Till Death Do Us Part

Top of Form

Whenever I see happy married couples and their ever-going-strong married life, I simply crack my head, wondering about the factors that sustain such marriages … factors that prevent the conjugal bliss from tumbling down into an abyss.

 Emotional compatibility [EC] is an ability to empathize with a partner’s emotion; level of caring, love and nurturing shown toward each partner. It is not a small matter to be brushed aside. In fact, EC is a far away moon to those partners who have no idea of the different levels of their emotional needs.

They say EC is the anchor that sustains marriages. Emotional compatible partners are like true friends, share their emotional needs and avoid cabin feelings.

 ‘Why did you hide such things from me? ‘What secrets you still have in your mind? ‘Don’t you have faith on me’, are some of the questions couples ask one another when he or she finally chooses to let out the truth lurking in her/his mind for long. This attitude of ‘not-willing to reveal untold truth’ happens only when the partners behave like strangers not having space for other’s emotional needs. Their attitude is naïve, for they think their only symbol of marriage is the mangalasutra the wife sporting around her neck.

 A husband or wife should be keen, look forward every opportunity to make a clean breast of untold truth lurking in their minds. A conscientious wife or husband will always feel bad if they have some grey areas hidden in his/her mind. They will come out with truth though they fear that such revealing may bring havoc to their conjugal bliss. They also know that on what ground their marriage stand and would readily spill the beans. And there lies the ‘Success Quotient’ for a happy marriage.

 Conversely, if a husband or wife starts hiding something from each other because it would create a holocaust in the home, the partners, then, are not doing anything conducive to the smooth going of their marriage. Theirs is only a fake or pretentious living. The fact that they are not truthful to each other ultimately put their married life in a furnace.

 One of my friends told his wife about the physical contact he had with a woman when he was in his late twenties. It was not a big matter for the husband to open up his mind to her. For, emboldened by the harmonious relationship he was having with his wife, he chose to share the long buried secret in his mind. However, what mattered was his wife’s response to such an honest confession. I asked her [she was very outspoken; would always call a spade a spade] about her response to her husband’s sharing with her a bitter truth—I was a bit curious. She looked through me, smiled and said:

 “Err is human. It is quite common that hormones play games with the youngsters when they are in a vulnerable age and make them to do what they don’t want to. Even exposures from media and internet add to the woes of the youngsters and make them go ashtray. That my husband had a fall in his twenties and became a bit askew then should not be taken into account for deciding his trait or character. It is his confidence in me that made him to show a black spot on his otherwise clean premarital life. The emotional attachment we have for each other did exhort him to show the chinks in his past life. It happened because he thought there should be no secrets between us. So, I accepted him as he is and my love for him grew up immensely after his confession.”

 I now saw my friend’s face gleaming, eyes reflecting the real joy of his marriage. Kudos to his wife! She understood his spouse well and her attitude and emotional levels only made him to reveal a hidden truth.

 Here no one compelled the husband, not even his wife, to let out the untold things or talk about a blunder he had committed when he was in his mid-twenties. But then, the harmonious ambiance prevailing in his home and having an understanding woman for a wife, he was able to reveal a thing that had been torturing his mind for long.

 Again, if his wife had nagged him to tell her about the things he hadn’t told her before, the husband, by every chance, would have kept mum. Successful marriages will never find couples spying on each other or trying to find holes on each other’s behavior.

As I said earlier, emotionally attached couples easily identify hurdles to their conjugal bliss and stay clear of them lest they sink their marriage boats in the ocean of misunderstanding.

 The factors that give fillip to the conjugal bliss and  make one’s married life an elixir are lying in small gestures and deportment like, husband and wife watching movies together like true friends, going to comedy shows and talking about the show and laughing together. Sometimes, holding one’s hand brings a feeling of oneness and tranquility to the other. Whenever my wife starts holding my hand, I feel like she is telling me, ‘I love you; live for you’

 These are simple secrets that go a long way in making a marriage more meaningful not a Greek tragedy.

Image courtesy: Google

  

Waiting for a New Dawn

Under a tree she sat frozen,           

braving the brutal cold wind.

