Being a single person I may not qualify to write about the subject, but then I believe that you don’t have to take poison to know if it’s deadly or not or I don’t have to jump into the fire to know it burns. Point is, do I really have to get married to understand the complications of marriages or do I have to fall in or fall out of love to understand the mechanics?

Marriages for me are the strangest thing that happened to human kind. Two strangers get married for more strange reasons sometimes for the looks, sometimes for the color of skin, sometimes to make ‘Others’ happy as the boy and the girl wants to go with the will of the parents rather with the heart of their own, sometimes in the process of proving love to each other and sometimes for the companionship they never cherish. What so ever the reason, two strangers pronounced husband and wife to start a strange life one can ever imagine.

Among many the strangest is that how married people sometimes man and most of the time woman try to “force” a person to ‘love’ her or him just because they are married to each other. The “force” they apply is usually in line with light of the idea which is supported by many and that is ‘marry a person first and you will fall for him or her automatically’. Arranged marriages come under this science. There is another brighter idea that says ‘marry a person you fall for’. Love marriages support this idea. The outcome after marriage in both the cases is same. FALLING not for but apart from each other.

I still remember the day when my brother in law called and asked me to meet at a jewelers shop at Tariq road as he needed my help for selecting gold “chain” for his wife as the token of his sincere love to her. As you all know flowers, hugs, dinner of two or even life time of togetherness won’t do what a gold chain or pendent can on special occasions. It was his 3rd anniversary, confused and anxious, I understood what he didn’t say as I recalled the incidents major and minor that had happened since then. My brother in law in the past like any normal man forgot the date of anniversary and my sis a typical wife stayed quiet, tested his memory and when he failed didn’t talk to him for few days. The drill of testing and forgetting is on for past 3 years.

On the basis of his past experience, this year somehow he managed to remember the date and wanted to be home with flowers, a gold gift and himself to present to his wife.

A friend of mine chases her hubby everywhere as she advices every woman around to keep an eye on their husbands. Her sudden and surprise checks start from his pockets to the cell phone, contents of sms. Needless to say that wives have their own certified dictionary and they translate words from that dictionary and even rephrase the sms and even emails as per their own mindset (read upset) and the oxford graduate hubby can’t even challenge or change that.

Women are so incredibly and naturally equipped to be agent 007. Not bad intentions as many   a women claim, ‘just a way of showing love and care’. Poor shohar-e-namdaar (hubby), all he can say is, ‘ab is qadar bhi na chaho kai dam nikal jai’. For wives, every woman eyes around her husband from his PA to an old friend, to cousin or neighbour from jharoo wali to the passerby. Everyone is under investigations for unknown reasons most of the time and a few times when their MEN are trying to be nice to these women. Guilty or not the husband is due for punishment regardless and the punishment varies from taking away his privileges like meals on time, reading newspapers to watching sports on TV. So his desires can be  hanged till ‘death’, or he remains confined under close observation, from his body language to his facial expressions he needs to keep them blank as they can be used against him for a crime he may be ‘thinking of’ committing… but hasn’t committed yet.

The talent of smelling ‘unknown’ in their husbands, to their 6th senses, to the gut feeling, nothing can compete. No logic, evidences, qasmay waaday, signed bond between two (i.e nikah nama), number of kids, number of years they spent can help when a woman’s’ heart is in doubt.

To men, I say if you are in trouble I mean if found guilty (on the basis of doubts or in the course of regular checkups), you are toast, naaah no way out for you. So stay right where you are, it will pass, try to be vocal not to clarify your self but to hammer the famous 3 words “I LOVE YOU” … they would likely work. And in case you are cheating on her…. than you can be excused! Go have FUN!

To the ladies out there, I am not here to justify men, I am just trying to tell you that it is the way MEN are, God made them like that, no use chasing them, the more you chase the more you can’t get to them. In some cases the more you chase the more they run, not around but away.

My Guru, my dear friend said once… “Destinies are not written to the end they are written for only till turning points.. After that we write them… they are written for opportunities and disasters… after that they take direction from how we respond to them.. This is not philosophy … but it is indeed reality… in line with what our religion also teaches us .. I believe this… this is the faith I carry…”

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