Nandushan turns eighteen ......

He an Arian, me a scorpion …….Need I say more …..….Linda Goodman has said it all ‘If I had been a weak man, Good Heavens, If I had been a weak man J

Me an avid reader, he - as I have seen struggles to finish a book (though between us we had a good collection of books)

Me slightly devout, he almost an atheist when we married (except for his favourite god Ganesh)            

He a good cook, me still believes cooking is a necessary evil for survival 

He loves gadgets, me still struggling to figure out unused aspects of my ‘smart phone’( in fact smarter the phone, the dumber I get J)

He can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and I toss and turn to find that comfortable position to fall asleep, all the while having great conversations going in my mind replaying situations.

Difficult to wake him up once he is asleep and I am awake at the drop of a hat – we have had these ‘I think I heard something !’ kind of conversation umpteen times at night before he gave me an ultimatum not to wake him unless the house is burning ! Certainly not if a tap is leaking (Tip Tip J), some vehicle stopped in front of our house, or some cat jumped on the balcony or if the neighbor forgot to put off his light !

He loves listening to music at night to fall asleep, me cannot fall asleep with any kind of disturbance around – I go ‘If you are asleep, then maybe you can put off that radio now J’ a couple of times before he puts it off exasperatedly

Me loves shopping and he looks for excuses to avoid it (Ok, that’s a given considering he’s a husband and he is expected to behave that way). About a hundred times it’s so happened that I want to pick up something and he goes ‘ I am sure I can find a better one or a cheaper one or  I will get it later’. The idea is just to stall me and the later of course has never come around till date. His main aim is just to get me off from there and he knows that later on I may not really bother.

Me an organized person, prefers to have things in their places, he can only survive if things are out of place rather specializes in chaos !!!! (Stuff left lying around carelessly become important the day I clean them out !!!!!!!) Even stuff lying right under his nose sometimes goes missing till he rants and raves about how careless wives are and the finds it RIGHT THERE, where it was all the while !

He loves chicken and me a staunch vegetarian

He loves north Indian and me pucca south Indian (Roti Vs Idli/Dosa/Curd Rice J)

He a hands on person, me the opposite ……. The electrician, mechanic (car, washing machine, computer and so on), plumber etc get a chance only once he has had a go at the stuff and is sure that it needs some ‘external’ help

Me loves arts and crafts, but he just cannot make something out of it….….the same way he loves cars and I just cannot figure it out. As far as I am concerned, a car is a car is a car………..All cars have wheels, doors, engine, steering etc Right? So what the heck is the difference anyway , it gets you from one place to another, so why break your head …….

He a morning person ( 5 o’clock on a Sunday for heaven’s sake, Must surely have been a  milkman in his previous janam !!!) and me I treasure my morning sleep……..

He short tempered (this means he loses it every once in a while for short periods) and me long tempered (this means I don’t lose my temper for long periods, months together in fact, but when I do, it takes a while for me to find it again !!!!!)

He firmly believes that the best way for people around to learn things is if you teach (read advice) them how to do it. So most people around (read family, neighbors, friends, kids friends ) get it (advice) free of cost, mostly on life situations and why you should not do this, why you should not buy this etc. It goes on and on and on………I firmly believe that if people need your advice they will ask for it. I also firmly believe in ‘once bitten twice shy’ and learn to keep away.

PR (that is people relations)- Both of us have our own way of looking at it. For him, this means that he goes out of his way to help his family (Even rather extended ones………..), friends, neighbours, tenants, the milk-man, the paper boy, the maid and anyone in general who he feels is in need of help………………he makes friends easily and cannot take a walk down the street without saying ‘Hi’ to people around. Of course sometimes the ‘Hi’ gets extended and he forgets why he went out in the first place……J. I don’t make friends easily, but once I do, they are with me for life………….

He trusts people easily - Not even the once bitten stuff helps him J…….and that happens to me very rarely since it takes time for me to trust people …….It also means that if you have been around me for a long time and if you already aren’t my friend, then in all probability you will not be ever………..

So there ………..obviously ours was an ‘arranged marriage’ J with all of above, Reads like a recipe for a man-made disaster, isn’t it…………………… As Chalk and Cheese as you can get !!!!

A couple of years back my company’s HR head took us through a personality indicator session called Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) so we could understand our personalities and work more efficiently with others by understanding their personalities as well. My type came as ‘ESTJ’ (Extravert, Sensing, Thinking and Judging). Out of curiosity I asked him to take up this test back home, and it came out that his type was almost exactly opposite ‘ENFP’ (Extrovert, Intuition, Feeling, Perception). I went back to my HR head and said ‘It appears my marriage is doomed, how can two people who are so opposite in tastes stick together!!!!!!!!!!’ He just laughed and said ‘You haven’t forgotten Newton, have you….opposites attract…… J so don’t worry, you will get along all right’.

Yeah, considering that we have been together for almost two decades I suppose you could say that we do get along all right or perhaps we have learned to …...……….

Now let’s look at the few things that are common and try to figure out if that’s what’s held us together.

Common Sense  !!!!

Both of us love cricket (I am no longer such a big fan and also I (used to) watch almost all sports except again for F1…….., but he continues to reserve his Diwali crackers for possible Indian cricket victories)

Bond movies ……Hey…now isn’t that a new interpretation ….Bond movies help in bonding J

 AB and Kamal movies as well

Travelling……..

Over the years he has begun to trust my reading of a person/situation since I have rarely gone wrong on this…..In fact there are times when I have said ‘this is what is going to happen next’ about certain situations and it has and he no longer scratches his head and says ‘Damn, how the hell did you figure it out!!!!!!!!’

 Now I am scratching my head, but cannot think of anything else that is common ………………. :)

So then let me try and put down what it is that’s held us together………………..

A honest attempt to cross over…….Now what that means is …………………………………………………………………... I left watching malayalam movies long back…….I bring out my craftsmanship only when the kids need it, I mostly only watch news at home (Serials are a bid No No !!!) , so the fight is mostly between him and kids for the TV,  I have learned the art of making THE perfect ginger tea (that is partly the way to his heart J), I tolerate the sight of chicken in my house as well as the chaos and the stuff strewn around when I am back from office, I have learned to give and take, not necessarily in that order though J, I have also learned to be less possessive overall, I can go on…………In fact I believe that I have well and truly crossed over …………from a Kamath to a Shanbhag J, not an easy task this, believe me !!! …………..In this department he has also done his bit, but then he did not cross over, only adjust a bit here and there and tolerate a bit here and there……..Linda Goodman surely had some good sense after all in getting this right !!!!!

A firm belief in the family bonds and the institution of marriage

Trust

Respect

It always is ‘our house’, ‘our kids’, ‘our money’ except of course when we fight J

The good sense to figure out right or wrong …… (whether my family or his, right is right, wrong is wrong………)

Hey …… did I miss out on love….. J Of course it just happened across the years because of all the other stuff. We have in the past eighteen years, gone through experiences of a life time that have helped us bond and stay together……….

But above all I do firmly believe in the destiny and Newton’s laws………..We seem to have complemented each other …..Each balancing the other and more importantly, we did not give up on each other ……... that I guess could be the mantra to keep us going for another eighteen years……..