Tag Archives: Marriage

The Leaning Effect

26 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Vervemagazine.in October 2014
Illustration by Wyanet Vaz

Women are choosing to take their time before tying the knot, thinking fiercely about a potential loss of freedom, the pressure to start a family and career compromises in an increasingly driven world, wondering who will be on top….

Final

Setting metaphoric innuendos aside, enough has been said about a woman having it all and playing a juggling act with everything including her own sanity. With home being the woman’s domain and the workplace being the man’s, guidelines are crisply divided – the lakshman rekha is sindoor red. What happens when those boundaries are crossed? Everything becomes grey and the girl doesn’t want any sindoor red. The man feels emaciated and the woman feels burdened with judgement.

Even when it became socially acceptable for a woman after marriage to ‘stay busy’ so that she basically wouldn’t spend the family wealth shopping, it was understood that she would do so in socially acceptable places, with timings and choices and clothes that kept her family maryada in mind at all times. Mostly, she either ran her own home business or she worked out of her father’s or husband’s office. It was considered taboo for a woman of means to work outside the family limits. It’s not like she needed the money after all!

And what about wanting to do something that is more than being the household accountant and ironing out domestic problems? An educated woman, who has worked before marriage, is likely to have a desire to build a healthy career of her own – one that may not be convenient, or secure or easy. But how does a man and his family knuckle down to it?

And then the ‘supportive family’ arrived. In an age of inflation and an era of success stories, there is a greater desire for families to accept their daughters-in-law’s careers and achievements. But that didn’t mean that a woman would stop doing what she was traditionally expected to – she still ran the house and ordered groceries and tallied salaries and cooked and managed and juggled her career alongside it all. This led to people beginning to question whether women could have it all….

So, it’s not surprising that women are pushing marriage to later in life, because while it is possible for a woman to metaphorically be on top, is it possible for her to be on top of everything without spreading herself too thin? There may be a solution, as Facebook’s CEO, Sheryl Sandberg pointed out in her book, Lean In. It talks about making your partner a real partner, moving forward to accept shared responsibility of building a life and family together. In our celebrated patriarchal society where women are relegated as dependent on men, it is empowering to think that there can be a chance for ambition and salvation in the same sentence.

Love Actually?

04 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Published: Verve Magazine, September 2014, Anti-View

Does love play an important role in Indian marriages today? A country that survives on celluloid rom-coms may be choosing practicality in real life

nerve-antiview

We grew up watching those regressive movies where everyone was always against love – marriage had to be a meeting of two families, economic status, caste, creed, sect, religion, language and mithai. Mishti doi couldn’t find place on the same platter as sevaiyaan for goodness’ sake! And then our Bollywood kings and queens would come swooping in with goose-bumpy tales of love, of love that conquers all.

We would sigh with pleasure when our heroes circumvented all odds and came together in holy matrimony. After taking the sacred pheras, no evil could befall them, and they would remain cocooned in the power of love.

Of course movies like Akele Hum, Akele Tum (1995), Chalte Chalte (2003) and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) attempted to showcase the reality of marriage – that after the rose-tinted glasses are replaced with the horn-rimmed ones, it’s never quite happily ever after.

People can’t change and while their circumstances may, can love overcome it all? When director Imtiaz Ali and I sat together to concoct a love story by meshing Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal together for Verve, he pointed out that there is a reason that love stories end when they do. No one needs to face the reality of actually making a life together afterwards – people need to walk away with hope.

In urban India, the youth is no longer enamoured by love. Where earlier parents chose the partners for their children and the latter rebelliously yearned to be with who they wanted to be, today, the youth decides upon marriage via a purely clinical checklist. If the top criteria are met, it shall make a successful partnership. So in a way, it has come a full circle, where choices are made based on practical external factors rather than mushy feelings and red hot desire – the only difference is that the youth is willing to make those decisions if the parents won’t. After all, people are getting more practical by the day – can one survive life on love alone; doesn’t a country club membership and a neat set of wheels make life a smooth ride?

What has changed? Love isn’t a benchmark any more. You are lucky if the one you love also meets the points on the general marriage checklist; but it seems that people are more and more willing to go for things most important to them – economic comfort, a nuclear set-up, an easy-going partner and similar ideologies on travel (including the pursuit of a deep-sea diving certification). And it’s not settling for someone, it’s a well-considered arrangement that is legally bound to end happily ever after. Who shall dare to ask for more?

