An Ode to love

A week from today, we complete twenty three wonderful years of being in love (twenty two of these are legal). In today’s context I’ll admit it’s rare, unimaginable & usually scoffed at as boring.

Boring –ours - not a chance … it’s as alive and exciting as the first day we met. Perhaps over the years our expression of love has graduated, into being more dignified & less animal like (much for the benefit of our children & to their relief too). Now hopefully with an empty nest we can resume our basic instincts & stay youthful forever.

And if it’s any consolation to the younger couples wanting a lifetime together, my heart still skips a beat when we see each other or when the door opens or when we are to meet on a romantic date.

23 years ago…..we nearly did not meet.

My mother absentmindedly forgot to inform me of my job interview, (also two decades ago jobs were not for us girls, especially those from businessmen Punjabi families. But being a rebel helps and I rejoiced in doing the exact opposite of these expectations. Much to my poor mother’s desperation of how to explain me to her relatives, though the sweetest thing that she is, always secretly supported me) but fate did have a different plan.

The company called to check why I had not made it for the interview & asked if I could make it in the next hour. I was elated that they actually thought this young graduate was important enough to call & I wore my best pair of jeans & sneakers and went for an interview (I would not hire anybody dressed like that today).

I was lucky I got the job.

As I was leaving the interview & got into the elevator, I noticed this north-eastern looking boy who was completely unaware of the attentions of one other female colleague & her hug was met with equal oblivion. I smiled furiously to myself and reluctantly confess I was intrigued by this young boy. I simply had to know who he was.

Don’t get me wrong I was a snob & definitely not interested in this boy (the debate still rages on at home) but did want to befriend him. This was arranged by a bright orange t-shirt I wore (we still amusingly recount this story to our kids who are now tired of hearing it) with a gaping hole in the back showing off my awesome swim tan. One thing led to another & within a month we were an item (sneaking off during lunch breaks for rainy drives in Colaba, coffee every evening at the Oberoi coffee shop, weekend movies, intimate holding of hands…..) It was a whirlwind romance & within six months

I married my best friend.

Our early days together, saw us quite broke, but ever so happy - we had each other & that was all we needed. The kids came within a year & soon we were young parents, evolving gently into this role with joy.

As the kids grew our legendary holidays began. We travelled the length of India with the kids in tow, asleep on the back seat of our car. Our holidays are the most memorable part of this journey together & they were cheap & cheerful. We stopped anywhere & everywhere at India’s midway hotels without reservations and had so much fun indulging in these impromptu itineraries. We have literally driven everywhere from Bombay to Lansdowne to Dehradun, from Delhi to Himachal Pradesh, from Goa to Conoor having the time of our lives.

So what really does make it work?

Truly there’s no formula. No gyaan that I could share.

But can say one thing for sure that in this journey, both need to transit from one phase into another together. The one moving quicker will need to wait for the other to catch up.

And on a more happy note - isn’t that what loved one’s do - wait for each other.

But currently need we wait - not a chance. So let the celebrations begin.........

Empty Nesters

A good first anything is always a difficult act to follow – consistency is the hardest to maintain and like everything else in our lives that’s true of a writing a blog post too.

Recently, I read an article written by one of my favourite authors (Suketu Mehta) on how the world is divided into two sets of folks - those with kids & those without and it got me thinking about our soon to be empty nest.

It also managed to bring back some lovely memories, those two days' when unplanned miracles blessed our lives and put us in the former category, thus changing our lives forever. 

As young parents, we fumbled clumsily to do the right things and failing quite so often. Luckily, our kids have forgiven us, perhaps due to our constant acceptance of our mistakes and candid confessions of loving them despite our imperfections.

In the early days of parenthood, I guiltily admit to envying every single young person, watching them party evening after evening, while I ran home to be with my babies. I envied every career driven young (gender no bias) who raced ahead of me, I admit to feeling low for being denied promotions and for being considered a wild card who (the mother in me) may quit her job any day. I foolishly remember the immature me, trying to keep up with the singles’ at every step yet not managing to succeed ever so often.

If only, there had been a crystal ball to peer into during those years of growing pains, it would have surely saved me the embarrassment, as I look back.

Now as our young 20 year old moves out to pursue her masters in journalism, and travels to foreign lands to live her dream – I (my partner is more discrete) am at the cross roads of mixed emotions feeling the pangs of change tug at me. And this is just the beginning, our nest will truly be empty in another 3 years.

Life without the messiness of these little pups seems unimaginable. The dinner table conversations about F-1, football, politics, live commentaries about our days’ experiences, the healthy sibling rivalries, the friendly debates, favourite television shows, amusing tales of our two canines, animated discussions of where to holiday next- (Sigh) how our lives were enriched and now this buzzing nest life will be different forever.

All of us will move into the next undiscovered phase of our lives.

As we move to our new experiences, my advise to those yet young parents is;

• hug your kids more often than you already do
• tell them you love them as often as you can
• talk to them about their dreams while they want to share these with you
• learn about their friends while you can
• teach them to be ethical in their jobs, while they are willing to listen
• respectful to those less fortunate than yourselves
• teach them to be gracious in defeat and humble in victory
• teach them to be charitable through example
• tell them its okay to make & accept mistakes as long as you learn wisely from them
• teach them the right values on love and forgiveness and most importantly tell them that relationships are more important than any amount of money you can make
• teach them friendships and family are irreplaceable and to share your good fortune with those you love, after all what’s the point of being successful if you don't share it with your loved ones

I do truly have an amazing partner (the spouse does always know best - they live with each other) and we believe together we have managed to imbibe some of these ideals in our baby birds.

And as  they fly away and leave our nest empty, we hope that despite life’s struggling battles these early values will stay alive with them at all times. We wish these two kittens the very best of success, happiness, peace and good fortune, that we have been blessed with.

Perhaps this is also the right time for my partner and me to be 20 again and re-discover each other - restart where we left off….

Holding that thought - till next week.