Desicritics Author: Kalyani Chidam

Marriage, New Age Style

Kalyani Chidam — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:47:13 EST

What do young people today expect when they get married?

It is worrying because this year I was closely involved with three weddings and the results are not too happy. They were all arranged by the parents and conducted in grand manner, straining their means to the utmost. All three brides were involved a great deal with their trousseau and less with the bridegrooms. All of them are well educated, articulate and capable of thinking on their own.

By the end of the year, one of them has filed for divorce (mostly for reasons beyond control or reasonableness) ; one is flying back after constant friction with her new husband, and the third is coasting along but one can’t say in a state of great happiness.

Belonging to the previous generation, parents are puzzled about where they went wrong. The bridegrooms would still be their first choice; sober, responsible young men. Only they don’t want to stretch too much to accommodate young wives in their life patterns which seem to have set into comfortable modes. They would like the same food, the comfort they are used to, their friends, the same freedom to come and go.

The girls are happy to cook and clean and play the good housewife. The flies in their soup could be in the form of in-laws who come to stay or call too often.

But what they do expect is attentive husbands who ask "have you eaten? ", take them out as often as possible and generally be appreciative and grateful that this girl has left her parents to come and stay with him.

Both sides have a great deal of expectations which go unfulfilled and unhappiness results.

One key problem seems to be that both are still kids for their parents with the umbilical cords still attached. In this age of cheap phone calls, every little incident is reported and gets magnified as it reverberates from mind to mind. There is no space for the young couple to be by themselves and find their own equilibrium even if parents are far away.

Have we spoiled our children by giving them too much? Too much attention? Too much materially? Too many expectations from a relationship? And too much comfort which they are not willing to relinquish to accommodate another person in their lives. Not to mention their families?

“The more personal harmony we feel the more we will be able to give in a loving relationship. All the elements for a genuine loving relationship with someone else are the same ingredients we need in order to fully love ourselves."

-Alexandra Stoppard in Living beautifully Together.

Is this where the problem lies? Within each person? When they haven’t learnt to love themselves first?

Is it too early for these young people to share themselves with another? The logic of early marriages is that both are still pliable enough to adjust to another. Maybe it doesn't hold good any more?

We spend a lot of time and money equipping our children to face the working world. The best education we can afford; classes for computer skills, sports, soft skills, foreign languages, camps -- anything that we think will help them. But we don’t seem to equip them much when it comes to sharing their lives with another.

What do we or they need to do?

Growing Lighter Through Reducing Clutter

Kalyani Chidam — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:34:33 EST

I'm reading a book on feng shui as applied to clutter by Karen Kingston which is very inspiring. I've been clearing out the cupboards and spaces of my home as fast as I can. A lot of techniques are outlined in the book on how to sort things into different piles.

Actually, there's nothing feng shui about removing clutter. Just throw out whatever you haven't used for the past year or more; whatever you don't like, whatever has bad associations, whatever you haven't looked at for the past two years and so on. Karen can be so inspiring that you tend to throw out other people's things, something which she strictly warns against.

The results may be feng shui or just plain space and energy. You feel good and virtuous, lighter, and a little happier that you don't feel obliged to use some of the things you paid good money for. I know a friend who wore an expensive, size smaller pair of shoes for a year before she admitted to being wrong and gave them away. I'm sure the Chinese torture didn't do her much good. A little worse than admitting to a sartorial mistake.

One bit that appealed to me is giving away clothes that you think you will eventually grow thinner into. Keeping yesteryears' things never works. As we middle aged spreaders know but hope otherwise. Seeing those size smaller clothes is a reminder of how small you were long ago and does more to depress you rather than inspire. And by the time you get to that size, the styles have changed.

Karen says that it's best to let go of them. Stick to a few good clothes that fit you now and accept yourself. Well, I've given away some of my clothes to my kids though their comments were rather painful. "Ma, it's so big and it doesn't fit you?" in incredulous tones. And seeing the thing that you cherished fondly for years covering their frames rather like a large sack is lacerating. Okay, soon I'll be buying fresh clothes for the new thinner me which will happen once I throw away all this old thought and stuff, Karen promises. It's like replacing old hope with fresh hope.

De-cluttering removes guilt. I don't have to read all the books I've been keeping for some distant day. All the classics that stayed in the back of my shelves are now at the back of the library shelves.

Less is more. Or more space. The more you remove, the better a room looks. Clearing out a pile of magazines and books and other clutter that gathered in the lobby over a year took about 15 minutes. I feel wonderful when I walk through it now.

I've got around to clearing the tops of cupboards to give that clean streamlined look. Of course, now half the things are under the beds, but the challenge is to clear that space too. Do I really need to keep diaries of 20 years? Am I really going to write my autobiography? Even Gayathri Devi's is a little tough to read and she has had a much more interesting life.

Unfinished jobs, nagging chores, repairs, unwritten letters, and phone calls you are loath to make. Get them over and done with, Karen urges. It does feel good. Although I do seem to spend my time dotting the i's and crossing the t's; crossing little things off the lists is a good high.

