Marriage
When I see my friends tying the most important knot of their life with their sweet hearts, I thought of articulating my thoughts about this “interesting relationship”.
I would like to start with a small story. It was at Marine Drive in Mumbai where I met my childhood friends Niru and Nobo who have had a love marriage, arranged last year. Since we met just after Niru’s birthday I asked “Nobo who gave the treat on Niru’s birthday you or him”. She replied spontaneously, “there is nothing like you and me in marriage it is always US”. The reply left me spell bound and taught me a great lesson in life, which I shall take forward in life.
I would like to share with you all, what my father had to say about marriage. He advised me, saying “marry somebody from a different profession”. It did not take me long to realize the merit in his statement. Sharing a profession can be healthy for a relationship, like couples have similar educational background, which helps them to understand each other, relate to each other and share similar values, but it can also lead to competitive impulses, leading to unrest in the relationship. From a financial point of view, being from unrelated profession is a hedge against industry downturn like the one in the financial or realty sector today. But ultimately its all about recognizing each others requirements, needs and unique individual talents and complementing each other than competing, which makes a relationship work smoothly.
I cannot but resist myself to get into the debate of love or arranged marriages. It is a common perception that you are at a disadvantage in arranged marriage since you haven’t spent enough time together in-order to know each other better, but it gives one a chance to choose the right person and parents the opportunity to check the background and financial stability which is extremely important. Couples in love, spend lots of time together before marriage, which creates an ideal platform for couples to know each other, develop a compatibility and understanding among themselves. But the real fact is that, the time is best used to impress each other, behave, talk and wear according to what the other person likes. The real colour comes out after marriage. Further, expectation levels still remain the same after marriage yet the energy and willingness to meet the expectations disappear.
I consider ‘getting married’ equivalent to Entrepreneurship. Let me try and explain why I feel so. Research has shown that around the world the success rate for entrepreneurs is as low as 18%, which marginally increases to 20% incase you have failed once before. If we look at marriage I find it no different. Though the divorce rates in India are pretty low (less than 10% in Urban and less than 1% in Rural India) as compared to the western world, yet researcher claim that only about 30% of the marriages are successful while the rest have left couples unhappy, many of whom who stay separate or divorced. Yet we find so many people trying their luck out, in entrepreneurship and marriage, all of whom wanting to be a part of that elite group who fall in to the category of being successful but end up getting disappointed and frustrated with the outcome. The only difference between the two endeavors is the social stigma attached to separation; low in the case of an entrepreneur while extremely high for a married couple in present day Indian society.
Thus we can conclude “Great Achievement and Successful marriage involve great risk”.
To summarize:
It is not about spending time together that makes a marriage successful but it’s about taking an informed decision, understanding and respecting each other's feelings and showing empathy, responsibility, commitment, love and concern.
Before moving on to write my next blog, I would conclude quoting an old saying, “dilli ka laddu jo khaya wo pachtaya, jo nehi khaya wo bhi pach ta ya”……. to ‘is se achcha khake hi pach tao’.
When I see my friends tying the most important knot of their life with their sweet hearts, I thought of articulating my thoughts about this “interesting relationship”.
I would like to start with a small story. It was at Marine Drive in Mumbai where I met my childhood friends Niru and Nobo who have had a love marriage, arranged last year. Since we met just after Niru’s birthday I asked “Nobo who gave the treat on Niru’s birthday you or him”. She replied spontaneously, “there is nothing like you and me in marriage it is always US”. The reply left me spell bound and taught me a great lesson in life, which I shall take forward in life.
I would like to share with you all, what my father had to say about marriage. He advised me, saying “marry somebody from a different profession”. It did not take me long to realize the merit in his statement. Sharing a profession can be healthy for a relationship, like couples have similar educational background, which helps them to understand each other, relate to each other and share similar values, but it can also lead to competitive impulses, leading to unrest in the relationship. From a financial point of view, being from unrelated profession is a hedge against industry downturn like the one in the financial or realty sector today. But ultimately its all about recognizing each others requirements, needs and unique individual talents and complementing each other than competing, which makes a relationship work smoothly.
I cannot but resist myself to get into the debate of love or arranged marriages. It is a common perception that you are at a disadvantage in arranged marriage since you haven’t spent enough time together in-order to know each other better, but it gives one a chance to choose the right person and parents the opportunity to check the background and financial stability which is extremely important. Couples in love, spend lots of time together before marriage, which creates an ideal platform for couples to know each other, develop a compatibility and understanding among themselves. But the real fact is that, the time is best used to impress each other, behave, talk and wear according to what the other person likes. The real colour comes out after marriage. Further, expectation levels still remain the same after marriage yet the energy and willingness to meet the expectations disappear.
I consider ‘getting married’ equivalent to Entrepreneurship. Let me try and explain why I feel so. Research has shown that around the world the success rate for entrepreneurs is as low as 18%, which marginally increases to 20% incase you have failed once before. If we look at marriage I find it no different. Though the divorce rates in India are pretty low (less than 10% in Urban and less than 1% in Rural India) as compared to the western world, yet researcher claim that only about 30% of the marriages are successful while the rest have left couples unhappy, many of whom who stay separate or divorced. Yet we find so many people trying their luck out, in entrepreneurship and marriage, all of whom wanting to be a part of that elite group who fall in to the category of being successful but end up getting disappointed and frustrated with the outcome. The only difference between the two endeavors is the social stigma attached to separation; low in the case of an entrepreneur while extremely high for a married couple in present day Indian society.
Thus we can conclude “Great Achievement and Successful marriage involve great risk”.
To summarize:
It is not about spending time together that makes a marriage successful but it’s about taking an informed decision, understanding and respecting each other's feelings and showing empathy, responsibility, commitment, love and concern.
Before moving on to write my next blog, I would conclude quoting an old saying, “dilli ka laddu jo khaya wo pachtaya, jo nehi khaya wo bhi pach ta ya”……. to ‘is se achcha khake hi pach tao’.
3 comments:
Kya probal bhai ... getting nervous abt shaadi eh :)
but point about different careers is valid so tat things do not get monotonous and u keep talking the same stuff at work n home...
secondly when it comes to making sacrifices it becomes an ego issue too,
Over the years i have been debating too on love versus arranged marriages and finally concluded its a lottery ticket in love u buy the ticket and in arranged parents analyse and buy a ticket .... anyways outcome is still a mystery :P
The only way a relationship will succeed is having faith, relationship being feasible and a bit of chemistry ... never mind the beginning
btw nice debut sir ... keep it up
dada...it seems u r planin to eat the laddu soon :). I agree with your father, he has a point, but that also is not always true, that is why we see most doctors marrying each other.
Nice start, waiting for your next one.
hey there
nice article. i liked it.
arranged marriage is like a lottery i wud say whose outcome is always a suspense. one can only wish for the best.
well i feel that when couples are from the same work background they understand each other's problems better. thats a definite plus point. take the example of people in the film industry. their profession is so weird that a common man can never understand their timings, work schedule, etc. same with doctors.
to end it i wud say..good article.keep it up
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