This has to my nightmare come true, well not just mine but any man who gives fidelity the utmost importance in a relationship. I don’t plan to be an uxorious but who ever she might be, she would be the ONLY girl in my life.

If you find ‘love’ with someone who is not your spouse, would you sacrifice that love for the sake of your family? “I was married to my childhood sweetheart — a wonderful, loving man — for barely a year when I met Mehraj at work,� recounts 53-year-old Garima Mallik. That was 27 years ago, when she worked in a Mumbai bank, where Mehraj was also employed. “Mehraj made me feel so good about myself. He treated me like a cool, intelligent and beautiful person,� she reminisces. Her husband, for all his qualities, she says, had perhaps become too used to having her around after all those years. He was thus unable to give her that extra-special treatment she felt she needed. “And six months down the line, I decided to chuck it all — the life I had known forever — and follow my heart,� she says. It wasn’t that simple though. “Everybody was shocked. My parents, my three sisters and all my friends disowned me. No one was there for my marriage with Mehraj,� she laments.

Her consequent life didn’t prove to be a bed of roses either. “I used to feel terribly guilty being happy with Mehraj. Thoughts of what I had done to that sweet and gentle man I was once married to, kept haunting me. It started affecting my relationship with Mehraj.� It also took a long time for Mehraj’s parents to accept her.

The big question — Why did she break her marriage when there was nothing wrong with it? “The only answer I had to give was—‘For the sake of love’. But that wasn’t enough to convince them,� she sighs. Nearly three decades down the line, Mallik, now settled in Delhi and has a 20something daughter, admits that the guilt pangs still come sometimes. “But I feel I made the right decision,� she says. Is it wrong if I don’t feel guilty about having an affair?

Well the shameless display of promiscuity on the part of Garima eventually caused the marriage to break. Her poor husband whom she calls “I was married to my childhood sweetheart — a wonderful, loving man ” was reduced to the status of a cipher for her! and all that for someone she met at work. All that love and ‘childhood sweetheart’ evaporated in no time. Women are such a fickle. I wonder how her husband would have reacted about the whole issue.

Here is one more but this time the darker sex in involved.

Twenty-five-year old Gaurav K was living his idea of a good life. His job as a call centre trainer paid well. When he met Aalia, (26) through a mutual friend, there was no inclination to rock the boat with a fulltime girlfriend. “She was not looking for a serious relationship either so it was really a relief to get together just for the sex,� Gaurav says. The relationship of convenience lasted nearly 17 months, with neither wanting to meet the other’s friends or go to the movies together. “It was so simple. We’d just booty-call each other when we had the time and energy. And because neither of us was a ‘cheated victim’, we had extra respect for each other,� says Aalia.

India is changing and so are Indians but if this is to become rampant in future then our moral and ethics need a drastic change. ‘Everything appealing and sexy’ is good and ‘anything as a hindrance to progress and openmindedness’ is bad.

That’s the reason I am avoiding a relationship. People often ask me about my girlfriend and are more than surprised to know that I am still a single. I try to convince them by citing reasons that I am still to find my ‘Miss Perfect’ but the truth of matter remains that I am really in no mood for a setback later. FineI get a so called girlfriend. We hang out for sometime and feel like being on the seventh heaven because of the illusion that there is someone in this world who cares for me more that anyone else and that she is going to be my support even if everyone ditches me. You invest everything into the relationship in terms of hope, expectations, love, time, money and above all emotions! And if you are finally ditched by your sweetheart then what? You feel cheated, apoplectic and perplexed about future. You wonder how would someone else replace him/her. You are hurt emotionally and once your sweatheart is now your most hated person. You look for opportunities to take your revenge and pray furtively that he/she has a gloomy future ahead. The ambivalence of emotions between hatred and love leave you languished. You find it hard to concentrate on the job at hand and in the end up ruining your career, if you are not emotionally stable. And in extreme cases even suicide. So I have decided to go with arranged marriage. But still these evils are a possibility but trust me a family girl would think n times before taking the extreme step of falling into an illicit relationship. Because family for her hold importance. She realises the importance of a family. Compare this to girls who want to be independent. For her a family is a liability with her career goal fix on being independent. First her individualistic approach might piss you off and second her non-committance to family could be detrimental. Imagine the fate of this daughter of Garima Mallik (read the story above). What moral values would she have imbibed? Maa aise to beti kaise nikle gi

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