tomarnidhi
Well-known member
Seven pheras can bind you for eternity; here are as many reasons to protect your singledom
The big fat Indian wedding is a major preoccupation in our culture. Parents save all their lives for it, girls plan for it and movies and TV serials make crores from it. Most weddings are no less than a five-day affair.
However marriages don't last much, these days. Also, there are so many incentives to avoiding the altar. Firstly, the divorce rate in Mumbai alone has gone up by 86 per cent in the last decade. Secondly, Katrina Kaif and Ranbir Kapoor are still single, and they might return your missed calls any day now.
If you want to keep your parents off your back, give them these 'well-researched' reasons to avoid matrimony:
Your expenses will shoot up
Blame inflation. Everything, including the price of alcohol has doubled in less than four years. It's hard enough for you to buy yourself a superbike, or Chanel clutch. How are you supposed to keep your spouse happy? There is the advantage of double income, but it will have its own restraints, such as buying a bigger house, more birthday and anniversary celebrations, planning for pregnancy, etc. Footing the bill for all this means spending your precious youth behind an office desk. Money is the root of all evil; for certain of most divorces. So enjoy your disposable income as long as you can.
You have to compromise
Compromise is an agreement reached by mutual adjustment and its impossible to make a marriage run without it. It starts with small things — which movie to watch, what to cook for dinner or who gets charge of the remote control. Then there are the larger issues — where to go for a holiday, which set of in-laws get to stay for how long, where to live... etc. Most of your energies will be spent on finding a peaceful balance and maintaining it. Enjoy your freedom by watching a movie you want, at home, in your underwear, with messy snacks on your bed.
You can't be adventurous
Today you feel like getting off the treadmill and heading to Chicago to study photography. Or quit your job as a banker and become a sports journalist. You can't do that when you have a family to support and EMIs to pay. But you can do it as a single (wo)man because you are the only one who will have to bear the consequences. In a marriage, everything will have to be a mutual decision as your actions will directly affect your spouse's life, money and future. Marriage might ground you, but it could also hold you back from spontaneous living.
Bye-bye buddy
Weekends will be spent doing long-pending chores, and you'll probably socialise only with other couples. That mean booze parties with friends will be far and few in between. Think of your married friends. When was the last time all of you cut loose? There is nothing more annoying than the friend who spends half the evening on the phone, whispering to his/her "baby" and giving them kosher updates about the evening. That is, if you get let off the leash to go out in the first place.
Twice as much housework
Think cleaning, washing, cooking, shopping, dusting and more. Every weekend will be spent in the supermarket buying groceries and household supplies. And married couples tend to be house-proud, so less clothes and gadgets; more matching curtains and cushion covers.
Celebrate your single-dom by dumping the towel on the bed, socks on the floor and shoes kicked off all over the room.
Good sex will be history
If you think that marriage means sex-on-tap, take a good look around. Is that dazed, bored look in the eyes of couples in the mall a sign of gregarious sex? After you have been married for a while, sex starts to feel like bland curry. You do it in the same place, in the same position and for the same amount of time. It turns mechanical, and experimenting might be too much trouble. The most you can do is start fantasising.
The in-laws are free
Remember how tough it was living with parents who wanted to know about everything you did and wanted to tell you how to do everything? Why would you voluntarily go out and get another set of those? At least with your parents, you can stomp up a tantrum or two and they will forgive you. With your in-laws, this will only lead to prolonged silent treatment and emotional drama on the scale of an Ekta Kapoor production.
Marriage is difficult if you have inlaws who tell you what to do and how to lead your life. They might intrude on your private space, demand attention and homage and pester you about children and your expenses.
