Mansi

Not a day goes by without a friend or colleague asking me about how marriage feels. Each day, I figure that I will have a better answer the next day.
It doesn't really matter if the person asking is married or not, young or old, male or female: Everybody is naturally curious about marriage. It just reinforces the fact that marriages are big events, life changing events, even highly ranked than getting into college, breaking a leg, joining the army or becoming Indian Idol. There is nothing more rivetting than a marriage, even when most of us are having the most normal of marriages (if there is such a thing)
Perhaps marriage to an Indian is also in line with how he or she converses - More is UNsaid than spoken and it's all about reading the little and small nuances (all of them in your head only btw)

On the other side of the question mark, I am an absolute delight to the person who asks me about my marriage. I think that's because of two things:
1. I tend to send out a lot of signals : there is no mystery in this body!
2. When I do speak, it's more or less a 'like it is' statement.
The combined effect of all of this is quite magnetic. People who've 'popped' the question often find it hard to let it go. I feel like they are watching me like I am a character in their favorite soap.

It's not attention I like, let me tell you that. Often when I fantasize about other people's attention, it's because of something I did or didn't do. It's not because of what and how I am! Almost makes me feel like a piece on exhibition.

With the closer of my friends, I really fret for an answer. I try to speak of my in-laws, the things I do at home, the things I don't. Of course when it comes to Deepan, all I still do is just gush and giggle! That doesn't help. With everything else, it's very hard. I try and find things to talk about -but the truth of the matter is, it's hardly been enough time. I don't know what to feel or expect, and I normally don't do either. I just go along, give people a lot of space and hope I'll get mine too.

I do feel sad sometimes that my marriage has meant different things to different people. There hasn't been a celebration of what marriage can be and is often not. There hasn't been a humility that comes with love and acceptance. Instead, it's like a jigsaw puzzle where as a bride, everybody wants their hand at plugging me into my 'place'. Each person has a different vision of what that place is and hence the puzzle just doesn't ever get done.

There are times when it gets to me. I am sure there are far more times when it gets to them. I am not so easy to peg. So in more ways than one, it's quite an exercise for everybody involved.

In that sense, marriage is surely more about a team than an individual. While two become one (as that song goes), that one then is part of a whole team of ones (all the married ones of our combined families). Sometimes I wonder if the ceremony of marriage should address this issue, more thoroughly. That with the bride and groom for example, we also could have the married couples remarrying. Perhaps in that act, they would realize where they are pegged vis a vis the 'center' of what marriages are really about.

I dread the day I will be pegged - a point beyond which I just can't resist anymore. Then, were I asked the same questions, I'd probably have more concrete answers and witty replies.

Till then, I am doing good skipping about, and in no hurry to find my answers. (nor yours)