Last evening...-2

The world is a very unfair place to be.(Ok I will keep saying it because it IS an UNFAIR place to be!). This has nothing to do with the below passage.

Another friend called me after a long time to check if I continue to exist - precisely thats why some friends call me up for. We caught up with each others lives. In the due course I suddenly realized (because my friend pointed it out to me), that I had made some remarks about relationships and marriage. All this advice was not even targeted at him, for he is a mature guy himself. We were just discussing about something and I got into the lecture mode unconsciously. This is what I had said(it cant be exactly the same words, and since I was the one who said it, I have the license to...) :

There are a lot of things in this world which you do to prove a point. Marriage is definitely not one of them. Dont marry to prove anybody a point. There are a few people involved whose life will get affected by the decisions that you take. Be practical, be reasonable. In the height of ecstasy, when high on love, people dont think of the practical implications. You must think about the consequences. If you are content with the way of life at home, if you are proud of your roots(and you enjoy a lot of the vernacular stuff) , if you are sure you want your everyday things to be how they have always been, do not try anything drastically different in this area! Just imagine wanting to watch a kannada movie/play and hoping your spouse, who cannot follow kannada, could appreciate it, when initially it did not even seem like a requirement for the relationship! Think. Because this will be having an impact on your partner as well. If you are the kind who would end up with such unrealistic expectations(they become unrealistic in this particular situation, otherwise having such expectations from people of the same backgrounds is very valid)and are convinced it’s a reasonable expectation to have, then cross-language and cross-culture marriages are not for you. This will be a very unfair thing to do for a person whom you have “loved”. Things will not continue to be rosy forever. Get real. Don’t make your old parents go through difficult times adjusting to the new person-new language-new culture(This will not be a problem if you are from a cosmopolitan background). Marriage should stabilize life not add more confusion! And more than everything it depends on fate (yes, I am a “practicing” hindu!!! LOL!). If things do not happen the way you want, they were just not meant to be. Blame nobody(This is easier said than done!)…….

There was one thing very surprising. I have never taken a stand on this matter before. I did not even know I think on these lines(now). I have always claimed to be a hard-core romantic – as in, you cannot help falling in love with people (and falling in love somehow translates to marriage, thanks to my conditioned mind!). It was a great eye-opener to myself!