Necessary Addiction

One of my sisters had gifted me a book on my wedding. A book that talks about ways to a successful married life; a book reveals remedies for never ending melees; a book that promises of bringing light on the unending bliss the marriage showers on one’s life.

Even though I don’t agree with that book, I never doubt her intentions, ideas or efforts. She might have thought a book would be helpful for a rookie to keep balance in married life. But I think, absolutely not. Marriage is an institution, a journey, a test for which there is no readymade material to tackle. The situation one faces after marriage seems to be very similar, seems to be seen, seems to have read somewhere before and yet one would have no answer, no reasonable solution. The most terrible part of the circumstance would be your incapacity to interpret the heard or seen experiences into a meaningful and helpful support to rely on.

An example, my wife wants prepare a home-made cake, all the way from scratch, for my birthday but I wouldn’t want to support her as I don’t want to her go through all the hassle of baking and decorating the cake and also, I want to scream, just to remind her, ‘honey, by the way, I am not getting any younger’. Of course, she wouldn’t listen and surprisingly, she convinces me to go for her idea. Here comes the tough part of the whole scenario, if cake comes out with flying colors, well baked and eye catching decoration, she will be happy. I will be too, for her, but deep down I get saddened that my image in mirror, bigger but not better, laughs at me. I can’t even blow out the candles happily as the demons of fat would be getting their troops ready to invade and occupy my body, just like the waters behind the gate of a dam. That’s just one out come you could expect. Second case, which I call the worst case, would be the one where the outcome is bad and inedible. You would think I will be happy, but no sir, you got it wrong. This is like worst thing to happen. I would have to spend more time in reassuring her cooking abilities and blaming the cake material for her let down. You always want to see your spouse winning even if it means hurting your ideas. These ideas, these lessons are learnt only by experience. There is no book, no institution, no movies, no skit that is out there to teach you all this.

Marriage is an institution where you are a student and teacher at the same time, where you learn and tested at the same time. Marriage is a game where both the players win. Marriage is like a rebellious movement that youth gets attracted to, it seems life changing, breath taking and all. It’s very easy to join the movement, but the hard part would be to maintain and (not necessarily) cherish each and every moment. Your spouse should be your addiction. The marriage gets its meaning only when one gets addicted to one’s spouse. Of all the addictions, this one is healthier and more satisfying.

My experience says, marriage is an essential institution and spouse is a beautiful and necessary evil.

Arth (the Meaning)

Recently, I watched the movie, Arth (the Meaning). Arth star cast includes Shabana Azmi, Smitha Patil, Rohini Hattangadi, Kulbhushan Karbanda and Raj Kiran. This movie was made by Mahesh Bhatt in his early years of career as director, when he was still fresh and long before bitten by commercial bee.

Arth plot revolves around Shabana Azmi. Shabana, brought up in an orphanage, wife of struggling and innovative creative director Kulbhushan, is fed up with her husband’s unsettling attitude at work, which forces them to change places frequently, which shatters her dream of owning a HOME, which means world to her. Finally one day Kulbhushan surprises her with gifting a new home that has been bought under her name. She leaps to heavens with joy and keeps herself busy decorating her sweet home while her husband is away, busy with work in Goa, for weeks. In the process, she hires a new house maid (Rohani Hattangadi), who is married and has a daughter. Maid’s husband, a drunkard and womanizer is in the lure of another woman, quits his job and spends the money made by his wife, maid. But she never even thinks of revolting, instead she obeys this as her ill-fate, but she aspires to send her daughter to school and make independent. Shabana’s opinions are not same about her maid’s situation but she keeps it to herself.

In Goa, Kulbhushan is seen with his love, an established and yet insecured actress, Smitha Patil. Smitha founds comfort and security in the lap of Kulbhushan. She forces him to reveal the secret to his wife and move with her otherwise, she herself will reveal the secret to her. In an unavoidable situation he reveals the secret to Shabana, who grows speechless to learn the fact, and he abandons HOME. In the later part, Shabana confronts the couple Kulbhushan and Smitha. In the mere angst and frustrations, along with intoxication, lashes out at both, calling Smitha, a ‘whore’. Then she was helped by Raj Kiran, an aspiring and struggling singer, to her home. Next morning, Shabana apologizes for her behavior to Kulbhushan and asks for a reason, what made him go away from her? What lacks in her that he found in Smitha? He never gives answer to that, but says, he loves both Shabana and Smitha, and it’s just that he loves Smitha more and hopes of living with her rest of his life. And in anger, he reveals that Shabana’s home was bought with the help of Smitha. Shabana leaves the home and lives in Women’s Working Hostel.

