The apple of my eye

20/07/06

It is a sunny afternoon and from the window upstairs, I look with awe at the man mowing the garden below while happily chatting with his little boy. He wipes off the sweat from his brow and reaches for the trimmer, ready to trim the edges of the otherwise neat lawn. He catches my eye and I smile at him through the panelled window frame, wondering how incredibly lucky I am to be married to this gem of a person.

Funny, rather scary to think of it now, we met literally minutes before we got married six years ago. Our mothers were once childhood friends who lost contact with each other and thanks to the many (senior citizen) aunts and uncles who excel in the art of match making, horoscopes were exchanged and after many long phone calls to Vedhagiri uncle, (one of my mum's close friends, the Anniyan of our block who suffers a MPD :D and hence is both a doctor and an astrologer) the marriage was fixed.

He is there every step of my way, guiding me carefully, warning me of pitfalls, supporting and encouraging me when I fail and cheering and applauding when I succeed. I was this naive 22 year old, just out of college, extremely pampered and unbelievably cocooned lass, whom he readily took under his wings. I have never seen a more honest, sincere and down to earth person. He is extremely patient, so much so that he was my driving guru! When I first began to learn, I couldn't tell the brake from the accelerator. I was not a fast learner and many times wanted to give up. It was his determination that made me go and many months later we got the licence.

He was my birthing partner. I was in labour for a good 23 hours before Kuttan finally decided to show up. He was there with me right from the word go, helping me all the way. He went without food too the whole day along with me and that single toast that we shared in the wee hours of the morning as proud parents is really very special.

We are just poles apart. He loves physics, I like literature. He loves gardening, even dead plants seem to spring back to life under his tending fingers; whereas the humble grass dies, if I try to water them; he is a home bird; I love travelling. He loves thriller movies, I enjoy comedy. I love doing things spontaneously; he plans everything to the last detail, I like my dosais crisp whereas he calls oothappams as dosais.

We used to fight like cats and dogs for anything and everything. When newly married saying "Sorry" was just so easy for us, but then when there are so many things on our plates, we forgot to say "Sorry" for small things. All the displeasures and the disappointments gets bottled up, stashed away somewhere deep down in some corner of your heart and just one small fight is the trigger to bring everything up. We were both in pain and said things just to hurt each other. At those instances, we just stop thinking about the other person and just desperately want to see who gains on whom. Ego is a big thing after all! We blame everything and everybody for our fights but it takes a lot of maturity to accept reality and take responsibility and he certainly has it. He initiated (still does!) truce at the end of each of our war.

We were really never away from each other since marriage and when Kuttan was born, we decided that Kuttan and I spent some time in India. At the airport, there was this really strange knotting feeling in my tummy and my hands were cold. It was strange, I was going back to my home, the place where I spent the first 22 years of my life , to my people, whom I longed to see for the last three years and yet I was feeling home sick already.. It made me realise that the three years of togetherness had made us so dependent on each other. I understood he meant more than anyone/anything else in my life.

Our relationship has matured and we are definitely learning to be more considerate to the other person's needs. Our fights are now few and far between and we are still learning to accept the other person with a whole heart flaws and all. We may not be thinking alike but at least we are teaching ourselves to think together. We are working at what our parents have and grandparents had, the sort where one knows everything about the other's feeling without a word being exchanged. I certainly look forward to spending many more of such happy years together.

Love you Loads, Chells!!!