Marriage is all about holding the burden, adding tension and ending freedom,” a colleague remarks desperately. Others around provoke him teasingly to tie the knot as soon as possible; they’d rather be kind enough to rescue him from life-long desertion. But, he is adamant in what marital notions he has and he is intent escaping from the nuptial turmoil.

He admits a long narrative of heterogeneity: There are so many lonely people happily living, so many couples irritatingly sleeping, so many husbands getting nagged all the time by their wives, and so many wives being smacked every day by their husbands, besides so many couples contradicting, confronting, rowing, wrangling and skirmishing. What frustrates me is that when I see their only son periled by drugs, challenging the

parents exercising his lucrative whims, negating everything and ruining. Aren’t you hurt when you happen to see your daughter being embraced by a strange teenager who looks mean and coarse- blindly obsessed and infatuated? Nay, I don’t marry.

Does it mean that marriage is retrogression? Pundits have their own observations. Their fabulous experience sounds appealing that conjugal life is a wonderful discourse. It makes us practical, teaches how to cope with numerous daunting setbacks, compels to concentrate on duties and victories and restrains from extraneous useless stuffs. They argue that a couple with a kid walking with a jolly face is no less inspiring. Their ward holding a trophy and getting felicitated on the stage in front of their eyes is not only a pride for parents but also the momentous time of celebrating togetherness. Imagine your daughter coming to your arms cheerfully after receiving the doctorate degree or donning the dress of a national figure materialising the dream that you have had. How do you feel when your beloved son fulfills your greatest inclination that you failed to achieve in your life? Family happiness, therefore, is supreme bliss. This doesn’t mean that conjugal life is always a bed of roses. Your long-held male ego and chauvinism is brought to the knee.

Thrown into the confusion, my perplexed friend moots for a while, delves into the depth, looks at this puzzled listener of bird in the same feather and poses a callous question, “What do you do?”