Year 2013: Newly married Pooja and Prateek kept finding occasions to touch each other! Prateek could not control himself after seeing Pooja all dressed up and ready! Used to blush and smile thinking of her, alone in his cabin. Before doing/wearing anything would think of Pooja's reactions, her likes, and dislikes.
Year 2015: Pooja and Prateek become a little comfortable with each other. Late-night meetings at both's offices used to turn into movie dates! Weekend getaways at a friend's place ended up in vodka shots. Outstation meetings converted to long drives. All of this and much more to take romance in their life to another level, while keeping it hidden from their families.
Year 2017: Pooja and Prateek decided to plan a baby, explore a new phase of life. Everything happens as per plan, Prateek takes good care of Pooja throughout the pregnancy. Pooja delivers a baby boy, they name him Dhruv.
Year 2021, Today: Dhruv is 4, has gone to school. It's a weekday and Prateek decides to work from home to get some rest from his busy schedule. The moment Pooja learns this, she dresses in a sexy LBD, does smoky eye makeup (apparently Prateek's favorite from 2013!) Walks towards him to hold his hand to have some lovely WE time! In turn, Prateek just picks up the remote with another hand to check the match score!
Pooja is very upset, she says, "There is no romance, no love in our life! You aren't bothered about what I do!"
To which Prateek replies: "Bollywood and TV serials have hopelessly set some unrealistic expectations! "
"What's wrong with that? If it makes us feel good, then why not?" Says Pooja.
And then there comes an awkward silence for the longest period....
Do all marriages go through these phases?
The answer without a doubt is YES!
I am happily agreeing to it, based on what I heard in a South Indian movie's monologue dialogue from Srinivasa Kalyanam! (Srinivasa's Wedding) I will try to put it in my words, and it goes like....
Marriage is a lifelong partnership, an alliance that requires equal efforts to keep going. Consider W to be a graph of married life. Whether love marriage or arranged, the couple starts with high energy, love, romance, and everything rosy and nice. As they spend time with each other, get to know each other well, the love somewhere fades away, but the urge to stay together does not. The basic nature of humans is, we do not easily adapt to changes, similarly, the company of this new human, named spouse, in our lives seems to like a No-No. It can be with both or either of the people involved in the relationship, maybe not at exactly the same time. With busy lives, living one day at a time, taking care of basic necessities in life, they both tend to hit rock bottom.
Considering the current situation, rock bottom is the place where most couples decide to part ways. I am saying this in a very generalised way, nowhere promoting tolerating toxic or abusive relationships. But, ideally, in our toughest times, our rock-bottoms are the times we need our people to be with us, support us and motivate us. Those who manage to sail through these tough times, end up developing a little extra special bond for each other. Then there comes a time when they grow their families. They come close, that's where the sharp cliff of W comes into the picture.
A togetherness for a long time makes us way too comfortable with the other person, we accept them as well as us the way we are! And the couple starts hitting the rock bottom again from the cliff. As time passes, kids grow up, lives are pretty much settled, daily schedules are fixed. Looking around, hearing from other couples, somehow makes us appreciate our own better half a little more. That's when the graph starts rising again. And hence we find old age couples to be living with all the love and in romance again. Reaching this stage is not easy, it requires loads of hardships, understanding, and sacrifices. But if there is love, it's all worth it in the end!
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