Posted:
"Marriage must be a stronger foundation than mere friendship or sexual attraction. Unconditional love, agape love, that will not be swayed by time or circumstances - Stephen Kendrick"
Well the past few episodes and the introspection on Anandi's part is what that have prompted me to pen down my thoughts on this topic. There have been several posts complaining over why Anandi is not able to move on with Shiv despite of him supporting her on all levels and being a good husband.
And it forces me to think, is marriage all about physical intimacy? People blame Anandi for being unfair to Shiv...and why? Just because they haven't consummated their nuptial? But is that all the institution of marriage means? And if yes, then why people still get divorced even after finding a "physically" fulfilling partner. There are couples who probably "do it" from the very first night of their wedding and still know nothing of each other! And why go somewhere else, even JaAn and JaGa did it, but what fate their relationships hath, we all know.
Anandi's bond with Jagiya was one out of compulsion and gradual attachment - Two people who are bound to stay together out of the rules of social and domestic existence. Just like two siblings, who might be as different as chalk and cheese and yet bond over years because they share life together. All of those who have siblings here must be knowing that when a new member enters in family the kids generally retract. They don't like the attentions diverted and become cranky and repulsive to grab some eyeballs. And that is what happened with JaAn too. When Anandi came to the Singh house hold, Jagiya didn't like his parents showering her with all the love and concern. He felt his love being shared/taken away by a new member. Which he earlier never felt coz he was the youngest child of Bhairon and Sumitra. And to grab the eyeballs, he took the aid of his most reliable source, his ever-loving dadisa who by principles and practices had chauvinist views. And without a doubt his attempts to tease and irritate her led to an equal and opposite reaction from her.
But with the fights grew their friendship and attachment - Just like a brother and a sister. They knew nothing of marriage than fighting and making up, playing around and doing pranks and of course helping the other when in need. No doubt they loved each other. But that love was never the one that exists between a husband and wife. It was the love that exists between two siblings or two friends.
Slowly as they grew up, Anandi learnt to see her best friend as her life-partner. She had never been to a co-ed school or even had a male friend for that matter. She just knew one guy in whole of her teenage and adolescence and that was Jagiya. In all those years of transformation from a girl to a woman, the years she spent without him in her mayeka, she imagined being Jagdeesh singh's wife, because that was what she was accustomed of. For what all she understood of marriage seeing in her parents or her mother and father-in-law, she imagined it with just one man, her Jagiya.Never did she get a chance to even fathom that what a blissful and pure emotion the true love between a man and woman can be.
When she returned to her sasural after stepping into maturity, she had a fair idea about the expectations of her husband. And even she was ready for it, for the samarpan. Because the society told her that her best friend is not just friend but her husband. And the innocent soul had no option but to link the two. She molded her attachment/her friendly love into the love a wife gives to a husband.And she did the samarpan ' to be bruised and butchered for a lifetime!
Now comes the other man of her life - who came and took her by a storm. In a world where no one really understood the depths to which her soul had been scarred, he almost saw through her. Inside out. And to her irony she ended up sharing the same "rishta" with him she once shared with another man who extracted all matter from her existence. She was the wife. Though he was not like the first one but a 360 degree reversal of that. His goodness, his love and his theraav, rather than making her attract to him made her fell all the more insufficient. Reason, the rishta she shares with him. The wife! And all her fears and incapabilities hovered her mind all over again.
If on one side, his friendship, his understanding, his unconditional love and patience attracts her as a woman the fact that the society expects her to do the same with him what she did earlier, makes her backtrack. Something that she had thought would strengthen her bond with her first husband and that ended up making a mess of her life resulting in her obvious oblivious to the real meaning of samarpan - the beauty and magnanimity of it.
And here lies the crux of all her issues. The reason she "can't" do it is probably for her, love and physical intimacy are still two disjoint concepts. If her first attempt to join these two feelings had been successful, she hadn't been like this. She loved Jagiya and went ahead to do it with him which in turn left her relationship in a null and void scenario. And for her "love" being the necessary and sufficient condition for getting involved physically never came to be true.
Now when she sees the same scenario budding up in her second marriage she just regards the intimacy as a mere social expectation or a something that led to her devastation. She has probably never loved a man in a way that she can get intimate with him with "full cognizance and understanding". The first time was just a manifestation of an attachment. Something she thought she ought to do as she is "in love" and "married".
And in all this I can nowhere see that where she was at fault. She never came to know what loving a man, loving someone like an equal can mean. And with that reason I am proud that she rather than going ahead with him opened the reality in front of him. Not all women can do it. And not all men can handle it. By doing it she has set an example in herself. And I really give a damn about when they do it. For now I just want her to explore the intricacies of her man's character and progressively realize that this is the kind of love the woman within her had always wished for.
For me what all matters is that with him, she learns the real meaning of love. She learns that a husband-wife relationship is not just about making love. It's about being equal in all senses. I want her to feel the ecstasy of loving a soulmate. I want her to feel that when the "real" love strikes, intimacy is just a part of it and nothing else. And at the end of it, I have no qualms if it takes her more time to be there with him because I want to see her realize that "Intimacy is not a mere physical concept; deep-down its surreal and soul-stirring"
Cricket
