Column

Anyone who has studied (or rather done everything but study) in Mumbai for their undergrad is familiar with ATKT, re-exams for those who had failed specific subjects.

For the longest time I didn’t even know its original full version, Allowed To Keep Term. Because for us it had always meant After Trouble Keep Trying! That philosophy got a lot of us through snore-worthy statistics practicals, lazy library afternoons, unrequited crushes on hostel boys and sartorially prudish principals.

There was always another term in which to make up grades, another boy to like, another rule to evade; life was about lots of time and lots of choices.

Then suddenly we had to grow up, choose the right postgrad course, the right career, the right life partner and essentially get everything right at first shot.

The latter especially posed to be a real brainteaser. And to add to the immensity of the task was the plethora of choice!

Arranged marriage or love? Undergrad sweetheart or postgrad bad-boy? Someone who loves you more or someone you love more? The options were dizzying, and the pressure to choose even more acute but it was the thing we were ‘supposed’ to do and we did.

The honeymoon period lasted a while as we tried to settle into the new roles. Any discomfiture or doubt was laughed off as ‘initial teething troubles’ since we had all been taught to focus on the ‘larger picture’ and ‘adjust’.

But then after a point the socially-correct straitjacket just didn’t fit. Blame it on choice if you will but the if there are twenty brands and five variants to choose from when it comes to just buying luncheon meat, the universe’s message to us about true love may just get lost along the way.

For every person we think we love there suddenly comes along an organic, fat-free or premium smoked version!So while some walked out of hastily-set up traditional marriages with passport and overnighter in hand, others discarded campus romance-turned marriages with a deft “I Don’t”.

And voila! as sociologists throw themselves in a tizzy trying to explain the growing rate of divorces, and parents tear their hair out over the children’s fickle future plans, a whole generation of ATKT is reborn!

Love at first sight is not necessarily love till last sight and most people have dried their tears, divided their assets, moved houses and moved on.

While the women I know have moved on to ancillary education and being “just good friends” with the smorgasbord of hopeful colleagues, ex-classmates and gym buddies, my men friends have shed kilos, changed cities and rushed into “I Do” yet again (and in some cases, yet again!!!) after brief mandatory dips into the elixir of youth aka teens and twenty-something girls!

Revolutionary as this sounds, I think the men who get divorced actually love being married and therefore keep seeking the elusive ideal of thoda pyar thoda magic while the divorced women have figured out that marriages are less shaadi and more bandhan and thus savour their new-found independence for as long as they can.

Divorced people are social outcasts did you say? Hardly! Some girls actually find a divorced man somewhat of an asset. He’s usually not very possessive, he’s been broken into the fine art of the toothpaste war AND he knows his way around the kitchen as well as the nuptial bed (unless the lack of it has been the raison d’etre of the divorce of course!).

Divorced women on the other hand somehow acquire an irresistibly mysterious aura of maturity and vulnerability which makes the men and boys both keel over with equal vigour.

And before you know it, these D-Listers have joined the mating and dating pool of the city’s vast droves of singletons and far from being shunned, they are giving the inexperienced n’ unmarried a tough run for their money.

As we officially step into the age of second helpings, second thoughts, second chances and second innings guess its time to let go of forever after and live life the ATKT way.

Especially as a twice-divorced friend of mine sums up the complex world of love and relationships as, “Everything in life comes with an expiry date, so carpe diem baby!”
deblina@dnaindia.net