Back To Bliss: A Journey To Zero by Santosh Jha (ebook offline .TXT) 📖

the mail, went to the kitchen showing it to his wife. He told her that he would call Ashish and then only he would read the mail. Guddi was impatient to read the mail but agreed to her husband’s idea that he would read it out for all three when Ashish came. Ashish told him that he would be there in fifteen minutes but barged in just in ten minutes. Before Utkarsh started to read the mail, Ashish proposed that irrespective of whatever excuse Mayank offered in his mail, the three would not forgive him for what he had done to them. All three pained hearts agreed in silence. The joy of finally having Mayank however took over the resolve as Utkarsh read.

Dear Guddi, Uttu and Ashu,

No thanks and no sorry between friends. They say it but I never believe in that. I understand; the stupid words are so insufficient that people believe they should not be told. But Uttu, Ashu, Guddi…you know it that I owe you sorry not only for these three months but for millions of moments where I have failed to be up to the mark of your love towards me. My entire being is so insufficient in front of your affection for me that I am always guilty and I treasure this guilt.

Between us, a sorry is not an issue. The core issue has always been honesty and transparency. We all are one heart and will always remain so. At times, an action from me or anyone of you may look like in incongruity with rest of us. It may feel to us that the erring activist owes a sorry to the rest. But, we all know it very well that the guilt with the errant is not for doing something which rest of us disapproved, but it is in that he or she should have shared it before doing it. The transparency and honesty discounts a sorry. That’s why, between our hearts, there has been little space for a sorry.

I am guilty of not being transparent and honest but I wish you all to believe that I have been transparent. I myself was not sure of what action I would take in the three months that I have been away. Remember Uttu, Ashu; I had told you the last time we were together that I was not sure. Now, I have made decisions and now I know what I am doing and will do ahead, I am back and telling you everything. Very soon, we all meet and everything will be as transparent as it has always been between us. This however does not anyway mean that I am not saying sorry. But right now, my joy of connecting to you all is so colossal that saying sorry and guilt is not coming naturally to me. Saying it here will make it just greetings card sentimentality.

I have decided to say sorry when we all meet and Ashu will thrash me black and blue. I will say it when Uttu will try to suffocate me in his angry hug. I will try to say it to Guddi but she will force her hand on my lips and will forgive me. A woman always accepts love, never a sorry.

I have a lot to tell you. I also know that despite your anger against me, you all too want to know every detail. But I am not telling you all. I will tell you part of it and rest you all will see when we meet. I will share something which I said I was not sure of earlier and now I am. But first, I have to say is that I am married and living with my wife in a village we mutually chose.

I have quit my career as a media man and I must say I am a full-fledged farmer now. My wife has also quit her job as a banker and she is into lots of activities. So, I cannot truly describe her. Women adapt faster to a new environment than men and she looks more in place than me. You all will see it yourselves. I must say, women are the architect of life, good or bad. We men basically build structures over their design, good or bad. I had heard from people that idiots usually get good wives. It is considered God’s sense of justice. I endorse this as hundred percent true. This kindles hope for Ashu too!

We married in a temple at Manali. It was not planned. I had never ever thought that I would marry like this. The day we arrived here, we both decided this was the place where it should happen. Utta knows it better that though I never have very strong ideas over any issue but I always had about marriage. I have always hated the amount of pride and prejudice being part of contemporary marriages. Marriage is about attainment of humility, celebration of tolerance and establishment of supreme body-mind harmony among two beings who pledge to become one single spirit of love and compassion. I never understood why marriages have come to become part of a man’s pride, of worldly achievements. Why should it even be listed as a father’s duty? The pride or sense of duty should only be in making your daughter and son a good human being. The celebration of marriage may be a social thing.

Marriage was always a special thing for me. It also has to do with the fact that long ago, I had realized that this world of humanity has many mismanaged contradictions but two things were the most mismanaged. First is marriage and second is the conception of a child. I have personally seen worst and nastiest of marriages, be it what we popularly term as love marriage or an arranged one. Globally, the systems of marriages are flawed and the worst managed. And God may forgive me for saying this but I really believe; most kids born in the history of humanity are outcome of a casual sex between parents. I really wonder; how little thought goes over these two most important issues of humanity. I am amazed how humanity has failed in evolving a universally accepted and practically aesthetic system of such a beautiful and important life event as marriage. When I look at it, I find it to my bewilderment that how humanity has created so much utility and consumption for good life and living but failed miserably in making basic things as good and beautiful. That’s why I say there is something majorly wrong with our mental training that helped in creating a world order we all have lived in since ages.

