2 States of Minds - The Conflict goes on

I came out of the multiplex with a very funny and at the same time poignant feeling after watching the movie “2 States” even though I had read Chetan Bhagat’s book on which it is based, as most of his fans have. Funny – if you happen to observe all the main characters in the movie as an outsider.  Why ? Well, they all knew what’s best for them, but were trying too hard to make everyone happy except themselves. Poignant – if you could relate to any of the characters in the movie which I am sure many of us could – whether ours was an arranged or love marriage.

So what’s the whole issue with the great Indian Marriage melodrama? - We are suffocatingly attached to our families.  We don’t realize that even God cut the umbilical cord between the mother and the baby as soon as the baby is out in the open.  It’s a message from God that the baby has a life of its own. It’s no longer a part of your body. Let it live life on its own terms. Let it learn from its mistakes.

I guess Kahlil Gibran had best described a child beautifully in his book “The Prophet”.  He says every child has a soul and life of its own.  We are just a medium through which they enter the world.  We don’t own them nor do they belong to us.  Our purpose is served by bringing them into the world.  At the most, we can guide them in their life.  But the final choice is theirs to make.

But in India, our baby is our baby as long as we live or the baby lives. Children are our only chance to redeem our mistakes of the past.  And when it comes to marriage, it’s easier to get the approval of your life partner.  But a herculean task to get the same from their parents. So, let’s analyze the circus which goes on within all the characters involved in a typical Indian marriage story – arranged or love – the story remains the same.

The Boy – Boys are the most pampered in Indian Community.  So it’s no wonder unlike girls, boys get to see two sides of their parents in their life – one before marriage and one from the moment they decide to marry a girl. The parents who believe their baby is a responsible, well mannered and mature child, suddenly overnight becomes a irresponsible, careless, immature child as soon as they fall in love or insist on marrying a particular girl even in an arranged marriage. For the boys, what matters is they want to spend the rest of their life with the girl of their choice. Ideally, this should be enough.  But our upbringing is manipulated in such a way that we carry a burden of all the sacrifices during the 25-30 odd years spent on us by our parents which makes it obliging on our behalf to ensure that we keep them happy for the rest of their life.  No insurance company can beat this.  So here, the boy has to ensure that he makes his parents approve of his choice (that too happily).  And even after marriage, the boy has to balance the scales of his life with the eternal question which not a single God has been able to answer : who is right in a domestic conflict ? – the woman who dominated the first half of his lifetime or the woman who might dominate the second half. Smarter boys escape answering this million dollar question most of the times and other times, go with the answer which will bring relatively less mental assault.

The Girl  -  Most girls grow up accepting and sometimes manipulating the restricted lifestyles written for them by their mothers.  Fathers are their hero and they live in the illusion that he will agree to any thing they ask for or demand.  The bubble goes bust when it comes to making a decision for their choice of life partner. This is one decision no father is ready to accept. So  when a girl falls in love, she has to not only get her parents approvals to avoid the humiliation her parents might face at her rebellion but also to get her in laws approvals to enter their world.  And I agree unlike the boys, girls have a tough time doing this as they have to spend rest of their life in their world. So they need to ensure the relationships are built strongly rather than just created. After all, she can’t stay with strangers all her life.  Also, she already has the pain of leaving her parents after marriage. She doesn’t want to add to it by leaving them unhappily.  If you have seen the swing act in a circus, you could relate to a girl’s dilemma – the act involves the girl to let go of the swing she is holding on to and catching the swing which is offered to her. She has to do this with precision and accuracy and most importantly with the strong belief that the guy who is offering his hand to hold her is going to hold her firmly and safely land her to the other side.

The Parents – In India, the children are not children, they are possessions of the parents.  Their biggest obsession in life is to have the right to decide the life partner for their children. I mean, no parent has been able to give a justifiable reason for this obsession.  They say, they know what is right for their children.  The generation gap between parents and children are around 25 years to the least.  How can the parents decide for their children when they don’t even understand their children’s music, fashion, ambitions and lifestyles.  The law gives a 21 year old the right to marry which means he has the ability to decide his life partner.  Isn’t it demeaning to belittle children’s intelligence when you rubbish the law.  In fact, parents never decide on their own what’s best for their children.  They always do the society test to decide – what will the society / relatives say, whether this will go down well with the society.  They fail to realize that at the end of the day what will matter is the happiness of their children. They bring the undeniable and unchallengeable justification – they sacrificed their life for their children.  Agreed, but do they really want to sacrifice their children’s life for compensating their sacrifices ?

I guess we all would agree here that no matter who decides the choice of life partner, the success of the marriage is going to be depended on the two parties to the institution – the boy and the girl.  We all have seen that arranged marriages do not guarantee a success.  For that matter, neither does love marriage.  Actually, it doesn’t depend on how you married or who you are married to.  It all depends upon how far you are ready to go to make it work. It’s the biggest gamble of life.   Take it or leave it.