(Suggest a tub of popcorn, some cushioning under the tush and feet resting on a desk.) If Marriages are made in Heaven, where are Divorces made?

Certainly not in hell, I presume. I can think of at least three people I have known at any given point, who have got divorced because of extramarital affairs, domestic violence or just plain ‘we-don’t-have-anything-in-common-anymore’. And take it from me, these people have moved on to much better lifestyles and people. Was marriage made in heaven for them the first time round? Why would the Almighty want to play such a crass joke on any of them?

A guy I was interested in four years ago (or was it more?) was going through his divorce when I met him. After ten years of marriage (it was a funny story…they got married because they got physical), his wife had found someone else – a very close common friend of theirs. A year after the divorce, she married the friend, while he took a tour across India, came back, packed his bags and left for a new life. It was the first time I was ever involved with the man’s side of the story. And surprisingly, it’s not any different from a woman being jilted.

A friend of my mother was married to a man chosen by her parents (another interesting angle to the whole marriage affair – letting your parents choose for you – which I will explore if I have the patience to). All was well the first few months. Then the nightmares began. Violence, drunken abuse, familial insults, being bartered by her husband for money…the accounts are as many as they are horrific. She refused to live with him anymore, and she came back to her parents’ home. I don’t know if the wounds have ever healed, but she sure didn’t let them affect the rest of her life – she went on to do her masters, met her second husband there, took her time and then got married to him. They now have a brat for a son.

On the other extreme of course, you do have marriages that are indeed made in heaven. S and T recently, touch wood, have made it super together. It was a proposal my friend S got when we were in our second year of our bachelor degree days. I remember thinking secretly that she would end up getting married to the guy she said she would “dirty if she touched him, because his skin was so flawlessly fair”. And what do you know; she got married to him on Christmas, 2004. Before their first anniversary, they had the most beautiful baby-girl I have ever had the good fortune to set my eyes on.

Here’s another case study: P and R. From acquaintances introduced through somebody they both knew, to friends, to husband and wife, to soon-to-be mommy and daddy. P is one of those few people I have met who will live her life like she wants to, without offending set social norms. (Only if you try doing it will you know how difficult it is to do so. I keep trying, but my father gets so worried about ‘what people will say’ that after a point, I just give up.) R…well, all I can say about him is that he’s a great guy. On the occasions he’s let down his barricades (no offence Tee) he is awesome fun to be with. And they make the perfect couple – so tuned into each other (not mushy in public, thank God), each knowing what they want, working together towards what they’ve planned their life should be like… in a word, Wow. Someday, I wish to lead a life like that.

Then you have the danglers between these two categories – a majority of the society, if I might add – who are stuck in unsatisfactory marriages and are afraid to do anything about them. Because of society. Because they have children. Or just because they’re so used to taking shit from each other that they’ll feel masochistically bereft of their other halves if they leave.

These cases I can recount to eternity: like R and F. R who, influenced by (I’m assuming) the Mills and Boon Men of her time, insisted on marrying someone who was older and who came from a ‘noble’ profession. F, who was sure older to her – by over 15 years – and was a professor – as noble as one could get in those days. R, who was and will always be, a young woman at heart, full of generosity, warmth and genuine goodness. F who is practical, Id-oriented, loved by his friends and appreciated for his sense of humour. Things that keep them together after nearly 25 years of marriage? Their progeny, and the society. Years of endless abuse followed by a few months of separation, and R came back to live with F only because society was putting pressure on her. What will people say? What if people start bad-mouthing her? How will she get her child married? How long could her fading parents shoulder the burden of her and her child?

I ask myself, what’s the point? None of us is going to take this society to our graves, leave alone the society remembering us after we die – unless we happen to be a Page 3 personality or a highly promiscuous one (both of which more or less go hand-in-hand these days).

After all this thought-provoking soul-searching – some would call it venting – I still haven’t come any closer to figuring out the answer. For some, marriage is a release. For others, a bondage. Likewise for divorce too. As I try to give my meandering, frustrated thoughts a perfect end, I wonder how many couples and divorcees will be able to tell me that if marriages are made in heaven, where divorces are made.