Why I don't want to get married

For now.

I was rummaging through some of my old files and stumbled upon a questionnaire a friend had sent to me about marriage and my preferences. The idea of marriage is that when two people get along well/love each other or are deemed to be good matches for each other (by families of said people) and decide to make it public that they intend to live the rest of their lives together. (Of course is it a public notification or approval may lead to another blog sometime in the future.) All this is fine as long as you consider some of the aspects involved in it.

A couple of my friends have gotten married by now, and some people look upon realizing that I am of all 25 years of age (Silver Jubilee for the win) tell me that I should get married as well. The thing about some of these friends is that they had started dating / seeing each other sometime in college. So take 1-4 years of the college time and add four more years since to get about 5-9 years of being in a relationship during or after which they took a joint decision to get married. I can live with marriages that lead from that. I mean you have spent time close to a person to have known that person well enough to make and estimate of how they will turn out to be and take a call on that. When they felt the time was right they decided to marry each other.

When they felt the time was right and not age. Who came up with the idea anyway? You’re of the right age, you should get married now. Seriously, dude? Yes I am at an age where I have a job  and have my wisdom (limited as it may be) can be counted on to make some life decisions, does not mean that I get married now. It is the time that is important and not age (Of course you’re old enough to be an adult that is). It is different time durations for everyone. Some think a few months of being in a relation is fine, while others think years. It’s totally based on the said two people involved.

Doing household chores makes me think about it. A few days ago I had posted this as a status update on facebook: 

Tonight I thought if it would be different to have been married. I came back just before 1(noon shift) and too tired to cook but hungry. It would seem so easy to wake her up and ask her to make something (even if it is instant noodles for me)

Comment by me: Of course like Dumbledore said, we must choose between what is easy and what is right

Now I had come back from a shift work at 1 in the night (or morning) and was hungry. Unfortunately there were no cookies or fruits in the house that day (as I had eaten them all up and not restocked). Since I was tired I wondered if I had been married, wouldn’t it seem easy to wake her up and have her cook something for me. Easy doesn’t always mean right. Imagine being waken up in the middle of a sound sleep to cook something for someone (Of course she could be doing other things as well like a friend pointed out. She could be at a friend’s, or reading, or watching a movie, etc... But let us for now get with the idea of her being asleep when I come home). Imagine being woken up from a sound sleep just to cook something for someone.  Some people would like to tell me that this is not any someone, and since she is my wife she is supposed to do it for me. I don’t want her to do things for me just because she is my wife, I want her to be my wife because of the things she does for me.  Similarly I don’t want to do things for someone just because I am married to her, I want to be married because of the things I do for her or am willing to do for her.

Similarly, this has to do with things like my bed as well. I am in general not much bothered about my bed. I can sleep on beds and floors with equal comfort. As long I change my sheets regularly, I don’t bother much. Which is why before they get ironed, my washed clothes get dumped on my bed along with a book that is half way of being read,  along with what is today an empty bottle of water(I should pick that up once this is posted). The idea is that I don’t want my preferences to add work for her or make her cringe. It would make sense to have such clothes in a neat pile in the bag in the corner of the room or that empty section in the cupboard. Since it doesn’t matter to me that much I dump them on the bed, however it would matter to her (it being her bed as well).

When I think of kids, I end up at times freaking out about whether they will eat non-veg or pray or not. I like to eat, veg and non-veg inclusive. If my wife eats non-veg as well then things are all great. And I have no problem being with someone who is a vegetarian. I mean it’s a matter of not putting non-veg in her plate or gargling real good with mouth wash after dinner or just plain old eating away from her eyes when I do.  Things will be fine based on the understanding me and my wife of not forcing things on each other. Bring kids into the equation and you have an unstable reaction. What if she brings up kids with the idea that eating meat is not good because we are killing innocent animals for it, which is a bad thing to do. And then they see daddy dearest eating a chicken burger and enjoying it closed eyes and lost thoughts. I don’t know how the conversation will go from there.

