Anjali and Adarsh Part I
It was turning out to be a regular feature these days. So regular that both of them were sick and tired of the ritual. Occasions which give pleasure, pain, happiness of grief, shock or solace, lose their capacity to induce their usual feelings in the appropriate dosage when administered daily. Such was the boredom induced in the life of Anjali and Adarsh today, eight years from the day they married.
Outwardly the couple was well matched. Both well educated, both relatively good looking, both employed and reasonably well off financially, owning a house in a proper suburban locality, a four wheeler, living as a nuclear family, reasonably healthy, at the prime of their lives, with relatives to look up to for support and finally two healthy sweet children, one a boy and the other a girl. Shouldn’t that have been reason enough for unlimited happiness? Shouldn’t such emotional and physical proximity have encouraged the nurturing of a deep and satisfying love affair between the two? Apparently not. For Anjali and Adarsh fought each other. Neither of them remembers how it all started in the first place, but they had had their first fight within 100 hours of their marriage. They were both possibly primed not to give in if a difference of opinion ever occurs.
Anjali possibly was a subject of the indoctrination that a woman is in no way inferior to a man. Especially if she were to be equally educated, employed and potentially independent. Gone were the days when women served tea with a coy smile when men came back home from their offices. If a child was sick, who says it was the mother’s duty alone to stay awake and nurse it? If a woman could chair a meeting in office couldn’t a man cook a decent meal at home? The mother in law and the father in law, having done their sacred duty thirty years ago, will be appreciated if they stay well away and refrain from advising. If I require any advices, I have a mother of my own and I will take it from her, Thank you. And for God’s sake, why only Geoffrey Boycott or Rajdeep Sardesai? Why NOT Eaktaa Kaapooar?
Adarsh was, on the other hand, possibly primed the other way. So what if a woman serves tea when her husband comes home tired? She may well have come back from office herself just a moment back but then who asked her to go to an office at all? No doubt the income she brought in made life easier financially. But if it makes life tougher in every other way, then why work? After all, tell me honestly, was she really working to share the family burden? She worked to escape the chores of domestic life. Women like his mother who stayed back at home and anchored the family were not to be scoffed at. Homemaking was backbreaking. Anjali worked to retain financial independence just in case she tired of Adarsh and wanted a life of her own. A father’s role in child rearing came when the children grew up. Men don’t go about wiping asses and changing nappies. A man married because he wanted a woman. And frankly, if the woman of the house worked, earned, drove a car, cut her hairs short and wore jeans and generally behaved like a man, then pray why not have a homosexual marriage? An orgasm is an orgasm however way it comes and atleast one problem, that of child rearing, can be dispensed off with. Kids, anyway were a bad investment.
And so it was that Adarsh and Anjali, so uniquely matched, physically, educationally, financially, astrologically and socially, were locked in a marriage, which while being immensely successful on the physical plane, was a mess on the emotional plane. So it was that Adarsh developed Hypertension, secondary diabetes, ulcers, alcoholism, impotency and anxiety while Anjali developed cervical spondilytis, irritable bowels, skin problems, falling hair, menstrual problems, depression and frigidity. Significant parts of their incomes were spent on doctors and pharmacists. Their children, brilliant and lovely to start with, became reclusive, irritable, constipated short sighted couch potatoes. On the one hand, they wanted to love their parents like other normal children, but on the other, were repelled by the quarrelling monsters they saw daily. They sincerely wished one of these bastards would die. The parents of Anjali and Adarsh on the other hand, who had fuelled the divide religiously, like Frankensteins, were shocked at what they had created.
…………..to be continued
Outwardly the couple was well matched. Both well educated, both relatively good looking, both employed and reasonably well off financially, owning a house in a proper suburban locality, a four wheeler, living as a nuclear family, reasonably healthy, at the prime of their lives, with relatives to look up to for support and finally two healthy sweet children, one a boy and the other a girl. Shouldn’t that have been reason enough for unlimited happiness? Shouldn’t such emotional and physical proximity have encouraged the nurturing of a deep and satisfying love affair between the two? Apparently not. For Anjali and Adarsh fought each other. Neither of them remembers how it all started in the first place, but they had had their first fight within 100 hours of their marriage. They were both possibly primed not to give in if a difference of opinion ever occurs.
Anjali possibly was a subject of the indoctrination that a woman is in no way inferior to a man. Especially if she were to be equally educated, employed and potentially independent. Gone were the days when women served tea with a coy smile when men came back home from their offices. If a child was sick, who says it was the mother’s duty alone to stay awake and nurse it? If a woman could chair a meeting in office couldn’t a man cook a decent meal at home? The mother in law and the father in law, having done their sacred duty thirty years ago, will be appreciated if they stay well away and refrain from advising. If I require any advices, I have a mother of my own and I will take it from her, Thank you. And for God’s sake, why only Geoffrey Boycott or Rajdeep Sardesai? Why NOT Eaktaa Kaapooar?
Adarsh was, on the other hand, possibly primed the other way. So what if a woman serves tea when her husband comes home tired? She may well have come back from office herself just a moment back but then who asked her to go to an office at all? No doubt the income she brought in made life easier financially. But if it makes life tougher in every other way, then why work? After all, tell me honestly, was she really working to share the family burden? She worked to escape the chores of domestic life. Women like his mother who stayed back at home and anchored the family were not to be scoffed at. Homemaking was backbreaking. Anjali worked to retain financial independence just in case she tired of Adarsh and wanted a life of her own. A father’s role in child rearing came when the children grew up. Men don’t go about wiping asses and changing nappies. A man married because he wanted a woman. And frankly, if the woman of the house worked, earned, drove a car, cut her hairs short and wore jeans and generally behaved like a man, then pray why not have a homosexual marriage? An orgasm is an orgasm however way it comes and atleast one problem, that of child rearing, can be dispensed off with. Kids, anyway were a bad investment.
And so it was that Adarsh and Anjali, so uniquely matched, physically, educationally, financially, astrologically and socially, were locked in a marriage, which while being immensely successful on the physical plane, was a mess on the emotional plane. So it was that Adarsh developed Hypertension, secondary diabetes, ulcers, alcoholism, impotency and anxiety while Anjali developed cervical spondilytis, irritable bowels, skin problems, falling hair, menstrual problems, depression and frigidity. Significant parts of their incomes were spent on doctors and pharmacists. Their children, brilliant and lovely to start with, became reclusive, irritable, constipated short sighted couch potatoes. On the one hand, they wanted to love their parents like other normal children, but on the other, were repelled by the quarrelling monsters they saw daily. They sincerely wished one of these bastards would die. The parents of Anjali and Adarsh on the other hand, who had fuelled the divide religiously, like Frankensteins, were shocked at what they had created.
…………..to be continued
posted by Ramdas Iyer at 8:32 PM
3 comments
