“Love me for a reason and let the reason be love” went the famous Boyzone song and left a deep impression on the starry-eyed, romantic teenager in me. How could it not? Gorgeous British boys with their spotless skin and sexy accent could never be wrong about love, after all. Like many girls of my time, I harboured the secret wish to find and marry such a delightfully cute Prince Charming and make a song of our own. But happily ever afters symbolise a happy marriage, right? How many of us are up for the roller coaster ride this much-hyped institution offers? Is there a foolproof way of acing it?

Marriage is one of the best reality checks in the world. We might be convinced of our sincere maturity, top-notch cooking, good housekeeping, or well-researched parenting skills but it manages to shake us off our pedestal and tosses us on the ground, head-on. Trust me, as an almost 16-year-old wife I’ve seen, done, and experienced more for my husband than I ever thought I would, for anyone. That’s what marriage does to you. It creates a new you while giving you a reason to love and be loved, often more than one.

Our marriage turns the sweet sixteen next week which keeps us in serious reminiscing mode nowadays. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been this long!”, “Remember how we were before?”, “Our kids are God’s blessings.” and similar thoughts fill up our bedtime conversations. Our lives have transformed beautifully in each other’s company. However, feelings about how much we’ve influenced and changed each other never seem to spill out openly. What better place than my blog to confess a few such adorable things, right?

A’s presence in my life is like a drop of water in a parched desert. He’s the water to my fire, Yin to my Yang, and well, sanity to my impulsiveness. I’ve often witnessed in awe the calmness with which he handles extremely dicey situations. Where I will scream incoherently or nervously hop around like a rabbit high on Red Bull, he’ll shrug and not react at all. He has a clear demarcation for who stands where in his life and seldom confuses personal relations with professional ones. Honestly and thankfully, over time I believe I’ve absorbed some of these qualities. Is tricking a tomboy into wilful submission a superpower he possesses? I wonder.

Our marriage has survived the common teething problems that every other one goes through. Taming a reckless lifestyle, compromising on carefree freedom and general domesticating issues earlier seemed like a huge mountain to scale. However, A’s disarmingly adjusting demeanour inspired me to genuinely try for it. There hasn’t been a complete turnaround in my personality, I agree. The poking edges have been smoothened out though. Once a spoilt brat even for my closest friends, I’m now a responsible mother and daughter-in-law for everyone (or so they say). It would be rather unfair to not share this credit with him.

He’s emotional but not an emotional fool like me. Where I see, he observes. While I’m oblivious to prying eyes he quietly enjoys the attention. He understands my mood swings and knows when to hold back his Smart Alec comments. He respects my family and friends and happily chills out with them. He’s also the most doting father. Sometimes his objectivity takes away from the sensitive side of things but one of us needs to have a clear head, right? It is said that opposites attract and can make a marriage work. It applies perfectly in our case.

While I’m singing eons of his virtues let me highlight his punishing habits too. He takes procrastination and laziness for a ride and manages to drag their entire sloth family home with him. His taste in music is eclipsed by his insistence to annoyingly croak my favourite songs, and God knows he has one for every occasion. His motto, “Bad movies must be watched to know what went wrong” has made me suffer through Saawariya, Radhe, Satyamev Jayate 2, etc while he secretly napped out of boredom. His obsession with web series keeps him up till 2-3 am at times leaving me no choice but to deal with a cranky humanoid the next day. He says I’m a boring nut to go running early in the morning when I can cuddle instead. On such days I’m inclined to question my marriage, life choices, and basic existence. Sigh! 🙁

All said and done, we’ve invested so much effort in each other that we wouldn’t trade this for anything else. Not in saat janams, not ever. Our eccentricities aside, alone we are alright but together we’re great! Sounds like a marriage, yes? Dedicating the line “Mere jaise laakhon mile honge tujhko piya, mujhe to mila tu hi” to him and myself. (No one else would take us anyway! 😀 )

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