Marriage Rocks
ISBN: 9788122309867
Author: Dr. Jaideep Singh Chadha Publisher: Pustak Mahal
(www.pustakmahal.com) After the hugely successful
Please Mom! It’s My Life! which is based on understanding ‘self’ and how to
manoeuvre through the highways of life, the author has
written about the most important aspect of our second
coming, that is when we travel on the
marriage highway.
By this time, we are expected to be mature enough
to avoid the many pitfalls on this journey. The problem
here is that there are no coaches or traffic policemen to
guide us through and show us the way to a happy and
fulfilled married life. Parents are always there to guide
us to the best of their capabilities, but their guidance is
never enough. We can hardly call ourselves ‘matured’ or
say that we have understood everything that we needed
to understand, even after the gruelling first half; we
arrive battered and bruised, at the starting line of the
second half of our lives. All of a sudden we are loaded
with an added responsibility of a partner, whom we do
not know thoroughly, a person who
has his or her own fears, idiosyncrasies, his or her own
expectations from life and from the relationship.
The most difficult thing in human existence is to be
able to understand ‘the self’. We go through life trying
to do just that because this is the basis of all our
relationships. We first have to understand the terms
“What am I?” or “Who am I?” or “Why am I here?” or
“What do I exactly want?” and “From whom”; “What
can I offer in return for what I get?” and “What do I have
to do?” Suddenly, we realise that ‘self’ has been taken
over by ‘ego’.
From then on, our ego guides our relationships.
H e r e it might be added that ego-guided relationships are a one-way
ticket to disaster.
Human relationships we know, are a pain, and
extremely difficult to maintain; but none of them needs
as much nurturing, care, love, understanding, patience,
trust, dedication, forgiveness, and finally divine
intervention, as the husband and wife relationship.
The scenario thus far is grim. Here is a person who
is grappling with himself, trying to settle down in life,
trying to make a success out of whatever he has been
educated in and he has hardly any money with which to
fight it out. Suddenly, he is expected to marry and settle
down and try to make the most of what he possesses. He
has not learnt the basics yet, no matter how much he
may want the world to think otherwise; how does he
learn to understand the other person, since he is still
trying to make himself understood!
If it involved only the husband and wife, after initial
hiccoughs, they would succeed. But there are
other forces involved which only serve to make the
situation more complicated. The well-known ‘in-laws’
syndrome, parents on both sides and coming of
children who create their own situations at every stage
of their lives. This is a circus.
If the two characters in this play finally progress to
the third stage, which is the marriage of their children,
they are applauded for a job done well and that all their
responsibilities are now over. Little do they know that
their responsibilities will never be over. On the contrary,
they will be magnified.
There are, but only a few who pass through this
journey, without tripping or getting their clothes snagged
in the roadside barbed wire. They will pass through
other pitfalls relatively easily, but putting up with each
other proves to be the sternest test of all. In earlier days,
they stayed together, no matter what. These days, with
ladies being advanced in education, matters relating to
self-sufficiency and heightened egos, temptations to
give in midway and travel on their own have increased
manifolds.
‘Obviously, treading the lonely furrow is not without its share of dangers’. This bookis like a wake-up call for those who are
in the second phase of their lives. In fact, the reason for
writing this book, the author says, was to make people aware that without
the institution of marriage, matters will go out of hand,
where morality will be the greatest sufferer. To belong
to someone is a matter of great relief and happiness.
This aspect is most obvious in people who have no one
to call their own. People who have lost their parents,
siblings and their spouses, people who do not have
children in their marriage… such people have such a
large void in their lives that a whole planet can easily
get lost in it.
It is only when we have people in our lives
and do not care about them and are prepared to let them
go so easily that repentance comes sooner than later.
Relationships exist only because we are in them. We
make them important. It is just like gold. It is valued
only because of us and because it is so scarce. Animals
have no value for it. If there was perpetual darkness,
would we able to differentiate gold from lead, copper or
even iron? It is said that if sand was as scarce as gold,
we would have kept sand in a vault and society would
have given it the same stature as gold.
So, if the institution of marriage is so important to
most of us, then why is that we give it the least
importance. We should realise here that once we get into
a relationship, we have to completely surrender ourselves
to it and only then can we banish our ego.
Here is wishing you all a happy, prosperous and
lasting… wedded life!