Mundane is boring. Or maybe after a while it tends to get boring. For how long can anyone enjoy doing the laundry, minding the maid, keeping track of the grocery?. Sounds boring already? This is possibly the biggest challenge young couples face today.
One, the support system that only a joint family could provide hardly exists anymore. Two, such is the irony of life that people are spending more time battling the traffic on the road than their spouse. Life for them has turned into a pure challenge. There are challenges to be met at home and in the office. Unfortunately, the first thing to fly out of the window in such a situation is love. However, despite the odds, a lot of couples are managing to find time for each other.
Julie and Faisal Rahman have been together for at least nine years now. But Cupid still keeps them company in the ?City of Joy?. Julie, a promising young banker, and Faisal, a marketing executive with a leading telecom company, struggle with their ?12-hour work schedules, the insane traffic and the humdrum of domestic life on a daily basis.? Their mantra to keep the spark in their relationship alive might sound simple, but there is a lot of effort that goes in as well. ?We go out on the 27th of every month. Be it catching up on a cup of coffee, a quick lunch or a relaxed dinner…it?s a ritual that we have followed for the past nine and half years,? says Rahman, a self-confessed workaholic. Well, in case the date intrigues you, it happens to be the first time they met.
?We also try and go out as much as possible. At home there are too many chores waiting to be attended to,? adds Julie. Looks like things have fallen in place over time? They always shared the same taste in music too; somehow they?ve reached the same bandwidth when it comes to movies too and interestingly Julie, who once hated computer games, is hooked on to them now even more than Faisal. Perfect. Is it not? Not that they don?t fight. They do. But ?irrespective of whose fault it is, they take turns in making up.?
But what do you do when you get to see each other for all of 15 minutes every day? ?Steal moments,? says Delhi-based Ashlesha Vig, operations manager with Keanes. Married for close to a year, she hardly got to spend time with hubby Varun in the first few months of having tied the knot. ?Our shift timings were different. I used to reach home only to find Varun ready to leave for office. We hardly spent any time with each other. How I hated it,? she candidly admits. That?s when the forlorn souls stole moments to be with each other ? trying to come back home early, cutting back on precious sleep…and ?the rest must be left unsaid?, says Jain. Thankfully, now their shift timings are the same. ?It was fun. But now that we don?t have to do that anymore, I miss it so much,? says Varun, operations manager with Greenfield online. With little effort they turned an adverse situation to something they?ll cherish forever in their lives.
Moments of togetherness are indeed precious. Manash and Reetuparna Bhattacharjee in fact moved to New Jersey in the hope of finding more time for each other. ?We are happy with our decision. There aren?t too many social commitments that we need to oblige. After office we get to spend all our time together. In fact, not having a domestic help has made us understand each other better,? says Bhattacharjee, a software engineer. But does it not get boring at times? ?No,? says his better half and a doctor, who credits their ever-growing chemistry to ?freaked-out weekends. We are generally out ? eating and travelling. It is a great stress buster and it works wonders to break the monotony.?
Another newly-married Bangalore-based couple is making it work with sheer understanding and commitment. Silky Das, a senior research executive with IMRB says: ?it would have been difficult to achieve the balance if not for Santosh. Spending three to four hours everyday commuting, is anything but funny. Life is different when you are single. There are lot of adjustments to be made later.? Santosh Das follows a simple philosophy in life: ?Don?t worry. Things will only get better,? says the software engineer with Wipro.
First-time parents have to take a completely different test. Mumbai-based Sohini Dasgupta, creative director with Lowe and also an artist, gives a sneak peak into her life, made all the more beautiful by the arrival of little Trivik three months ago. ?The biggest luxury that we long for now is uninterrupted sleep,? she says. ?But jokes apart, life is more beautiful now. Three years on, it is still honeymoon time for us,? she says. Sohini and V Hariharan discovered that ?life?s all about balance. If you can manage an equillibrium between life and work, you can easily pull it through.? Her husband, an entrepreneur, has started following a simple rule ? ?if need be, he comes back and works from home.? After all, presence does matter! And since it is difficult to go out dining and shopping with little ?pupu? around, they ?catch up with movies at home.? But yes, there are ?little compromises? that she has made to create plenty of space for the tiny tot. ?I try not to bother whether the laundry is done well, if the whites actually look like white?? says the artist, who is planning a painting series on Satirical version of Motherhood.
Different strokes clearly work for different people. What matters is that they are happy being together.