Wednesday, March 07, 2012

The perfect insurance against divorce

It took 42 signatures, 6 photographs, 2.5 hrs, 3 witnesses, 14 sheets of paper and lots of overall bureaucratic ill will to get our marriage registered. I didn't think I would say this, but even the cameraman-choreographed reception ceremony at a hindu wedding, where you have to stand on a stage, face harsh flashlights, and farcically smile through an evening, pales in comparison with the pointlessness of all the hoops that you have to jump through at the registrar office. The experience was as nerve-wracking as walking around the fire seven times while my dhoti was slipping away bit by bit. And what's with the denial of courtesy? The officers either had neem leaves for breakfast or they were spiritually offended by the idea of marriage itself because they frowned through the whole rigmarole and refused to even make eye contact. In the end we did celebrate the legal sanction, but on a day like this it's hard not to be libertarian.

3 comments:

Shekhar said...

and you are not a libertarian?

Deepak said...

Depends on the issue and context. Even here I believe government should step out of regulating marriages. However, I believe we ought to step in when 4 yr olds are being married off in Rajasthan.

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

that is why I never registered my marriage in India and then got divorced in United States!