118 city-based couples, who had decided to split ways, are now ready to give their marriage a second chance, courtesy a reconciliation initiative by the Bandra family court.
On Saturday, the family court in Bandra stopped and smelled the roses. The occasion was that after years of bitter fighting and disputes, as many as 118 city-based couples who had approached the court for divorce decided to give their marriage a second chance.
These couples were felicitated with roses for their first steps towards a new future. This idea of trying all ways to reconcile a couple, instead of finding grounds for divorce, developed a few months ago after successful reconciliation of eight odd couples with minor disputes.
"I would like a rose as well," said principal judge Laxmi Rao. The court compound seemed to be bursting at its seams with lawyers and reunited couples. Sounding wise, Rao continued, "I had also climbed the steps of this building years ago as a litigant, and had undergone all the counseling possible. It breaks one's heart to see couples give up on each other and children stranded between warring parents over petty issues."
A couple, who re-discovered each other, happily agreed to talk to this reporter. The romance between the two bloomed in a suburban college. It took the star couple another eight years to convince the respective families. Finally, the two tied the knot five years ago.
The cultural differences between Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra took a while to sink in. "From ways of sleeping to eating, everything was different. Three years into the marriage and she gave up. She even made me believe that it wasn't meant to be. But getting a divorce in India is a tough job. The 'we don't get along' isn't enough," said the husband.
"But sitting through endless counseling sessions and the trauma of a divorce, our problems seemed smaller. I think we found each other again. See, she's right here, with me. I hope the scars on our relationship fade away soon," he said, holding his wife's hand.
Keep love alive
There were couples of every age but mostly those who were going through the popular "mid-life crisis". Everybody listened attentively to ways to keep their marriage alive, hoping there would be more than all the tricks in the book that they had already applied.
Suddenly, everyone burst into laughter when a psychiatrist started giving his advice regarding what a couple in the crowd termed "the bigger problem". "Let her have her way sometimes. Giving her an ego boost once in a while won't harm," he said, as knowing glances were exchanged in the crowd.
Emphasising the role of a lawyer in making or breaking a marriage, president of the Family Court Bar Association, Sajjan Oomen, said, "A defense lawyer once asked me to put up a notice flaunting the number of divorces he successfully negotiated. It didn't take me even a moment to refuse. This is not a civil or sessions court. Here we are dealing with families, children and their futures. We expect our lawyers to be sensitive."
Just as the session was coming to an end, a middle-aged woman asked the reporter if she was married. Then she doled out her own pearls of wisdom, "Jahan saas na ho, vahin shaadi karna (Marry only where there is no mother-in-law)."
