The Rut called Marriage

A recent conversation with a friend went something along the lines of her commenting on how strange it was that I haven't fallen into the rut yet. The rut that marriage supposedly is.

How is it a rut? I ask her. And she stops for a moment and asks back, "How is it not? I mean you wake up every morning next to the same person, go to work, come home, wait for him to come home- you have dinner or go out and poof, its night time and the whole cycle starts again in the morning. Isn't that a rut? But funnily enough you seem to be enjoying it..."

You can it a rut, or you can call it security or you can even call it life, but when you strip it down to basic generals of existence, nothing sounds exciting. I paused, thinking of how to answer her. And I thought of my day today. Taking full advantage of the chaotic paralysis that is rain in Karachi, k and I enjoyed a breakfast together before setting out to see a movie at the cineplex. Evening time spent at mom's. Dinner again was just the two of us, getting a chance to catch up on so many things that have been going on. Nothing very different, all kind of...rutty, as she would think.

It's so easy to define something as a rut or a pattern when we are not an active part of changing it. Or redefining it. It's so easy to do the same big things everyday and not notice the many different little things we throw in subconsciously to add the spice. For the actual thrills, you have to take out the magnifying glass and peer into the fabric of dailyness to see the funny little extras- the shared laughter over a cartoon in the paper, the car-boat ride to the cineplex through the street-lakes of Karachi, arguing over the hotness factor of Johnny Depp over Orlando Bloom, watching the wedding videos with my sisters yet again, realizing for the umpteenth time in a conversation with him how lucky you are, playing catch with Bong - the non-ruttiness can be endless. But only if you decide to let it be.

k away

A surprising number of people commented on k being away for the week this time round, even though it was not the first time we have been away from each other. Maybe I looked more tired and drawn this time round- I was battling a bout of exhaustion and flu. Or perhaps after becoming part of a duo- people feel its necessary to cluck sympathetically if your other (better/worse?) half goes away for whatever reason.

Someone I met yesterday asked me how I held up in the week he was away. And I decided to go for the real answer this time round, instead of smiling and nodding understandingly as people tsked tsked about work trips and separation. "It was actually a relief, " I said smiling as her expression froze ever-so-slightly, " I got a lot of pending work out of the way by being able to work later than usual and I wasn't distracted by thinking that I wanted to be with him. So in a way, it worked out rather well- the timing was great!" I finished off, with a laugh.

As a culture, we react best under predictable circumstances. Throw in an unusual situation or two, and we find oursleves stumbling to figure out how an alternative could exist. When your partner goes away, according to the story, you should look incomplete, lost and you should count seconds till he gets back. Funny thing is while k was away this time, I did indeed count seconds till he got back, but all the while thoroughly enjoying the complete rule over the bed and TV, putting in an-amitabh-movie-watching night spent with my sisters and immense relief at having gotten so much time to put pending work out of the way. Welcome back k.

casting of roles

All relationships start out equal and then somewhere, suddenly someone is stronger.

A friend and I found our perspective over broken hearts by laughing over how needy we used to become in our earlier relationships, despite having started out in them as smart, independent, thinking, liberated women. Somehow, towards what we could later tell was the end, we had evolved into the whiny, pathetic clingy, oh-please-talk-to-me-2-more-minutes kind- the kind we (under normal circumstances) want to slap. We amaze ourselves by how much we can want something, even when it's damaging. We astound ourselves by becoming weak when inside we know we are not. And most surprising of it all is the role we cast for our life, conveniently limiting our own abilities forever.

Having survived shaadi season recently, I found myself in observer mode a lot more than usual. Maybe change is more in the air or maybe I am more conscious of who I am in the process of becoming but things seemed heightened, decisions more key. Choices more stark. I could see so many patterns being set at the wedding itself between the man and the woman- things he would do and she would accept; comments she would make and he would ignore. I could see the same followed in dinners afterwards where both would adopt a demeanor. A demeanour which I think becomes the base for practically everything that follows. She would settle into a role- a placid wife, a subservient daughter-in-law, a defiant partner, a cynical acceptor and he would would settle into his- the king of the family, the good son, the aloof son-in-law and accordingly, slowly, life would start setting up house around them, affirming their own beliefs that this is who they choose to be.At the beginning of every relationship, I think there's a moment. Let me call it a defining moment. It's that unseen unheard of unfelt time period when you form the personality of who you will be taken as for the rest of your relationship-life. Of course there are changes, and improvements and then some more changes, but somehow, in some way, we all end up coming back that role, that character, that we cast ourselves in right at the beginning.