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My techy friend once wrote to me, 'I hear that one of the best periods in life is between engagement and marriage. So, have fun! Let me know when you are ready for the marriage.' Tomorrow it will be 5 months since my fiancé and I met each other. My friend, or whoever he heard that from, is right. The timeframe between engagement and marriage was indeed a lot of fun. Amidst servlets, struts, tiles and JSPs, we managed to meet each other almost once a month even though we stayed in different cities. We met sometimes at her place and sometimes at mine. We went to serene mathas (a Hindu monastery sort of thing), restaurants, took a long walks, did some shopping together, then got engaged, went out together to many places and thoroughly enjoyed each time we met. Now in another few days we will be married! Is this kind of fun time already over? It does continue to be more fun, right? Am I ready yet? Well, in another 15 days, August 26th will come saying, 'ready or not... here I come!'.
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Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!
- Alice in Wonderland
"Yes I agree it will be double the amount, but after a few years you will be having your own house", my best friend tried to convince me.
At the end of the day, I could pay a 10k rent and have the luxury of moving to a better house whenever I want but not have a house I can call mine; or, I can take loan and start paying 20k every month towards loan repayment and somewhere after 15 - 20 yrs, the house would be mine. It is simple arithmetic. A 4-year old could tell me, living in a rental house is the better option. Not only a 4-year old, but good old people say, 'fools build the house and wise live in it'.
But what is it that still sometimes makes me feel like having a house of my own? Recently I had been to a friend's house for dinner. A typical ex-software engineer, now a senior project manager. A small and adorable family of four. The kids are amazing! Seriously I got to learn a lot of things just by looking at what they were doing. This guy has a beautiful place to live in. Gosh! What a neat little nest they have got! As far as I know, he didn't inherit it from his parents. Not even from his father-in-law! (Yeah, kinda stupid that way, but surprisingly that is how it is in and around my family too.) Nevertheless, by the time he has crossed 35, his life has the clause '...and they lived happily ever after.'
My dad has a lot of experience in building houses. No, he wasn't a civil engineer or an architect, but working in a bank as a manager, he managed to build two houses and sell them and purchase another house and sell that too. Considering this background I approached him to know his thoughts on having ones' own house. With a smile he said, these things will happen whenever the time comes. At one point of time in his life, the employees' society in the bank offered plots starting at Rs.35000 which would come to nearly Rs.290 every month for 10 years. But his take home salary was Rs.270. Nothing much has changed now. Just a few zeros have crept on the right side of these figures. Even in the outer areas of the city, the plots rates now start at 35 lakhs and I would need to pay 20k a month over 15 years.
I felt Alice was so right in her calculations when she said 'I shall never reach 20 at that rate'.
I wish I won a lottery ticket or something and get so much money that every needs and desires could be satisfied. Just after a few minutes of this dream, I was able to see the darker side of it. Even if I had enough money to buy a beautiful house, I would still have to travel early in the morning to reach my workplace. I would still have to take my family out for dinner and shopping in the same traffic. I would still have the responsibility of getting a good education and decent upbringing for the kids. Even with millions of dollars, I may not be able to avoid the day to day minor clashes in the family. A problem in the TV or refrigerator can be fixed in no time with money but can't be avoided. You can fix the problems of no water and power cuts, but cannot stop the heavy rain. Money can only go so far.
Then what way would money and more money help me? It doesn't. It will just change my life style a great deal. Older problems and concerns get solved and newer problems with different flavors will start. The need for money is rather helping me come to office everyday and try impressing my boss! I would give a damn to the project deliverables or appraisals, I know, if I am already fully satiated. Always having something to be done, moving towards an unfulfilled dream, hoping to conquer it, keeps me alive and in good spirit.
I have now settled in a rental house. I can now start at 7:20 in the morning and in the evening I can reach home in an hour.
"Some people think I only have a few dollars... but the fact is I have a few more!"
To health and wealth! Cheers!!
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Alice: Which way I ought to go from here?
Cheshire Puss: That depends a great deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where.
Cheshire Puss: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.
Alice: …So long as I get somewhere.
Cheshire Puss: Oh, you are sure to do that if you only walk long enough.
- Alice in Wonderland
This was about a month ago. Suddenly something occurred to me and I called up home.
"... you mean the girl hasn't even seen my photo!?" I asked mom.
"She will be seeing you on the weekend anyways right?"
"But... well, anyways I don't know what to say"
"Don't you worry at all. They are our distant relatives too. It will be very informal".
I sighed.
But not for very long. When I went home over the weekend, I came to know that a party hall has been booked and arrangements have been made for breakfast and lunch. Everything needed to build up my tension was in place. I could imagine the difference in the faces of both the families during breakfast and after the lunch. Why? The Go - No go meeting was scheduled just after breakfast.
The guests informally arrived and that is when she saw me for the first time. After going through an hour of tension-uncertainty mixed emotions, we decided to go and sit in a temple. Just two of us, to talk about everything that needs to be known before you say 'I do'.
What do people discuss in this talk? Whether or not the girl or the guy is compatible and will adjust for the whole life and potentially for the next seven lives!? Was I even prepared to talk? I didn't have a questionnaire or guidance or tips to assist me.
But after about 30-40 mins, we could not find any contradictions and we said okay. The elders then decided to go live over a weekend in the last week of August.
I thought I ought to come up with a book for what and what not to ask and answer in such meetings.
But then, does it really matter? I remembered one of my friends from client side in US telling me, the usual timeframe a guy and a girl spend together before getting married is about 3 years. Leaving alone the fact that about 37.4% of statistics are made right on the spot, I would say about 30% of them will shred the relationship and try to pursue a newer and potentially better one after the average happiness expectancy of a married couple (5 years). They wonder how on earth we could just go ahead and talk with a girl for about an hour and then commit for the whole life.
Traditionally in India, a girl's opinion has never been asked! It is only in recent few decades that this is happening. It is always decided by the parents. But when the relationship can be so fragile that even after 3 years of going together, it could meltdown, does it really matter?
Changes are inevitable. Everything, everyone in the world keep changing. You may like one thing about a person today and after a few years that very thing would get on your nerves. Relationship is a constant learning process of how to accept changes and flow with the current. Clinging to a root or a rock along the river is the only way of experiencing the turbulence of the river. Let go and flow with it, you will learn to float.
With that thought I dropped the idea of writing that 'one million copies sold' book. The journey doesn't end when the project goes live; it then begins.
