KEYS TO MY HEART » Marriage

Love conquers (a lot, if not everything)

Archana — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:12:46 +0000

Recently, I read this really amusing, and rather sweet article.The article talked about when the author first met her future husband, she was suffering from a bad bout of the ‘flu. She looked terrible, and yet beautiful to him (or so he said!). Anyway, she goes on to talk about how she kept expecting him to turn off his “Nice Guy” attitude and break her heart, like all the other guys she dated. But that never happened. And they’re still happily married.

Don’t we all expect the worst to happen when we have something too good to be true with us? I feel fortunate, and I’ve written about this a lot, that I have found someone amazing in Jagadish. For the longest time, however, I expected the worst. We met in quite an unorthodox fashion, we barely spent any time being friends, but we somehow knew it was meant to be. I did not know how our future was going to play out. And to some extent, we still don’t.

The author also talks about how they, together, have built a life for themselves. And it’s not perfect, but, as Jagadish might say, who cares? Jagadish and I share a far from perfect relationship ourselves. We are two very different people, and yet very very much the same in so many ways. I think it’s stupid to expect that a relationship–any relationship–is going to be picture perfect, with no fights, and all fun. I think, like the old saying goes, that makes for a very rainy, dull day. It’s not to say that I enjoy our fights, but we do argue. Sometimes, when we think about it, it’s rather funny. We can’t remember why we argued or what started it all. Other times, it’s all too clear, and it ends up badly all over again. But when we do argue, I don’t usually ever feel like he hates me. He is actually incredibly mature (way more than me), calm and puts things in perspective. I expected that mask to drop off one day too, but to this day, he is still like that. He knows how to reveal his point of view, without being mean, and vicious.

Relationships are built with love. They are strong, and they are fragile at times. They don’t come easily, and when they do, they aren’t perfect. But when you can open up your heart and see beyond the fight and arguments that seem so important, and see how much better the world around you is because of that one person, it makes everything shrink in comparison.

Over the weekend, I watched ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’. As many of you who watched might remember, this guy falls in love with a girl whose family is very Greek. The father then forbids her from seeing the guy and tries to get her to meet all these other Greek men that he likes, and wants her to marry. Still, she sneaks out to meet the guy she loves. And this is a 29-30 year old woman! Well, when nothing works, the father breaks down. He is at a loss and talks with her mother–”Why is she doing this to me?” and “Is this what I raised her for?”, and the mother, trying to be gentle, and comforting even though she too is hurting, just says something along the lines of this: “They are in love. It happens sometimes. They did not mean for it to happen that way. What can we do?”And the girl too is torn. Torn between her parents and the one she loves. She tells him, “When I’m with you, I am so so happy. But when I’m with you, my parents are so unhappy.”

Sometimes that is the sort of understanding you want and you seek from parents. You look up to them all your life, wishing you could just be like them, knowing they are right the many times you were stubborn enough not to listen to them. And then there are other times like the ones I described above, when you in the very deepest part of your heart just know how you feel. How can you ever convey that across?

Love and beautiful relationships don’t come easy. Life is complicated enough, without bringing in additional burdens and chasms of religion, caste, creed, color, societal status, financial status, education level… where do these chasms end? This self-imposed divide has to be crossed at some point. Above all, we are all human, we are all creations of God, and we must never forget that.

Changes: Wanting to be married

Jagadish — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:11:49 +0000

I have forever detested the concept of marriage. I never understood why people needed to be married. My parents haven’t done anything to enhance my opinion on marriage either.

I have always been a solitary being. I hated to be with people and any form of company. Its not that I was a shy person or something, I’ve been able to manage myself in a crowd. Its just that I never felt lonely or sought that special someone to be with. I had always been happy with myself and had even vowed to be single forever.

I had this elaborate dream where I would be stinkingly rich, (with my brains, I always thought I would be anything I wanted to be) and that I would own this huge apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper. It would have just one room with a couch, television, balcony and a huge window on one side of the wall. When I draw the blinds open, I would have a view of the endless sky. It seemed like a perfect life to me. A life without anyone to care for and without any accountability. And I thought I would adopt someone when I feel ready for the responsibility. It seemed like a great life until Archana came along and disturbed my apple cart.