Face full of creases and wrinkles,

mind, of undying old melancholies.

Victim of Time’s constant blows

a vegetable had she become, with

matted hair, trembling hands and empty mind.

 Looking out for the last sun-set,

she was out there waiting  and moaning,

tending the scars of her life.

 Broken long was her mirror of memory

making her a hapless, rootles recluse.

Thro the splinters, she still saw

the splendors that once glowed her home,

her mom filling harmony around her,

feeding her, nursing her and adoring her.

Nights saw her mom a singing Koel,

when she chanted munificent lilts.

So soft and soft, so sweet and sweet,

it made her sleep an insouciant sleep.

 ‘Mother gone to god’, said her dad,

when, on a wintry morn, she woke up.

Motherless, she felt life a real drag;

 only void and vacuum around her.

Ever hearing mom’s sweet lilts in ears

she began walking the hard terrains of life

with a father who soon brought home a new wife.

A wife, ever tending his libido, drove

from home all memories of dear mom

 made it morally askew and abominable.

 Alone and abandoned on dad’s death,

she grew up in a farm away from home

toiling out all through day

 to keep the pangs of hunger at bay.

Living lonely in a lust-strewn world

she had nocturnal animals

crawling around her forever.

 ’ What is husband?’

she moaned, lying awake during nights.

‘Will I have one’? she thought thro tears.

 Floating on the dark ocean of life,

a wastrel she had become with no man

ever ready to give her a Wedding Bliss.

Feeling like the moon gleaming on a desert

she wept and wept for a husband;

wept and wept for a baby-girl whom she’d

like to carry on her shoulders and

sing to her mom’s old soothing lilts,

so soft and soft, so sweet and sweet,

to make the baby sleep an insouciant sleep.

 She sat frozen under a tree

Braving brutal cold winds.

 Face full of creases and wrinkles,

Mind, of dark old melancholies.

Victim of Time’s constant blows

a vegetable she had become at eighty with

matted hair, trembling hands and empty mind.

When a derelict became life, calling no shots;

When shattered dreams putting out her hopes

She, the incorrigible, was still there, squatting

and

Waiting for a New Dawn.

[The Art of Living presupposes that we’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. A tenacious one will wait for a New Dawn even when he/she has one foot out in the limbo.]

Image Courtesy: Google

Monologue of an 'Empowered Woman'

[Is a woman socially empowered thing? All modern, social and financial, parameters say so. However, she, the woman in the poem, doesn’t know that she is empowered. What a heck! Like a blind soul not knowing anything about light, she has no idea as to what is empowerment. When told that she is a really an empowered creature, she sulks, thinking for a moment that even such an empowerment can’t save her conjugal bliss, which, like a greased pig, can never be caught.]

 My dear, darling husband!

 Can you forgive me that I did not run

to welcome you as you came in the door?

Forgive I did not sew your buttons on

and left a mess strewn on the kitchen floor?

A woman’s life is never fully done

with conjugal bliss forever gone.

 The things I did I should have left undone

the things I lost that I could not restore;

Will you forgive I wasn’t any fun?

Will you forgive I couldn’t give you more?

A woman’s life is never fully done

with conjugal bliss forever gone.

 I never finished what I had begun,

I could not keep the promises I swore,

So we fought battles neither of us won

and I said ‘Sorry!’ and you banged the door.

A woman’s life is never fully done

with conjugal bliss forever gone.

 But in the empty space now you are gone

I find the time I didn’t have before.

I lock the house and walk out to the sun

where sea beats upon a wider shore

and a woman’s life is never fully done

 with conjugal bliss forever gone.

[This poem by Dorothy Nimmo has all time relevance; it fits into every beleaguered woman who wants to retain her conjugal bliss even at the cost of her dignity and self-esteem. International Women’s Day is all set to be celebrated on March 8. However, I’m a bit fast thinking all day is women’s day. So, here goes my advance greetings to all women who feel they are empowered and also to those who dream of getting empowered sooner than later. Those poor lots have been dreaming such a dream for decades and decades with no light in sight]

Image Courtesy: Google