Marriage aj kal

"Above all be no trouble" - these were the parting words of Bachan Singh to his daughter Roop when she was leaving for her husband's home. Sardarji, Roop's husband was almost her father's age and this was his second marriage, after the first one failed to yield an heir. Roop, kept her promise to her father, gave Sardarji two sons and a daughter, lived a life true to her duties and died in contentment.

In the beginning, I was sad for Roop - she was forced to transform herself into submission from the rebel she was before, but as the novel progressed, I saw that Roop was actually happy in playing the role of an obedient wife, giving absolutely no "trouble" to her husband. She had no expectations from her marriage.  For her, duties as a wife and mother were most important - whether she got anything more than provisions in return was immaterial. She was simply living a life that confirmed to the image of an ideal daughter, wife and mother. 

For the Roops of today, marriage means a lot more than just performing wifely duties. Today's Roop needs a man who can love her, respect her, seek her advice, be able to have a conversation with her, make her laugh and the list goes on. We simply refuse to be satisfied and always demand more. So, I ask you - Are we expecting too much? If all we seek is happiness, then weren't Roop's choices right? Are these expectations making us more and more disillusioned?

How is it that Roop found her happiness with so much little in return? Have our needs multiplied? Or have we become too selfish? I don't think any of these questions can be answered in an affirmative. Roop never knew the luxuries we are enslaved to today. She had two older siblings, a widowed aunt, a grandmother and parents staying under a roof. There were always more mouths to feed than there was food on the table. She could never imagine a room to herself. Life taught her to share and adjust the hard way. For all the comforts we take for granted today, there no denying the fact that they have made us thankless and rigid. Any kind of adjustment makes us irritable and disenchanted. 

I think our needs are still the same but we seek to satisfy them through one person. We feel that he should be able to satisfy all our desires. A marriage like Roop's was not merely a union of two individuals, it was an alliance between families; infact the entire village adopted Roop into its fold. Neighbors in those times were an extended family -  there were children who would make her laugh, there were elder sisters for much needed advice, grandmothers who were concerned-to-the-point-of-being-pokey, in-laws who would demand attention. Today we live amidst nameless faceless neighbors, families that are scattered and friends who get distant after marriage. In this world of fake intimacies, we build a shell around ourselves and expect our partner to be a grandmother, an elder sister, a brother, a friend - everyone at the same time, a difficult feat indeed.

Life was not all rosy when Roop lived; the freedom of choices we have today, she could have never even dreamed of. Marriage today is between equals, both of us are expected to bend a little for making it work. We just have to be mindful of each others' limits of elasticity. Family, friends, siblings and cousins are all a part of your existence - don't try to replace them with a spouse. As Kahlil Gibran said "let there be spaces in your togetherness" and our social circles give us the comfort of that space. Times have changed, but there will always be things that we can learn from Roop.