Gifts - recycle them when you really don't like them. One good point Karen makes is how you feel reassured when you see things from other people around you. It reminds you of who you are and makes you feel secure. And that's why you hang on to things.

I know my display shelves are not a reflection of my good taste but that of my friends'. Because they have given me stuff they don't want. Otherwise they would have kept if for themselves.

My biggest happiness was filling a bag with pairs of old spectacles. In a household where 3 of the 4 people wear glasses, we steadily filled a drawer with old pairs as style and lenses changed, keeping them just in case. Now all the spectacles have gone to the local eye hospital; and hopefully soon I will spot someone in that familiar 80s style of huge plastic frames.

It's partly baring your soul, and accepting that your life has moved on. Change has come. Giving away old pictures is tough although you have got new ones. A huge painting in shades of grey and blue will probably form part of someone's wall and be of more use there than here. Hopefully it uplifts someone's life as it never did mine.

Some of this energy stuff does seem to work. A few years ago, I threw away a bunch of photographs from my college days since I had never heard from any of my classmates for 20 years. Not that we were buddies in any sense even while studying in the same space. But a little later after rejecting them mentally, hey presto, some got in touch and now, I have a bunch of them in my life.

I've refused the offer of a loan of a second book on feng shui. Knowing that my money cupboard is not in the right prosperity corner. And that hanging things including lights symbol depression is enough to send me into depression without reading further signs.

Truly, shedding kilos off my house and organizing my life is raising my self esteem. Try it for some lightness in your life.

Gen-Next - Preparing For Marriage

Kalyani Chidam — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:31:00 EDT

We were decorating the marital bed for the new couple. Everyone involved was abuzz with associated ideas. The girl's aunt took her aside to say a few words. I was dying of curiosity to know what those words of wisdom were. Just whatever was told you, she said. But no one did tell me anything, I said plaintively.

It's true. Some of us get loads of advice when we get married and some don't. Maybe we seem wise enough to find our own way.

Although boys marry girls, for centuries, girls have been prepared for marriage, consciously or unconsciously. Remarks, direct or indirect bounce around them ricocheting in their minds subconsciously. "You'll make a bad wife for someone," a cousin will say nastily when a girl hands over a badly ironed shirt. Some old lady in the family will cackle, "We'll have to find a mithai shopwala for you," if she eats a lot of sweets.

In yesteryears, she would have learned the housekeeping arts-- cooking, sweeping, cleaning vessels, hospitality, haggling with vendors, religious rituals, taking care of younger children-- right from about the age of ten when she would have been summoned from play on the road to come in and help.

Any cousins and uncles of marriageable stature would have been welcomed with coy remarks. The girl would have been made conscious of the eligible bachelors around her.

A series of don't strictures would have limited her life-- don't laugh so much. Don't waste so much. Don't put your legs up, what are you doing? What will your mother-in-law say? What will she have to say about your upbringing?

But, there is a big but now, all these diktats seem to have disappeared. Now mothers are urging their daughters to study and go out and get that IT or bank job.

I made a survey of my contemporaries. One said she was bidden, "He is the most important person in your life now. They are your family and treat them like that. Do what your husband wants. "

Twenty five years later, what did she say to her daughter? "Be patient. Expect to have a lot of fights and face them bravely. Fight it out, cry; say what you feel. Don't retreat into silence and acceptance."

A more traditional friend tells me she said 'Adjust to his anger and moods.'

One divorced mother told her daughter, "Do what you think is right. You have a conscience-act according to that. Don't bow down to pressure and don't do what you don't think is right.

It's difficult for two persons to blend completely. Expect to have some disagreements and solve them amicably. Be patient and study your new family for the first two years. Don't rush into things."

Most of these girls have barely learned to cook or clean. They've been in the study-work mode. But their mothers are not too worried. If they've learned to cope with the workplace, then housekeeping shouldn't be too much of a challenge. And new love can always help with issues.

That is one thing mothers warn about. That the love one sees before marriage never lasts. One has to work at love afterwards to keep it going.

I find that the way mothers nowadays talk stems from their own experiences. The advice of the past doesn't hold good any more in the modern new world. The equations between husband and wife that existed before have changed a lot. No more is it the driving ambition of the new bride to win accolades from all in the household.

One mom says -- "we've made her study and equipped her for financial independence (which I missed sorely). So she can be her own person, without having to please everyone. She doesn't have to be as dependent or submissive as I was. And in laws may not have such a big role as before."

Do girls nowadays need to be equipped for this new role of marriage? When I heard of my young niece, unable to cope with the pressures of the hospital and a new home, dissolving in floods of tears, it made me think so.

On the other hand, we see many capable young women coping splendidly with the new people in their lives. They may have never washed a plate in their lives but they manage to take the housekeeping in their long strides.

Gen-next seems smarter than their mothers. So do they need that truckload of advice? Advice ill suited to a fast changing world? When it looks like they can have it all?