Love doesn't know its way home

Marriage is a conspiracy to defeat the individual. A human rights violation that creeps up on you. That’s shaadi for you. Total barbaadi.

One evening we lost our two-year-old in the park.

We had just moved into a new home. There were unexpected guests and a pocket of chaos as we cleared away cartons on the floor and put enough chairs for everyone. Cool water and sweets were offered. Pleasantries exchanged.

Our children were playing outside the house. Aliza, our five-year-old, came running in to let us know that she couldn’t find Naseem any more.

My first reaction in an emergency is to stay calm. I ran out with Aliza to the forest park next to our new home. Too many people, gates, trees, bushes, a pond. It was a large space. I was not wearing my spectacles.

How long was it that I was alone in that barrenness? 5, 10, 20 minutes? Some people said they had seen her, some stared at me blankly. Everyone was a stranger. I sent Aliza to call her father.

“Tell him that I cannot find Naseem, run and get Papa,” I said to her.

By now, my world had begun to whirl around me. It was Afzal’s turn to be calm. When he found our child, she was sitting near a faraway gate of the park with a flower in her hand.

“I got this for Mamma,” she said, when Afzal reached her.

This month we complete 10 years of being married to each other. It seems like a good time to revisit the moment when I was ready to run out of our home without looking back.

That time when I had been standing in the park paralysed by fear, unable to find our toddler, the thought in my head had been: If anything happens to Naseem, I will leave Afzal.

Later that evening, after I had finished crying, put Naseem to sleep and worn her flower in my hair, I was left with the residue of my panicked thoughts. I had not known that I was this close to the edge in my head.

“I don’t know who or what this marriage is but it better not come between my wife and me,” a friend had once written to me.

Marriage is an accident-prone adventure. It gets hijacked, kidnapped, derailed, distracted and exhausted. Marriage can become a pile of resentments.

Togetherness is a venue. We seek it for respite. For nurturing and rest. We go there to practise fighting. It’s a boxing ring. Boxing is a sport, remember. We play at boxing to be better prepared for the rest of the world. We analyse our strengths, compensate for weaknesses.

But don’t always stay there. Go away also. Be independent. Don’t expect it to work all the time. It is lazy and busy and easily distracted. Just like the lovers in it.

And then there are children. Children are like a JCB machine. They will wreck your marriage and play with the debris. If they don’t come along and create utter chaos, something else always does. If nothing else shakes us up, it is quite likely that we will start feeling itchy and draw blood ourselves.

Marriage isn’t necessary at all. Don’t do it. It’s a lot of trouble. It’s a racket. A conspiracy to defeat the individual. A human rights violation that creeps up on you.

Marriage can be lonesome. Being together won’t stop you from being alone, lost, tempted, greedy, insecure and sleepless.

Just like a two-year-old playing outside the house, love is vulnerable. It is gentle and happy. It can be wild and tantrum-prone. It doesn’t know its way home.

Love learns to walk. It takes years to grow up. Be gentle with it, holding its hand when the traffic is fast.

Love is looking at him in the evening light and being able to smell the tea that you will have with him. Even on a train. Specially on a train.

Love is made of still images. Clothes hanging together on a clothes peg in the bathroom. Messages saved in an inbox. Earrings next to a black leather wallet. A mole on the back. A shared backpack.

Love sulks for attention. Sometimes you make up because there’s a rat behind the washing machine and you need company to deal with it. Sometimes the rat is just an excuse.

Love gets taken for granted. We forget what it was like in the first place.

“Come and help me choose my shirt,” he says.
“I am working,” I say.
“Please, I have no idea what to wear today.”
“Is that your way of saying you love me?”
“You’re the expert,” he says.

Be creative. Have an affair with the one you love, so what if you are also married to each other. That’s one way to subvert this system.

Falling in love with the same silly smile again and again and again. That’s shaadi for you. Total barbaadi. Don’t do it. Seriously.

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This is an excerpt from Immortal For A Moment - Small Answers To Big Questions About Life, Love And Letting Go by Natasha Badhwar