‘A Suitable Girl’ @vervemagazine September Bridal Issue

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Published: Verve Magazine, September 2012, Verve’s Got The Nerve

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife drawing a good ‘package’

My darling Jane Austen would turn in her grave at the unsightly events taking place in the high society of Mumbai. The patrons of SoBo who may be old or new money (after all today who’s checking how mosscovered your tijori may be?) apparently want the best for their sons. Sarva gun samparna and seva are all in their place, and dowry may be a bit antiquated even if you do expect the Beamer with polka-studded leather seats at your doorstep, at the very least, but what you do question is whether the girl is happening – career-wise or not.

There were days when girls were made to study home science, because that made them imminently eligible in their green-thumbsewing glory. They were promptly married off about the time they were to graduate – or even right before their exams, so that the timing was just suitable to learning and never applying their knowledge. As society became more egalitarian, girls were encouraged to be thought of as equal to boys – taking up the glorious path of law. It seemed so much nicer to say, ‘My daughter is ridiculously smart – she can ensure you know how to write your will even before you decide to make one.’

The few parents, who understood that their girls possessed rare talent, were encouraged to take up science and dare-to-be-different medicine. A new breed of doctors emerged who then juggled clinics and medical practice along with raising a family. The wonder women: whom the fathers and fathers-in-law were proud of. They stood apart from the designers. Every alternate house had a clothes or jewellery designer in their midst, as if the world’s artistic ability had concentrated itself in SoBo. But this made the in-laws happy, because their daughters-in-law were ‘busy’ and yet, always at their beck and call.

But all hell broke loose when the parents agreed to let their daughters into what was formerly a man’s domain: accounting, business administration, marketing, banking and commerce – they didn’t know that they were unleashing a new wave of talent. As the Indian economy exploded and the multinationals came into the fray, the girls in finance (particularly those with a ‘foreign education’) became the ‘it’ girls of high society. Drawing massive salaries, often unheard of in polite company – it is rude to even mention those figures – the in-laws realised that it’s not just what you drive or what you wear that defines you as a person. It’s where you work and how much you earn. It’s the package. A school teacher stands no chance in the society meat market – even if she makes the best chocolates and candles – amongst the brainiacs that know their money and can bet on it. Happy is a father-in-law who can carelessly slide into a conversation, ‘She draws a six figure salary… every month,’ observing the jaws drop and then sitting back with a satisfied air.

As women struggle to become men’s equals, the men have decided to accept it. In fact, they find it deeply favourable. Fathers encourage their sons to ensure a suitable match – it will ensure a comfortable life forevermore, whether he works or not. Househusbands may become the new male of Indian society. The ideal scenario would be to produce three lazy sons. Get them married to a doctor, a lawyer and a banker respectively. You are so sorted. Just avoid the writer who can spill the beans.

The Reluctant Bride

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Published: Verve Magazine, September 2012

12 brides who give 12 reasons to stay single

1. I Hate What He Wears If my fiancé hasn’t got the right haircut, or won’t wear that skinny Canali tie with Ferragamo shoes, I have every right to turn away from the big day. The only allowance will be made for wearing last season’s shoes picked up on sale, just because he still doesn’t get it.

2. I Am Set In My Ways When you are young and suggestible, you may succumb to finding your version of marital bliss. Come the 30s, it’s more about do I need a man? Do I need this man?

3. Girl’s Nights Waning Pyjama parties and comfort food. . A far cry from hosting formal dos as a couple, finding the right chic dress, organising the caterer, the help and the finger foods. So antiquated and pati-vrata.

4. No More Flavours It’s also about variety. Imagine the many, many types open to a woman in the prime of her youth. And now to think about picking one man, and settling down with him…seriously? What if he becomes a crazy patriarchal monster post-marriage? Shudder.

5. The Dead-End Chase I can never disrespect the chase. When I’m single and wanted, every guy will be desperate to woo me into his life. You play hard-to-get. You attempt to thwart unnecessary advances, but the attention is flattering. And then, when you settle down, it’s all over.

6. The Dull Relationship Dates are fun! Waiting with a sense of expectation, for something different, well-thought-out, all that creative attention. The banal life of a married couple…without the mystery, the excitement, the fantasy, the effort. He stops caring about caring.

8. The Food Once the talk was about delicate course meals, fresh watering holes, popping open a new label of wine. Now married-girl conversations are about managing food – and the dreaded word of domesticity… tiffins.

9. The moolah When you are dating, it’s all very well to be a hot-shot executive making pot-loads of money. It makes you rather eligible – in that Demi-Moore-power-woman-way. But the moment you are married, it becomes an ego thing. “So if you earn so much, buy your fancy stuff yourself.” Or “Why do you need to work so much?” Less demi and more moored.

