Meghana Joshi says she has two passions in life- one is for the anonymous art, architecture, which she majored in. The other is writing about things she observes in everyday life. Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright are her role models not just in the field of architecture, but in life too. Meghana lives in Pasadena, CA with her four year old daughter Rea and husband of six years, Rajesh.

Marriage is not kid’s play. But all kids grow up playing the game. Barbie and Ken. Snow White and the Prince. Cinderella and the Prince. Beauty and the Beast. Perfect princess. Charming prince who crosses the seven oceans and several hurdles to unite with his true and eternal love. A romantic dance. Fairy tale marriages and the happily ever after. She grew up with them. 

Pretty princess searched for a perfect prince charming for life long companionship. Her dad gave an ad that read “Tall/ slim / fair intelligent career oriented doctor girl from a rich and respectable family, a blend of modern and traditional values seeking well settled MD doctor/ tall/ well built/ teetotaler/ Hindu boy from a respectable family. Sub caste no bar. Divorcees and widowers need not apply”. Perfect prince’s mom expressed her delight on finding a perfect bride and planned to arrange a marriage for them. How different was it from the dating profiles and ads in the US? Well, parents who gave the ads expect the bride and groom to stay happily ever after. Simple heartbreaks and mismatches are dealt with a few pounds of cheesecake in US. The same break several hearts in the family that lose pounds of respect in the so-called society in India. People dread the failure of arranged marriage. No one cares much when love marriages fail. While the family tries to make the former work, no stone is left unturned to make the latter fail. Perhaps just to reinforce the importance of parental participation in the biggest decision of life. Perhaps they think when perfection meets perfection; there can’t be a failed relation.

Let’s call her Pooja and let’s call him Raj. We are conditioned to call them so, thanks to Bollywood. After the Sangeet-Nritya-Mehendi-Doli-Bidai-Honeymoon-Visa-Tickets phase came the most difficult part in any marriage. “Surviving the first year”. For some it is as easy as a pie. 1-2-and-3. For some it is icing on a crumbling cake. Now most of the times it just happens that a person from category A marries one from category B and they somehow manage their cakes and pies. What happens if A marries A or B marries B? Well, lucky they are! The unlucky Bs... They drag it or drop it.

Our Pooja and Raj came to the US one fine afternoon, tired after the all day shopping workout in Singapore to start their new life in their new house. Dream house. Every girl dreams of it. Kind of everything under their control. Looks nice when you think of buying whatever you want, eat whatever you want to, whenever you want to, watch movies, dress anyhow it pleases you- It is all about you. All that spirit gets outweighed by the clanking dishes and piling laundry. But then, hey, its’ your home... Your very own responsibility. 

Pooja discovered designer clothing and departmental stores and furniture galleries and to keep it simple… Bed Bath and Beyond. Raj made sure he made enough to provide Pooja dear all the luxuries she ever dreamed of, except for the luxury of togetherness. Designer cushions fill in the space on the couch, not the space in the heart. Pooja yearned to be with Raj. Raj longed to be with her. But not enough to crave and carve the space in each other’s hearts.

It was all gelling well or should I say floating well till they met them one day. He was not perfect. She was not perfect. But they seemed so perfect. They were made for each other. They were so much in love. They were compatible. They were all anyone would want to be in a marriage. Pooja and Raj paused. Paused to know what was missing. Paused to learn what was needed. But love is spontaneous. It happens or it doesn’t. It grows with time, but there needs to be some to begin with.

“Happily ever after”. So simple. So sweet. But it isn’t so in reality. Movies that show couples hanging “happily ever after” signs show it break and actually break the couple. Movies that begin with the couples getting married show the couples grow apart. There never has been a fiction, a love story that went on telling the “ever after” saccharine story. Either they end it where the ever after happiness begins, or they shatter the sheer illusion of bliss.

They never fought over the cuisine for the weekend or over the movie for a Saturday night. They never changed their vacation plans the last minute. There were no ego clashes to claim supremacy while the egos grew so much that they maintained supreme distance to avoid clashing. You clash only when you are close. You get hurt only when you love. You try only when you want to make it work. They never fought, while the distances grew. She was drawing in her own shell and he was busy isolating his being in glass doors. No one made any effort to get into each other’s space. We all scream, “I need my space” once in a while, but imagine what a pain life would be without an intrusion, an intruder? A husband-wife relation is not limited to sharing a bed or love seat. It is about sharing love and lust, sorrow and pain and of course the never ending fights of our lives. Of course I am talking about the silly fights that refresh you and rejuvenate your relation a whole new way. Not the “Your parents” “my parents” kind which break hearts and humans.

So there they were. Living together, yet miles away from each other. There are some people who live in each other when they are half a world apart, and there are some who fail to touch the soul of the other person even when they are living together. She called her mom to tell her something was missing, but mom told her how much she was missed. He called to tell his mom that he needed to spice up his bland life, but mom went on and on about the spice-less diet doctor recommended for her ailments. If your husband abuses you, it is so easy. If your wife falters, it is so easy. But dealing with things that you are sure won’t go anywhere is difficult. How do you convince your heart that that perfect person you longed to have in your life, that perfect person whom you thought was sent from the heaven only for you is after all not a perfect match for you? 

Tears of anger, of frustration, of failure… She named them all she can and she could but they were just tears of helplessness. She achieved nothing more than hurt herself. She was too mature to blame it all on arranged marriage. It should have worked. Isn’t it true that so many others who never saw their spouse before marriage are happily married today? Then why her? What exactly went wrong in her judgment? How much easier life would have been if you could shut yourself out of the surroundings any time you wished and never bothered about what was going on in the world on the other side of the door? Imagine, not even a single sound from the other end reached your ears or your heart. Why do ears want to hear those things the heart desires? 
There is a whole world out there. But there is a whole world in here too. Sometimes it is what is inside that holds the outside. The power of you, the power of yourself wouldn’t let you demean or demand in the name of love if the love itself is unlovable. Perfection of a gender can ensure perfect progeny in a marriage but not always a perfect marriage. She listened to the world inside. The world that she has to fight till she exists. The world that controls her being. 

She thought of talking to him, but what would it be to pour your heart out when it is the lack of anything inside that hurts you. Feelings can be expressed, but lack of expressions can only be felt. He wanted to talk. But he thought he was the only one who felt the lack of it…decided to give them more time. Indian marriages don’t break that easy unless someone tries to burn the bride for dowry or the bride runs away with her lover a week after marriage. Breaking a marriage between two ideal people just because they might not love each other the way they should doesn’t make a solid excuse for divorce in the Desi scenario. They will urge you to adjust and tune to each other’ needs.

Faults endure when there is no love to cure. She decided to do it without the talking. One fine day she started giving interviews for her residency and preferred places miles away from him. He decided to work on a postdoctoral research he never dreamed of. So a month after, there they were… She was packing her bags and he didn’t have time to wave her a bye. Things were better that way, she felt. At last something is working out, he thought.

They decided to part ways in their very own way. For good and for bad... Did they believe in the adage, “If it doesn’t come back, it wasn’t yours to begin with”?

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