Somehow, it seems to me that the general view that birth, death and marriages are beyond human capacities; ‘made in heaven’ psychology that have led to this casualness in approaching the three most important events of humanity. That’s why there is so much chaos and mismanagement in these three events. Amazing it is that we leave simple things; which we should do ourselves, to God and take up all difficult tasks ourselves. Men would do the unthinkably onerous and difficult tasks of challenging nature and God. Men would walk in space, climb Mount Everest without oxygen, make its own clone and the list is endless. But they never spare few moments for readying themselves for basic things like marriage, birth of their child and their own death. You need to prepare and be in final readiness for marriages and birth. We all need to prepare hard and be very timely in readiness for our deaths. Tragically, we humans are least prepared and in readiness for the three most essential and basic events of life but spend all our time, energy and resources in readying dispensable utilities and consumptions.

As I had told you Uttu, these are problems of a contemporary world order because of the dominating male view. I am a male too and that’s why I understand the corruption of male intelligence better. That’s why; I made good preparations for my marriage. But, as you all know, I am a stupid. The management of my marriage also had to bear the seal of my stupidity. But, I am God’s blessed man. The almighty took pity on my stupidity and as his sense of justice always ensures; he gave me a beautiful wife. She has gorgeous and magnificent artistry of shaping my stupidities into a noble enterprise.

Before marriage, together, we penned down a constitution of our marriage for both of us to follow. I wanted to accommodate only her views on the constitution as I did not want it to be corrupted by my instinctive male attitude. She understands me so well. The constitution that we have finalized is what she has said and I have only penned it down but what came out is what I am dedicated to follow lifelong. The constitution reads as:

The two rationally endowed people – a woman and a man; physically, mentally and spiritually sound and mature; in decisive and total possession of love and compassion for each other and all; otherwise resourceful and capable of free will and independence of body and mind; hereby declare the aspiration and commitment for an assimilation; fully understanding and accepting the utility and desirability of such a union called marriage to attain the higher purity and purposes of life together; that otherwise is uncalled for. We as woman and man pledge and give ourselves to become wife and husband in absolute humility and inclusive objectivity.

The constitution then goes on to list the seven pledges akin to saat phere:

The wife and husband shall strive and ensure, through thought and action that the roles and aspirations of each, as woman and man, are supported and enhanced through collective endeavors in best of meaning and spirit.

The wife shall support the husband with total dedication for his endeavors to augment security, peace and organization in the marriage whereas; the husband shall devote himself completely in his wife’s initiatives to enhance the quotient of sanity, civility and beauty. In case of a conflict, the agenda with larger good shall prevail; otherwise, preference shall be given to latter.

Conscious and copious efforts shall be made to design and devise platforms of togetherness and common actions of wife-husband. Individualism needs space within oneself so, there shall be very little physical space left for individual actions. Wife and husband shall be together and do together all possible activities in all possible ways. Togetherness and commonness is the essence of marriage but it does not come naturally to woman and man; necessitating endeavors aimed at its complete integration.

The wife and husband shall observe complete transparency in thought and action in matters individual or common. Transparency shall always prevail even as time, space and circumstances necessitate divergence of opinion and action. Wife and husband are exclusive to each other because each one is the only person in front of whom; other can be naked and still not ashamed but the happiest. Lack of transparency alone shall be the ground for breach of trust in marriage.

Emotions shall rule most matters and decisions in marriage. Intelligence shall always be a back up device; emotional intelligence shall prevail over intelligent emotions. Marriage is an institution of heart and therefore, mind shall not be indulged; it will however be duly consulted. Innocence shall be the ultimate wisdom of marriage; the wife and husband shall strive to preserve and promote it through their efforts, individual as well as common. The success of marriage is in continuous and copious enhancement of prosperity, defined in terms of the sense of collective well-being. Both wife and husband pledge and accept that the benchmarks for this well-being shall be emotional fulfillment and abundance of innocence.

There is a perfect acceptance to the fact between wife and husband that marriage is a small heaven within this infinite universe which is full of conflict, contradiction and resultant violence. The wife and husband therefore pledge