10. The In-laws Your home is your home. And however much your in-laws love you, can it ever be the same? Can I ever just throw a few tantrums coz I feel like it, or demand my favourite comfort food made just so or basically, be the kid that every woman needs to be occasionally? I need to constantly prove that I am the perfect daughter-in-law. And I don’t think I am.

11. The next generation It’s like a girl is born to be a mother. I mean, relax. If I do tie the knot, am I expected to produce the brood immediately? And then be nothing more than a cow to be milked? Gross. I think the longer I wait to get married, the less I have to worry about the kid thing.

12. The Arguments When you are dating, you live in different homes. You can have timeouts and just hang up or choose to talk on your time or take up from where you left off. When you live with that person, where do you go? The fight gets implanted in your relationship, swirls around with the morning coffee and grows into a monumental blown-out-of-proportion pressure cooker situation that never gets a chance to blow off steam. Boom. End of the road. Even the make-up sex isn’t as good when you are married. I’ve heard.

Romance Diaries: Knot of Love

18 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Published: Verve Magazine, Features, February 2009
Illustration by Bappa

Does romance leave you behind at the altar or hold you even tighter in the embrace of marriage? Sitanshi Talati-Parikh traces the transition

Sitanshisdiary

It’s astonishing how deeply romantic it is to tie the knot, slip on the sparkly on your ring finger, walk down the aisle with a swishy fountain of lace behind you, or take a turn at the wedding mandap with dramatic chants sung against the sacred leaping flames. At every moment, you are shivering with anticipation, thinking of that spectacular wedding night that awaits you on a bed of roses. From the moment you drag your weary stiletto-ridden feet home after ‘receiving’ your many guests, you’re ready to crash. Literally. In a fun, wine-laced conversation at a recent bachelorette party, we did a show of hands to see how many people actually consummated their marriage on their wedding nights. The handful who did put up their hands, I’m dead sure, were all cock and bull stories, no pun intended. I mean who in their right mind actually does it on the wedding night?! One chica claimed – ‘You must – I mean, just for the heck of it – you have to! It’s your wedding night, after all!’

And that’s exactly how marriages begin. And romance begins to lose its edge. You do things because you have to, not because it’s always fun or scintillating. So what happens to the calls late into the night when you curl your toes under the covers with glee, the little pecks of promise, the anticipation of meeting soon, the entwined fingers and the burning look of intensity in the eyes that sends your spine and neck tingling with sensation? They are replaced by the harried look of multitasking chores, the absent-minded, disoriented air, the brow furrowed with concentration, the distracted monosyllabic answers at the breakfast table over coffee, toast and wireless BlackBerry compote, the intense concentration of a person who has his ambitious head turned skywards straight at the stars. I remind him it could get lonely at the top.

As I plan another vacation, in memory of the bygone days of wooing, to give me a brief glimpse into the young lovers we once were, I placate myself with the thought of a new destination that allows one to forget the responsibilities of life and focus on the simple pleasures. Like enjoying each other’s company in the companionable silence of golden sands and crashing waves. He slides his hand into mine; we flash back in time. At that moment I sense that romance never left us; we left it because of our preoccupations. The young boy’s romance has matured into a man’s love – deeper and subtler. Instead of wallowing in a time warp, I realise the romance didn’t die. It just changed, adapted, grew. The candyfloss tinted glasses fell off. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Captured Memories

27 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in Art, Literature & Culture, Publication: Verve Magazine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Published: Verve Magazine, Nerve, September 2010

The most ignored aspect of a wedding is the one you would ideally want to do right for posterity – the pictures! Verve looks at various options for the album

 

Photo01
Photo02

Ehsaan Faridafsar’s photograph on the adjoining page has been taken from a photo essay in Verve’s iconic black-and-white issue – there is something blissfully happy and memorable about the imagery. Having a photographer willing to render the moments of the most important day in your life in a unique fashion apparently is not something everyone hankers towards. It is surprising, considering how much money is bled into the most spectacular invitations, back presents, sets, jewellery, clothes…and yet wedding photography remains the unfortunate step-child.

Mumbai-based artist, curator and gallerist, Bose Krishnamachari traces the evolution of marriage in India to the extravaganza popularised by the maharajas of yore – and in those times, posed portraiture was the norm. As canvases evolved to bulky and expensive camera film and to the digital varieties of date, the traditional form of posed imagery still remains a part of the wedding legacy. It is only rarely – and more abroad than in India – that the photojournalistic style of wedding photography is popularised, where candid shots are taken and irreverent moments captured to add a sense of realism to the wedding album.

