. We shout from our roof tops about the recent movie we’ve watched but find it difficult to even whisper in the ears of our better half how much we love them.

Let us wake up and realize that the world is in need of much more love than what it gets today. The moment you exhibit your love for your dear ones you are sending a positive note especially to the little ones in your family about the need for love and care. This is the only way we empower them and the next generation to realize the value of love to make the world a better place to live. Teach them the need to love and that too unconditionally. Share with them stories of care and compassion so that when they grow up they too will spread the wings of love for those who are in need.

May the social taboos not stop you! May you be able to open up and make yourself believe in the power of love! Realize that through holy matrimony you are even more empowered with a license to love. Let that be the guiding force that motivates you further not to hold back but to embrace the need of this world to experience candid love.

Love as much as you can because you'll never know till when you are given time in this world to love and be loved.

God bless!

Chamber of Secrets

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Oct 2017

I remember reading a story about how two people saw a dead dog on their way back home and described the scene to their spouse. The first one said, “I saw a dead dog today. The dog must have got run over by a car that its eyes were bulged out and the corpse had blood all over which had an intolerable stench as well.” The second one said, “I saw a dead dog today. You should see its mouth that was wide open. What a beautiful set of teeth it had!”

It is quite short a story but one which conveys volumes about perceptions. The way people perceive the same incident and more importantly the way these people influence others with their description. I’m sure you can easily imagine the facial expression of the first spouse in the story as against the second one. Who do you think felt better listening to the story of a dead dog?

The situation is not entirely different in many of our families too. We all have our own families where a lot of incidents happen on a daily basis. Many of us have the practice of sharing these incidents with our relatives and friends. Just bear in mind the story you just read and imagine the perception you create among the people with whom you share incidents that happen in your family.

We need to realise the definition of ‘family’ while deciding on what to share and what not to. You, your spouse and your kids form your immediate family. Your parents, siblings and their families form your extended family. Anyone other than this, is beyond your extended family.

It is quite natural that negative emotions get registered with people faster and it is quite easy to form opinions based on these compared to the positive ones. Hence the moment you share an incident or a story about a dear one in your family, keep in mind that you are creating a perception in the listener about your dear one. Negative perceptions are easily created and lasted than their positive counterparts.

The person with whom you’ve shared the incident will further think about it with their own perception. If it is a problem, they’ll try to either provide you with their version of solution or may even share this further with their extended family. We need to keep in mind that there are quite a few things in our lives that we need not necessarily share with everyone around us. There has to be a chamber of secrets in every family that needs to stay within the four walls of the family. There should be an honest attempt to resolve issues within the family first. The moment you open the doors to your chamber of secrets, it ceases to be your personal problem to solve. Though there are times when this may lead to solutions, there could be others that opens a whole can of worms.

What could pretty much be resolved between a husband and a wife should ideally be achieved that way. The moment you bring in parents, relatives or friends into a private issue, things could get complicated. You’ll never be able to really predict how either of the affected party will react to the situation. It may even get out of your hands and you’ll totally regret why you even bothered to involve a third person. We need to remind ourselves that if one solution didn’t work we should attempt an alternate one. If and only if you’ve hit a hard wall, try reaching out for helping hands.

If you are one such person who can’t live without sharing your life with others, ensure that you not only share the challenges you face about a dear one but also project the good deeds done by them. At least this will help in creating a balanced perception among others. Else it’ll be like driving through a one-way lane. It is quite natural that people will never get the complete picture of the challenge since the picture you paint in front of them is all what they probably see. They’ll most likely never get to know the other side of the canvas. 

It is important to share. It is more important to know what to share, when to share and with whom to share. May you be blessed with the prudence to maintain the chamber of secrets in your family and the wisdom to know when to open it up for others!

God bless.