(Background: This letter request came to me from my friend, Divya. “I want you to write me a love letter on marriage. That can be your wedding gift to me.
Oh and these are the dates for my wedding, and sending you the card”.
This was the not so detailed brief I got and a few quick messages on the day of her mehendi on all the reasons she and Gurdit chose each other. So this one’s for you, my lovely, a letter and a case for marriage).
To you
Divya and Gurdit,
I don’t know what makes up a marriage. Perhaps, it is the sum of:
The years, the people occupying it, their secrets: both those they share and those they never do, a thousand irritating habits, nights of soft comfort, the feeling of having made your own family in a hyper-social world that can feel eerily strange each time you pick up or put your phone down. Familiarity, stillness and safe spaces (far sexier than a rush of newness). The plans for vacations, for building empires together, making schedules to meet relatives and friends, never actually being able to meet all the relatives and friends. Somewhere over the weekends of buying groceries and wondering which movie to not eventually watch becoming a team, a tribe, and most importantly loyal friends.
People from different points of views will give you advice on marriage. From all that you should expect and why you shouldn't. Terribly sexist Whatsapp message memes, to whispers of “just compromise and adjust, that’s all”. You’ll be tempted to take their advice since you’ll assume that having lived through it they’d know better or know more. But, smile through it and remember that, like fingerprints, snowflakes and nature of fat cell deposits, there are no two marriages which are completely identical; a strength you should never forget.
To you
Divya and Gurdit,
I don’t know what makes up a marriage. Perhaps, it is the sum of:
The years, the people occupying it, their secrets: both those they share and those they never do, a thousand irritating habits, nights of soft comfort, the feeling of having made your own family in a hyper-social world that can feel eerily strange each time you pick up or put your phone down. Familiarity, stillness and safe spaces (far sexier than a rush of newness). The plans for vacations, for building empires together, making schedules to meet relatives and friends, never actually being able to meet all the relatives and friends. Somewhere over the weekends of buying groceries and wondering which movie to not eventually watch becoming a team, a tribe, and most importantly loyal friends.
People from different points of views will give you advice on marriage. From all that you should expect and why you shouldn't. Terribly sexist Whatsapp message memes, to whispers of “just compromise and adjust, that’s all”. You’ll be tempted to take their advice since you’ll assume that having lived through it they’d know better or know more. But, smile through it and remember that, like fingerprints, snowflakes and nature of fat cell deposits, there are no two marriages which are completely identical; a strength you should never forget.
Your marriage doesn’t have to look, sound or behave like anyone but your own and you get to design it. Paint its walls a different colour every year, put a painting up or not, invite friends over, throw a rug to hide a hole in a couch and like any beautiful home fill it with love and above all laughter.
You told me in breathless texts that sometimes your quiet worry is how different you two are.
How Gurdit would prefer to stay home on a lazy Sunday, plan out his week and share quiet silences and music with you, while like a whirling dervish you’d love to go out into the sun, meet friends and make up new plans every day. How wonderful that Gurdit’s quiet and your ecstasy will get a chance to find places of rest and expression in each other! I’d take that over similarity, any day.
The making of a family seems to me like making art.
You’re not going to start with a finished Monet landscape of water lilies that millions can admire, immediately. You’re going to find frustration and paint all over your hands and clothes, times when the big picture doesn’t seem to come together and days when you’ll wonder looking at a splotchy, purple, unfinished canvas why you took on this project anyway?
Because, maybe all the books, songs and art is right: love really is the best kind of magic there is to living.
I don’t know the insides of a marriage, or the sometimes tough times all of us will inevitably face, but the promise of a partner seeing you through the routine, everyday, non-Instagram worthy moments is what this adventure seems to be all about.
Someone to document, sometimes record and never fail to remind you of the different pitch and bass undertones to your snoring, the person most likely to wake up and pass you a glass of water at 2am, hold your head when you suffer from a street food induced poisoning, whose voice on the days you choose to pay attention will still make you weak in the knees when all he would’ve said is “pass the remote?”. Someone who will bear witness to useless pro-con lists of all the decisions you take, try their best to support what they think (to themselves) are clearly idiotic decisions, most times call you out on them, watch you shed skin off old habits and remake yourself into all the new people you’re going to be.
And somewhere along the way, that Monet landscape will come together and you’d have made art, kid.
Congratulations, Divya and Gurdit, do this your way and do it in style.
All my love,
Kakul
You told me in breathless texts that sometimes your quiet worry is how different you two are.
How Gurdit would prefer to stay home on a lazy Sunday, plan out his week and share quiet silences and music with you, while like a whirling dervish you’d love to go out into the sun, meet friends and make up new plans every day. How wonderful that Gurdit’s quiet and your ecstasy will get a chance to find places of rest and expression in each other! I’d take that over similarity, any day.
The making of a family seems to me like making art.
You’re not going to start with a finished Monet landscape of water lilies that millions can admire, immediately. You’re going to find frustration and paint all over your hands and clothes, times when the big picture doesn’t seem to come together and days when you’ll wonder looking at a splotchy, purple, unfinished canvas why you took on this project anyway?
Because, maybe all the books, songs and art is right: love really is the best kind of magic there is to living.
I don’t know the insides of a marriage, or the sometimes tough times all of us will inevitably face, but the promise of a partner seeing you through the routine, everyday, non-Instagram worthy moments is what this adventure seems to be all about.
Someone to document, sometimes record and never fail to remind you of the different pitch and bass undertones to your snoring, the person most likely to wake up and pass you a glass of water at 2am, hold your head when you suffer from a street food induced poisoning, whose voice on the days you choose to pay attention will still make you weak in the knees when all he would’ve said is “pass the remote?”. Someone who will bear witness to useless pro-con lists of all the decisions you take, try their best to support what they think (to themselves) are clearly idiotic decisions, most times call you out on them, watch you shed skin off old habits and remake yourself into all the new people you’re going to be.
And somewhere along the way, that Monet landscape will come together and you’d have made art, kid.
Congratulations, Divya and Gurdit, do this your way and do it in style.
All my love,
Kakul
(Divya and Gurdit, the first time they met)
(At their engagement)
(To You is a letter writing project I started because there are not enough letters and love going around. If you have something to say with love-- for your ex girlfriend, you current husband, pizza (promise not to make it cheesy), your landlord who let you skip rent or even Ryan Gosling-- I'll write that letter for you. The love letter can go with real names, back stories, as many pictures as you like, aliases and even super powers.
The final letter will be up on my blog and a copy will be handwritten and posted to you or to an intended recipient. Kisses on the envelope only on my discretion. Give me a shout at: kakulgautam@gmail.com or on my Instagram account @hyperbolemuch)
