My Wife

I always felt very early in my life that whoever is going to be my wife, she is going to be very lucky and totally confused. This I thought because of my certain habits and views.
While I am very good at criticizing others, I sometimes forget to use the same yard on myself. When I grew up, I always wanted to be different. I wanted to be recognized. Then I suddenly realized that actually I don't give a damn about the world and I am worried only about myself. This changed everything. Although I take pains to differentiate myself from the male-chauvanistic views, I still have some traits of it. All this makes living with me more difficult.

When I heard that I was going to be engaged, I was totally lost in a sea of thoughts. It was a typical NRI dilemma. Probably, I will be seeing the girl a week before marriage and will get married and then try to live with whatever I have got. It was tough.

Then I started talking to her. I am not going to elaborate on the topics we covered and the hours spent. But it certainly did help me get to know her a lot. In fact, I slowly fell in love with her. It is difficult to comprehend, even for me. I used to fell in love with every other girl like that bumbling friend of Wooster comedies. But I realized that this is the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Even today, I am actually amused by the amount of risk involved in the whole process. It is difficult to reject the girl after the engagement is through. I didn't get to see the photo of the girl till the day of engagement (March 5, 2001). I remember the sleepless nights I spent in those days thinking of all kinds of nightmares about marriage. But I agreed to the whole thing because I believed in my mom. I know if she likes something, then it probably is the best (on a different note, I have the same opinion of me!).

I don't really know how Jeysri felt during those days. It must be more difficult for her to handle it than me. She was there and had to answer all those people constantly asking her opinion about the 'groom' she hasn't once seen. Although she took it in her stride like a Tamil-Nadar girl is expected to, I think it must be very difficult for her to do that.

Arranged marriages are a peculiar stuff. I always think of it as a sort of gamble. Some times you win. Some times you lose. It is lucky that I won. But in general, I think it is a pretty good arrangement. I may have to write a seperate piece about it. (Now, that doesn't mean I am for love marriages. I think the dices are actually loaded against you in a love marriage than in an arranged marriage!).

Back to Jeysri, I think I have digressed from what I intended to write in this page. That always happens with me. Jeysri is sort of a girl, who is at once simple, brilliant and yet complex in some ways. It is difficult to fathom what she thinks. She is equal in most things and in some, I would rate her a better human being than me. And she is the biggest critique of herself. This is whnt makes me like her and love her more. In my view, a person who is capable of self-critiquing is the best person. It is such a rare quality among us that when we find a person capable of it, we are taken by the moral force of it.

I have seen her grow from a girl to a full-fledged mom in just over a year and a half. It is amazing at the pace this happened that I hardly noticed it. Some of the best days of our marriager were during her pregnancy. I was able to find in myself a caring person while she was able to show me how much our love meant to her. I even find it difficult to express it in words. We were there for each other.

Living so far from home actually makes one dependant on the partner more intensely than anything. We have no secrets between us. Zilch. I am finding that it makes living life easier as I can be myself always without having to worry about her finding something I hid. I would recommend that.

But I can be brutally honest at times. Those are the times when she finds it difficult to cope with me. But, hey, when you love each other so much, you ca overcome anything.

Of course she has her faults. But she is always on guard to correct them. In fact she nags me so much if she has made a mistake. I always admire her purity as well as her candidness.

I Love Youda....