She finds job with the help of Raj Kiran, whom she bumps into in the waiting room of an office. He brings her smiles back with his even cheerful attitude and singing tantrum. Meanwhile, Smitha, grows more insecure of losing Kulbhushan after her confrontation with Shabana in a party. To satisfy herself and pacify her fears, she demands Kulbhushan to get divorce from Shabana. Kulbhushan to gain her smiles back, he asks to Shabana to accept the divorce. Shabana signs off the papers and she finds solace in the company Raj Kiran. Shabana’s maid comes in search of Shabana to her hostel and asks her to help her in admitting her daughter in school. She takes them to school and school board demands donation to take the little kid into school, for which maid agrees, even though its little expensive.

Meanwhile, Raj kiran hits the gold and establishes himself as singer and expresses his love for Shabana, which Shabana refuses to upfront. At her work Shabana has been requested by Smitha’s mother to come and assure Smitha of her divorce as she is ruining herself with fear of losing him. Shabana, with no options left, arrive’s at Smitha and explains that she left him for good and she would never want him back and leaves. That confrontation helps Smitha only to realize that she will never found that assurance in his compay and he might leave her for the sake someone else. So she decides not to marry him and asks Kulbhushan to leave the house. Here Shabana gets a call from police, that her maid was arrested as she killed her husband who stole her money that had been saved her daughter’s upbringing. When Shabana meets maid, she never expresses her regret for killing her husband but she is worried about her daughter’s future. Shabana putsforth her interest of taking care of her daughter. Abandoned by Smitha, a remorseful and disheartened Kulbhushan comes back to Shabana in search of shelter. Shabana expresses her concern on the whole situation but never accepts to take him back.

In the end, she explains Raj Kiran, life is not supposed to end just because relationships end. Life always in search meaning finds new ways to live and cherish each and every moment and Shabana, she found her meaning in the company of her maid’s daughter and she found a new goal in upbringing of her.

The solution to this movie is it opt or not, is not a matter to discuss, I think. There is no standard solution to this kind of problems and this is a typical problem of Indian society, of which some cases never see the light. The ending could have been different if director wanted, but he thought it would be opt to have an ending like this. So it all depends on the director who makes the movie, how to end. In one scene Shabana asks for reason why Kulbhushan abandoned her. I think there shouldn’t be a reason for one to abandon one;s spouse in this kind of situations. Love is a human emotion, a feeling, free from logics and formulae. Having reasons will only degrade a person to the depth of agony and embarrassment.

To sum up, it was a nice movie, nice plot and great performances by the entire star cast.

 

Future Fire!!

Another year has gone by, and another anniversary gone begging. Yes, I am referring to ‘Earth Day’. It has been 40years since we have started off this ritual. The solo aim of this ritual is to spread the awareness of keeping earth as it is and helping citizens to preserve the nature for future generations.

Earth day was supposed to give a reflection of our standings vis-à-vis ecological balance. But, like so many, earth day has also become a mere ritual that we carry out without its essence. In other words, we just celebrate earth day as any other commercial-market made special days. I don’t see any pro-active steps towards safe guard of Mother Nature. If we continue like this, I am afraid; we will not exist to continue for long. I believe we should start every year with specific targets and review each year with our achievements and come up with ideas and motivation to improve the theme of saving Earth.

It is frighteningly remarkable to learn that, even though it has been millions of years since Earth’s formation, it has taken just 200 years for us, humans, to spoil the face of the earth, huh!! Talk about industrial revolution. Other day when I was speaking to my father he sordidly mentioned how hot it was there in India as though it is still April. It seems things have changed considerably in the last few years and we have reached to a point where mandatory events like, breathing itself would lead us closer to the dooms day.

And the mean time Ravi Shastri was screaming in the microphone (undermining the Microphone’s capability) to rub some excitement in spectators and he uttered carefully that IPL decided to green (Environmental Friendly) and proudly gave out the tip of the day to keep Earth for another day and suddenly stadium erupted with music blaring in. Of course there was never any effort to keep fireworks that they crack at the end of the match everyday for so long, away and the kind of nonsense in the name of entertainment they are bringing with is utter disgusting (let me save this garbage for another piece).

Earth is alarmingly standing at the verge of existence and if we don’t bring up a notch in our efforts to rescue it, we may end up in handing over a burning globe to our future generations.