Matthieu Foss, photography curator and gallerist (Mumbai) feels that weddings have been restricted to a more conventional and conservative form of photography when creating the family wedding album. From the point of the photographer, Foss points out, they are using this form to merely make a living, not as a creative act. While it would be interesting for a photographer to capture moments from a poignant and radically important time in someone’s life, it appears that the subject’s lack of interest in something different would naturally stem the photographer’s creativity, making it a space that is a mere commercial stepping-stone to more absorbing pastures. And if the photographer were doing something different, it may well be in the space of satire and kitsch. Foss gives the example of French artist Jean-Christian Bourcart, whose first job as a wedding photographer led to him being ‘fascinated by those moments of joy in a crude or absurd reality,’ which later defined his other distinct photo projects.

It is not unnatural to take wedding photography a step further and explore moments in the nature of fashion photography: styled shoots inspired by high-fashion glossies; think a more involved and personal version of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City: The Movie snapped before her disastrous wedding in bridal fashion, documenting her pre-wedding preparations for an international fashion magazine. Many an aspiring socialite or fashionista would create a wedding album that looks like something out of the pages of a fashion magazine – to feel like the ultimate diva. Of course, this involves a good amount of post-processing of the images and possibly a touch up here and there!

At the other end of the glamour spectrum, with digital cameras and phone-cams, every other person considers himself/herself an amateur photographer, and impromptu and often unfortunately-candid shots of the wedding-in-process have been documented – much to the embarrassment of the couple-to-be. Loosely termed ‘contemporary wedding photography’, the professional version o f this irreverent clicking serves to capture the imagery of the wedding from the beginning to the end, without predetermined poses but with strong visual appeal.

While tradition is great when saying your vows or taking a turn around the fire, capturing eternal moments is an art and should be considered as such. With couples willing to give enough importance to the form, it may evolve into a universally appreciated aesthetic medium.

Imran Khan: The Quiet Romantic

19 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in Interviews (All), Interviews: Cinema, Publication: Verve Magazine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Published: Verve Magazine, Verve Men, February 2010
Photograph by: Colston Julian

Recently, Imran Khan got engaged to Avantika Malik after a seven-year relationship. The poster boy of romantic cinema, in his upcoming film I Hate Luv Storys, produced by Karan Johar, plays a true-to-life character that is completely unromantic. On a set of the film, staying in reel and real avatar, the young actor talks candidly to Sitanshi Talati-Parikh about relationships past and present, the insecurities and trials, and the importance of chivalry…peppered with intermittent reflections on what he thinks (or doesn’t think) about romance demonstrated by funny pie charts, graphs and comic strips that he has saved on his laptop

Imran01

I’m honestly the least romantic person you can find, really. By conventional definitions, and by my fiancée’s definition, that is. But if she’s lasted out this long, clearly she sees something in me!

It’s not that I don’t like romance…I just don’t think it’s feasible. When you are wooing someone, you put on your game face – bathe regularly, cut your nails, take her to fancy places, buy her flowers…all of the drama. It’s a mating dance…but rather short-lived. As time goes on, how you feel about each other as people, how you treat each other as people, will determine whether your relationship will last.

And yet, I’m big on the proper proposals. I proposed to Avantika a month after we met, asking her if she would be my girlfriend – lighting her room with candles – the works. Somewhere in me, there is a classical streak – I was brought up with values of chivalry. You have to do it the right way – go down on one knee…it just doesn’t work otherwise.

You do some things because you know that they are important to someone. I’ve been working on my last four birthdays, because I couldn’t care less. To Avantika, a birthday is really important – the excitement starts to build a month-and-a-half in advance. So, I put in an effort to make a big deal about her birthday. The diamond engagement ring, the surprise proposal – while I know it’s something created as a marketing concept by the diamond company, De Beers – I knew it would mean something to Avantika, it would make her happy, so I did the whole deal. I planned the surprise proposal on her birthday (last July) at her farmhouse with a bunch of friends, complete with a red herring to throw her off course. And then, as I pulled out the ring, while going down on one knee…the expression on her face was priceless.