I am also not a religious person (anymore) and don’t pray or observe fasts or days. The two of these things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. However which religion (and how much of it) you follow can be an important part of your identity. When kids see their mom praying and visiting temples (or any other religious place) and dad not giving a hoot about it and question me why I don’t pray, what do I tell them? That I don’t pray because don’t believe, or bother more about humans than gods. Will they imagine me a ring of fire behind me every time they see me eat meat? Of course none of this may come in to picture, or before it does me and my wife would have some sort of understanding on how to get the kids through this and leave it totally up to their choice. But I tend to freak out about it at times.

That being said, I don’t want to get married for now because I don’t have anyone to whom I can relate enough to get married to. When the time is right and we both think, it will be marriage time.  

Punishment and Justice

Ever since the Delhi gang rape I have been thinking of something. Not because this is the first rape case, or the first gang rape case, but because of the level of depravity the rapists sunk to after raping the girl.

For those of you who are not aware of this case, a girl and her friend took a bus. The driver and his friends beat the girl and her friend with a rod and then went on to rape the girl turn by turn. Then they beat her more and inserted the metal rod in her vagina. They stripped the girl and her friend and tossed them out on the streets. The girl’s injuries were so harsh that her intestines had to be removed. There was hope that she could have a transplant but she died of her injuries.

This case has brought the people of the nation together. People began to voice their concerns loud in forms of protests. Why don’t we have strict anti-rape laws? Why isn’t it safe for women to go out in the open? Why must they be blamed for the rape and not the rapist? What punishment should be given to these men? Some people demanded capital punishment, while some demanded castration. People took to the streets in protests asking for all this. Some people blamed the rapists, the police, the government, there were few who looked inside.

Why look inside do you ask me? I will tell you why. When this barbaric case came to light, many people wept for the all the girl had to face, and cursed the rapists but many also asked “What was the girl doing at that time of the night with a male friend? Why did she take that bus? When we all know that it is an unsafe place for women why did she watch the late show? Did she do something to instigate the rapists in to beating her so badly?” 

I fail to see how it all matters. If she dressed a particular way and the men got so aroused, they should have kept their arousal to themselves. Instead of teaching women how to dress teach the men to control themselves. Women get raped irrespective of the clothes they wear (sari, salwar kameez, jeans, skirts, etc.), of how old or young they are (teens, toddlers, old), or where they are (home, office, public transport, streets). The key aspect here being that there are men who rape, and it is this fact that must be addressed if you wish to get to the root of it all to eradicate.

A fact I believe that contributes to this all is how girls and boys are brought up. Traditionally we are a society which is biased towards the men. This is why we tell girls not to get raped instead of telling the guys not to rape. Idiots. I think it is very easy to blame the victims, and get away with that instead of correcting centuries old incorrect thinkings.  It is easy, but not right. To quote Albus Dumbledore, “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” We need to teach the generations that are to come and that have already come that girls are in no way lower than guys. This means that you cannot just go and have her if you find her attractive; you cannot rape her if she says no. No means No. It’s not just a matter of finding someone physically attractive or pleasing to the eyes. It’s the idea that you want her and you must have her, her consent not being of any matter to him.

 Then you have people who agree that such people are who cannot control themselves, that they are mad dogs or bulls of sort. So they tell me that if one sees a mad dog running or a mad bull you don’t go there and run like mad when it charges towards you. First of all, these are men we are talking of not animals. But I understand where this logic comes from, if we equate them with animals since they can’t control themselves; then they must be treated like animals of such sort. Tie them and lock them up before they bite, put them down.

Now regarding what must be done to these rapists, I was personally of the opinion to not give them capital punishment. Well because if you kill them, it’s the end for them while the girl continues fighting for her life. Instead send them to prison, and make them pay for all her expenses (medical and otherwise till she lives). There is difference between punishment and justice. In discussion with a friend Desi Girl on this that “Justice is the closure for the victim and punishment is about extracting penalty cash or kind from the wrong doer.” However now with the girl being dead I wonder if we should make an example of these rapists. For now it’s a case of not just rape, but torture and murder. So yes, the rapists must be punished, but what about justice? Justice needs to be served to not just her but to all other people who have been raped.

If you want to do your bit about justice and preventing such cases please ‘look inside’ as well.

In one of my google searches in, I found this video.

(Contains violence and dramatized gore)