You can propose marriage naked or in handcuffs, but no one is going to agree to forsake all others for a man in shorts. You can't declare war in shorts or deliver a eulogy in shorts.
Regarding marriage, it - somehow, it didn't happen. One fellow in such a big family not getting married is not an issue.
The institution of marriage works better when there's a spiritual connection. If you're marrying just for the sake of the woman, then you may lose interest in each other very soon. When we marry in the interest of the Holy Spirit with the intention of serving God and humanity, then it gives a much larger perspective.
For my parents' generation, the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love; it was a partnership. It's about creating family; it's about creating offspring. Indian culture is essentially much more of a 'we' culture. It's a communal culture where you do what's best for the community - you procreate.
Forever, it was just soccer - passion, life, love. Then I got married, and I had to transfer some of my energy. I want to be my best for my country, but I also made a really big promise and choice to be the best in my marriage. That has not always been the easiest thing to manage.
I think marriage is a cultural thing - it's my opinion that nature doesn't tell someone to get married.
The only sense marriage makes is to share property, your children inherit the name and all that... it is all legal reasons to get married and no reason for love.
I'd have gone berserk if I hadn't met Sargam Singh, an actress who soon became my wife. Within a year of our marriage our daughter Ameli was born. Sargam gave up her career to look after me and our daughter.
Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.
Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.