Avantika would want me to be more expressive. When you are in a relationship with someone for an extended period of time, you tend to take on characteristics of the other person. She’s taken on my characteristics, I know – and I have done the same. She’s calmed down a lot. All her emotions are just below the surface, and sometimes on the surface. At a moment’s notice she will erupt with love or anger or violence. My anger is more frigid – the angrier I am, the calmer I get and the softer my voice gets. It’s very brutal and it really shrivels people up. When I’m livid, it takes two sentences to bring the other person to the brink of tears. But it takes something monumental to get me angry.

I have never been jealous – particularly in this relationship with Avantika. Even right in the beginning, it never occurred to me that at any point, if she is somewhere without me, something would happen with another guy. If you’ve been messed with a few times in life, you would imagine it should, but it didn’t. I’ve cheated on one girl in my life and broke up with her the next day – couldn’t deal with the guilt. More often than not, I’ve got the raw end of the deal; it took me a very long time to get over it. There was a grand break-up, followed by extremely short-term relationships – measurable in hours – and in the aftermath of that, I met Avantika.

I had not the slightest clue when I entered the relationship that it would be for keeps. I was 19. What do you think at the time? ‘Pretty girl, I am interested in her and she in me; let’s just see how it goes.’ It started off without any specific intentions and just coasted along. It speaks for itself that we are still in it.

I think the wisdom is false that in this industry it is an advantage to be thought of as single. If you are in a committed relationship and honest about it, people respect you that much more. Emotionally, they like you more, it makes them think, ‘This is a good guy, an honest guy.’ There are enough people out there who think all Bollywood relationships are a sham. And some of them are. Avantika believes that if she were in this ‘circus’ with anyone else, it wouldn’t have lasted.

Avantika isn’t insecure, but there’s something else…. She doesn’t worry that I might get attracted to an actress or model. What I think bothers her is the fact that people talk to her because she’s my fiancée, and if she were not, they wouldn’t even look at her; or there are others who just look through her. There is a tendency in these circles to talk to people without having things in common, because you are a part of the same fraternity – and anyone not in that immediate circle gets left out.

We’ve been through two major trials recently – the first when we started shooting Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na. It involved people who had nothing to do with her life. Generally, your friends are common, but suddenly I’m spending days and nights with people whom she has never seen. That was a very difficult time – she had to come to terms with the fact that I suddenly had less time to spend with her. And the next was when Jaane Tu…had just released – suddenly I became famous and the whole world wanted a piece of me.

I’ve lived my life believing that you decide who you want to be and you can be that person. You look back, learn and move on. I don’t have any regrets about my current or past relationships. If I had done something differently with Avantika, perhaps we wouldn’t be here today. Things wouldn’t be the same.

If I fall prey to the ugliness that is a part of the underbelly of this industry, it won’t be because I am a part of this industry – it would be for the reason that any man in any job would…which is that he is done with the relationship. It certainly won’t be because I get tempted by some girl who thinks, ‘I want to sleep with an actor.’

The rumours that tabloids pick on for sensationalism can so easily sully a clean relationship. It happened to me once – and because of all the drama, all the sudden awkwardness, it has soured some friendships.

I don’t want to be in a position where I give Avantika any cause for discomfort. If I had to choose to cut a person out of my life to give Avantika that security, I would do it – I did it. The very fact that I have done this, and the fact that I have acknowledged her as my girlfriend from the beginning, gives her that kind of security. I don’t know whether she would expect this of me in the future, or as a result of my having done this, her faith in me would be stronger and I would not need to do something like that again.

I live my life by a very strict code of conduct – I believe that I must behave in a certain way, be a certain way. Everything that I do must be righteous. Commitment means a lot to me. So, hypothetically, if I was to be tired of my relationship, I would not cheat, I would say, ‘End this, and then go find another girl.’

You read about chivalry. Bushido is the samurai code of conduct – the way of the warrior. They have certain principles, where ‘to say is to do’ – your word is your bond. I was probably eight or ten when I read about these things. I loved the King Arthur legends. It was cool – armour, swords, rescuing damsels in distress, leading chaste lives…and I decided I wanted to be like these guys. It always got them into trouble with the girls – and I still get suckered by damsels in distress. It’s an inbuilt thing…every guy falls for it!

I believe if you do the right things, you don’t need grand gestures of romance. Men use these smokescreens to cover up their relationship inadequacies. I can neglect my girlfriend all day and turn up with a bunch of roses – that doesn’t make it okay. Instead, if I call her twice during the day, we stay connected. The candyfloss idea of romance is just that – paint and gloss. Paint is all very well, but it is not going to keep the rain out – it is the unglamorous bricks and mortar that will. The good guys don’t need showbiz.