It would seem like every girl’s dream but, even as a guy, I always thought I needed someone to sweep me off my feet. Someone who would make me feel that I can’t live without her. Someone who would make me go to the ends of the earth just to touch the tip of her hair. Someone who would make me feel the need for company.

In Archana, I’ve found all this and more. Not only that, she has forever changed my view on marriage and she didn’t even have to argue with me about it. She is someone whom I truly want to be married to for the rest of my life. She is someone I want to grow old with, someone I would be willing to share my space with and give away my precious perfect dream of bachelorhood because there is nothing in this world that I want more than to be with her. And now I know the sanctity of marriage and respect the institution that has been binding people in love together for ages.

(This is part 2 of my ongoing posts on changes I’ve noticed in myself since I met Archana. You can read the Part 1 here.)

Love in India: Salim-Anarkali

Archana — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:56:40 +0000

This is part II of the series I had begun with Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. Another beautiful love story.

I confess I havent seen the movie, Mughal-e-Azam. I don’t quite know what the story of that movie is either, but what I do remember is that famous song, ‘Pyar kiya to darna kya?’ (that translates to ‘When in love, why fear?’). The movie, however, is about the great Mughal empire rule that occurred in India, the emperor Akbar’s son Salim, and his love Anarkali.

There’s several versions of this story, and many even believe this is merely a legend and not factual. However, the fact that it exists and has been passed on and survived many hundreds of years makes it worthwhile to remember. Here is how I’ve heard the story told:

The son of the great Mughal emperor Akbar, Salim, fell in love with an ordinary but beautiful courtesan Anarkali. The name, by the way, was not the one she was born with; she was christened Anarkali later and it literally means ‘pomegranate bud’. Anyway, he was so mesmerized by her beauty and fell in love with her. The emperor, however, could not stand the fact that his own son was in love with an ordinary courtesan. It is said that Akbar tried many different ways to dissuade Anarkali from encouraging Salim. When Salim heard of this, he was so outraged that he declared war against his own father. Akbar’s mighty army was, of course, no match for his and he was sentenced to death.

Heart-broken, Anarkali renounced her love, and Akbar instead had her entombed into a wall, still alive. (How cruel they used to be back then!) Salim was made to watch this happen. Some variations of the story end here. Others insist that Anarkali did not die, and found a secret passageway through which, unknown to Salim, she escaped from the tomb, from the city, never to return.

So much has changed in this world since then. I belive the Mughal Empire existed around the 1600s. It is 2007 now. And love, sadly, still does not have a welcoming place in the society of India.

Love letters: A YouTube videolog

Archana — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 02:32:00 +0000

Alright, Im back to blogging after a teeny break. With classes and lab (and Jagadish), I have found little time to spare. It should be a habit though, should it not? And so one of my New Year’s resolution is to go back to being a regular blogger. There’s always stuff to share!

So let me share with you a video on YouTube that I found completely amusing and awfully, awfully romantic. I call this a videolog, for lack of a better word. What do you call videos incorporated into a blog? Im sure there is a term out there, but I dont know it. I will not spoil the suspense of the video, called Love Letters: An Animated Proposal, but it is definitely a must-watch.

Here’s what the guy who made the video (and proposed) has to say about it:

“I produced this animation as a way of proposing to my girlfriend (now wife) Natasha. I assembled a team of 20 animators to assist me, including co-workers, as well as students from my 3D character animation class at the Art Institute of California-San Francisco. We created more than four minutes of animation in just three months. When it was completed, I surprised Natasha by bringing her to the Parkway Movie Theater in Oakland, where they played the animation on the big screen in front of over 100 of our friends and family. The entire event was filmed for the TLC television show “A Perfect Proposal.”

On another note, I watched a really cute movie called ‘Love Actually’, starring the very lovable Hugh Grant (isnt he just cuuuuute?). The movie was good; not great, but good. Could have done way better if a few unnecessary scenes were removed, but what really struck me was the message of the movie, which is this:

‘Love, actually, is all around.’

All you have to do, it says, is look at Heathrow airport. Or any other airport for that matter; you will find fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends…. and love. That observation in itself warrants a watch of the movie, dont you think?