Dusk

I am so blogcked right now, its almost pitiful. Cant seem to write anything, or read anything whether its blog or comments ( mine or others). Some strange state of suspended animation. So am recycling something from June 2007 from blog no.1. Please, please don't stop reading me!!!!I shall be back. To write AND to read

The other day I saw this Marathi movie – Uttarayan. A sensitively depicted film about love in the twilight years- between a widower with a grown up son (engaged to be married and subsequently married during the course of the movie) and his first love (the victim of a destructive, broken marriage). Been done quite a lot in Hindi movies (whether it’s ‘Pyaar mein twist’ or ‘Baghban’ I know, but this, thank heavens was without the hindi film histrionics).

It was thought provoking, especially since, one of my friend’s fathers DID actually do that. Well, not fall in love – but he got married for the second time in his sixties (albeit an arranged marriage) very recently. My friend has been married for five years, his elder sister for more than that. His mother passed away very suddenly about a year and a half ago. And Uncle used to shuttle between the two kids and his home – and was extremely lost and adrift without his wife. Few months ago, the daughter’s in-laws suggested that he marry again in order to gain a semblance of stability and he did so.

At one level one feels that it is probably a good thing to do – the movie as well as the real life. Rationally, any sensitive, thinking individual will feel that people at any age deserve to have companionship and love – and who deserves this happiness more than ones’ parent?

But I think there is always this illogical, emotional, straight-from-the-gut reaction – where the remarriage is the ultimate act of betrayal by one parent to the other. No matter how good or bad the marriage was, no matter how purposeless and lonely the surviving parent is. The very fact that a parent, after thirty or forty years of sharing a life with someone CAN proceed to create a new home with someone else WILL hurt like hell.

I suppose children, however old they are never view their parents as individuals. It is always consciously or unconsciously in relation to oneself. An extremely egoistic worldview, which one is born to and never quite shakes off. One would like to think that one ceases to have expectations from ones’ parent as one grows up. Material expectations perhaps one does – but to shake off the expectation of unvarying loyalty – that doesn’t happen. And a remarriage shakes the very foundation of that loyalty.

Also the fact remains that, almost ALL other relationships the parent has, the child inherits them (the parents sister is linked by ties of blood to the child and so on). A new marriage on the other hand, the parent is forging a relationship, which is unique to the parent alone. So while it easier to share the parent with someone you are tied to, to do so to a person outside that circle becomes difficult.

I honestly don’t know what my friend thought or felt about his father’s second marriage. There are some topics that are completely off limits and this is one of them. I know that he was devastated by his mother’s death. I can guess that it CANNOT be easy to see your father with another woman. But I also know that he and his wife have acted very gracefully about it – welcoming the new wife into their lives. And I really admire him for that.