Run up to the alter!

Well, I celebrated my birthday a few days back and 't was quite a wonderful one with friends and colleagues making it truly unforgettable! And there were a lot of things which happened that day but one thing which really was unforgettable , was the naughty message on my birthday cake written by my flat-mates Tushar and Pranav.
It read
"Happy Bday Anky,
26 and Single"
LOL!!!!!
And Pranav, with his cutting sense of humor, further went on to wish me saying
"Happy Birthday dude.
It is a very momentous day for you, njoi it to the core,
u have moved from your 'fun early-20s' to the 'stormy late-20s' "

and the thought just stuck on to me.

Stormy, they are goin' to be...

So much happens in the late 20s...u get married, start 'saving'(what's that?), mebbe have kids, focus on career,....Just so much happens indeed!

So, this post focusses on the first late-20s 'storm' to come in my life->"MARRIAGE"!!

Just as I had passed out of NITIE (in Jan 07) and was about to join my job, my aunt made the legendary statement which scares the shit out of every bachelor when he hears it the first time -
"You are well-settled now. It's time you got married!!!!"

And now the statement was ringing back in my ears.

(what follows is purely a work of fiction, any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely incidental, although I am sure that most of us would relate completely with what follows)

Just a year back when a cousin was committed and crazily in love, her mom, worried by his crazy ways, had voiced her concerns to her brother, m y dad.
My dad, who always has a very witty style of putting things, plainly told his sister
"Don't worry honey,
Love is a temporary insanity curable only by marriage,
get them married"

And so my cousin got married with all fan fare and I, the best man at the ceremony was in the thick of that crazy little process with all its exitement and nervous moments, that it left me wondering, why is marriage so important?

But, now a year later, I saw myself call up my dad to tell him that I am thinking about marriage and need his advice on the same. I wanted to know if marriage was really that important and my dad in his usual style made it so clear to me -
"If it weren't for marriage, men and women would have to fight with complete strangers!!"
So with the importance of marriage so firmly impressed on my mind, I now wanted to know how should I best proceed with the entire process and he quipped "Son, the secret of getting married and being happy during it is to Keep your eyes open before marriage and Half-shut after it"

Just a little shaken by the tremendous message he had so plainly delivered, I went on to ask him what should I look for in a potential spouse and if my parents have any constraints on the kind of spouse I should select.
Now, as lucky as I am, my parents are a liberal lot and really have no caste/religion/language barriers to my choice of spouse (although I should admit that being from India and thankfully so, bride from opposite sex was a precondition ;) )
But there was one little piece of advice which my dad gave me which I admire it for the way it was delivered. He said -
"Marrying is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything else in the house"
Truly so, I thought!
I was getting interested now abt this whole marriage thing, although going by the way my interests were swinging- be it games, hobbies, GFs or JOBS, I was not sure if this interest was gonna last. Lol!! ;)
But, nevertheless, I further enquired how to know if the lady I was meeting would be the right choice for me in the long term and he again had a very practical solution to this very tricky problem. He said that although it has always been a gamble, u can still improve the odds by doing a little bit of R&D. "Check out how the girl's mom looks like now and how your potential ma-in-law carries herself. Like mother, like daughter and you can also know if the shine on the cup u plan to win is gonna last or not!!"
Brilliant I should say and I would rather believe this, knowing that my nanny, even at the age of 84, has enviable beauty and my mom too has kept the unspoken promise she made, when my dad first saw her. ;)

Now, armed with some basic inputs on how to open the innings, I set out to discuss the issue with someone my own age, a college friend who, as I later realized, was not in the same life stage. He was truly taken aback by the mention of that word "marriage" and his countenance changed contour to an expression of disgust. He made me really think so hard with a solid logic, very typical of us engineers, that it really shook me.
He blasted me saying -
"If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many women
for the criticism of one,
go ahead, get married!"

He further went on to emphasise his point saying -
"That a married couple was able to live together happily, day after day, is a miracle even the Vatican has overlooked"
And even while I was understandably shaken by the strong words of my friend, another friend, who had recently got an early divorce to a failed marriage, tried in vain, to help me saying that I need not worry so much about it bcos, in any case, Marriage is like wine, it is not properly judged until the second glass and not fully appreciated until the third!!!

This was it...I knew now why marriage draws so much attention and importance in life. Its because Marriage is like an adventure, its like goin on war, a war u eventually have to wage for eternal peace or so they would have you believe!!!

Do put in the comments, if u have liked this post and also my style of writing :)

- Anky