Relationships

I just went through an article on arrange marriages. It looks to me that the whole world is debating a lot about relationships these days making it the most "in thing". While everyone seems to be having their own perspective, I guess, it’s what you, as a person, believe in, matters the most. However, I also feel that many people who claim to be BTDT (been there done that) have actually very little idea of what it is.

I have been blessed with lot of relatives, friends, relationships, and a marriage that neither is an arranged nor can be categorized under love marriage. I think i too can write down my perspective on relationships. It’s actually quiet an interesting thing how the logics, or ill-logics, work every time when it’s the case of relationships.

Disclaimer: - I am an Indian and so is my perspective. I do not understand most of the things of the west, and hence would not be writing anything about it.

Let me begin with your relationship with parents. Most kids while growing up land in conflict with their parents. While it’s easy to term it arrogance of the kid and over protective behavior of parents, i believe there is actually more to it. Parents naturally have had larger share of life and also have their opinions on everything that has/is/will happen. While it’s almost impossible to live in the same world as your parents, I believe circumstances that they have seen or what you would see, hold striking similarity. The characters change, gadgets are different, locations are different, but if you sit back and think, the gist/core might still be the same as what your parents had gone through. I believe it’s actually wrong from parents to enthuse a solution as is onto their kid's life, but, it’s also wrong on kid’s part to simply write their parents off by stating that they don’t understand your situation. Win-win situation would be when the growing generation actually leverages ideas (not words or surroundings) from older generations and get out of a predicament. I do this all the time, sometime it works, sometime it doesn’t, but I guess at-least I get a whole new perspective about the situation. My source is my dad. His favorite line is, "go and make new mistakes, don’t repeat what I have done". Guess, in this, it’s important not to have any communication gap between you and elder generation. Again, both have to work towards it; they have to soften their stand while you have to be sensible enough to talk to them.

Second is relationship with your friends. These days I am increasingly witnessing a paradigm shift towards minimizing the differences between, friends, acquaintances and people who you simply have met once. Everyone is broadly getting categorized into one category as "Friends". I believe here is where the problem is, for you don’t want anyone and everyone to come close in life and know you as you are. You need to have someone who knows you inside out and who is not your love interest. I happen to be blessed with one such person in life. Vaibhav, met me on a railway station about 14 yrs back. From that day, we share a very special relationship. We are super buddies, yet we never give out “gyan” on what other one is doing, we never tell what each other should be doing, we are always for each other in thick and thin but without any form of "gyan". Each one of us enjoys his personal space while still connected deep inside. I don’t think I have ever told what Vaibhav should be doing in a particular situation nor has he done that. Even though we are two very different personalities we have been able to maintain the eagerness to meet the other, to be able to share sorrows, absolute madness and something’s very personal with ease. I guess, the gist lies in the fact that we don’t breach the line where personal life begins. But, I have vaibhav whom I call my friend. I have a few other close friends and with each one, I share the same method of keeping a line very well drawn. I would easily have 4-5 4am friends but the number is very less compared to a lot of other that I know. All others are good to have, nice to be with and so, I generally get along with people well, have lot of fun in the parties and go out. I like it that way, guess, whatever be the relationship, it’s absolutely necessary to have your personal space.

Third and most important relationship that I have is with my wife Nidhi. Ours was torrential, horrifying and mind-blowing wedding. I was hoping the guns would be loaded and firing would be witnessed, but nothing of the sorts happened and till date I feel very lucky to have been married on that day without any further drama. Now, let me relate back to what made me write this piece. I was reading this article which says "The problem with arrange marriage". I guess it’s just amazing how people write off something that has worked over centuries in my country and continues to work amidst all nonsense’s. I believe arrange marriages are difficult, but there is no guarantee that if it’s a love marriage it would work!! And that it will not have any problems. See, problems are not because of what kind of marriage you had, rather, it’s more to do with what kind of a personality you are. I can tell you, I knew Nidhi before marriage and we had good time to know each other. It was a conscious decision that we wanted to get married to each other. But when we got married, it was almost as if all hell broke loose. There were so many differences at all levels that our personal life and things around it just went for a toss. We were sucked into a black hole where it was complete madness around. So much was the eventual pressure that within two years we decided to call it off. But then, one fine morning, we sat and without saying anything to each other decided to make it work. It worked! Guess, out of the two, she took a bigger load on herself and ensured that certain things never happen. I still need to work a lot on myself, but important part is it worked because we wanted it to work. There was intent, there was willingness, and there was love.

I guess this is applicable in any relationship; you act according to your willingness and intent of making the relationship work. Reasons can be plenty, these days there are enough problems, there are financial issues, ego hassles, career related stuff, personal differences, etc. But right at the bottom of it all is just these two or three things, intent, willingness and love. Funny thing is that I always debated about relationships, but I have been in some most screwed up of them. Guess, I became better by loosing lot of people around due to my madness, but that also taught me a lot. When I gained a few in life, I knew I have to do whatever it takes to keep them with me.

Relationships are integral part of life, you would not want to be alone at all, trust me, lot of people simply go mad when left alone. It’s an awesome feeling to be belonging to someone, to have someone to share your thoughts, or dreams. "Sharing" is the key, so i guess it shouldn’t matter if it comes at a cost of changing your personality a little or bringing down your egos.

To all those guys and girls out in the world, who want to have a person as per your thoughts, let me tell you, God had long stopped making those. Go find out someone who loves you, has willingness to have a family with you and the intent of surviving your nonsense. And most important thing of all; be prepared to love someone, and accept the nonsense from that someone. End of it, its amazing feeling to be belonging to someone.