Guest Post - Singled out

C.Suresh

About the Author:

Fiction has been an addiction but the need to make a living took Suresh through Chemical Engineering and a PGDM at IIM-Bangalore and, from thence, to a long 16 year stint in the area of finance with specific expertise in fertilizer subsidies at IFFCO and a further two years as consulting expert in the same area. That, in his words, about sums up the boring part of his life, except for the people he was privileged to meet

Otherwise, he can be described as a mess of contradictions – a bookworm but avid trekker; alone but never lonely; enjoys solitude but loves company; lazy but a perfectionist, the litany is endless.

He has  also written a satire - A dog eat dogfood world - A hilarious pseudo-history of marketing management, which explicitly denies resemblance to any actual history, and which will be horrified if some semblance be found.

Note: Blogger requested him to write his experience on leading a bachelor life. Here his take on the same. 

Singled out

"Marriage – A process of finding out what sort of person your spouse would have preferred to marry”

It is not merely because I disliked learning that I stayed single. True, I am allergic to learning, especially about myself, since most of what I learn about myself is SO uncomplimentary. Still, it was not that at all.

To cut the long story short, it was my aversion to WORK that decided me on remaining single. Narayana Murthy’s son can choose to marry, even if he decided to be idle all his life. Me – I started off with zilch in inheritances and, thus, all that I spend had to be earned myself. Even in these gender-equal days, there is not much welcome for a husband who plans to live off your earnings. THAT part of gender inequality still remains, unfortunately. (Fortunately, actually. In my times, it certainly existed and I’d hardly be happy seeing a young kid of today happily living the life that I would have preferred to live.)

Deciding is all fine but to stick to it in the face of pressure from everyone who feels they have the right (which, effectively, means everyone who can match your face to your name – or, at least, find someone who can do it for them), that’s the difficulty. As I have indicated elsewhere in my personal rants, I had a neat little formula for it – especially since most of them would start with “What sort of a girl would you like to marry? We will find her for you” in a typical display of how optimism can overwhelm common-sense (and even eye-sight? Yeah – that, too). For that query I had a ready-made reply. “I want a beautiful, intelligent, talented, well-educated and rich girl. If she is all this and will marry me then she cannot be intelligent. Then how can I marry her?” With that one neat piece of logic I fended off all attempts to find me a spouse. There is certainly one girl in the world who has reason to be very grateful to me for saving her that fate worse than death – being married to me!

There are a lot of people who claim to envy me. The point, though, is that they never have walked in my shoes. Ever had a foot sprained and hopped all around the house to get a glass of water, make a cup of tea or even visit the loo? Had a right hand broken and find yourself having to do everything with the left hand all day – day after day? No? Well – I have had very helpful cousins, who made things easy for me, but still…they could not exactly stay around me all day, could they? AND I am too shrinking a violet to plonk myself in someone else’s house till they start supplying me with flight schedules and train timetables for reading material.

Forget the big issues. You start off life thinking how you can be single and continue to enjoy life the way you did in your youth. Then, one by one your friends get married. You call on them to go to a movie, they need to attend the PTA at their child’s school. You want to make whoopee one night, they are off to their in-laws’ place for a wedding. You plan a trip to the hill station and they are already there with their family. You, regretfully, decide to find friends among the younger lot and they call you ‘uncle’ and run off with their gang.

The point is that, if you think being single is going to keep you happy in the same way as it has always been, then you are in for a rude awakening. AND, if you are the sort to think in melodramatic terms like ‘always an outsider, shivering in the cold, looking in on warm and happy families without a hope of being a part of one’ and all that, you will start feeling lonely in additional to being alone.

It is not everyone who can be happy being single. Being married has its pros and cons, so does being single. Life is fun in any state as long as you can shrug away the cons and concentrate on the pros. Unfortunately, though, humanity seems geared to concentrate on the cons and disdain the pros. If that is how you are geared, it is best you get married. THERE you shall have company in your misery!

Me – I like being single, even if I have to hop, skip and jump every now and then. Even that adds variety to my life!

PS: The Author also  blogs at www.jambudweepam.blogspot.in which one of the top humour blog in India.

PPS: To know about other side of coin - that is about marriage : Read here