Column | Verbal grenades in a marriage Premium

And why, according to Phuphee, almost everything that can be broken in life can also be fixed

I was in my early twenties when I got married. People often say that teenage years are difficult, but for me, most of my ludicrous ideas blossomed in my twenties. When I got married, I went in all hearts blazing thinking that any troubles I had had till then would now magically disappear. That the warm fuzzies would take over, and we would live in marital utopia for the rest of our lives. But that’s the thing about ideas born out of a hormonal and delusional centrifuge, they evaporate at the slightest raise in temperature.

It had only been two weeks when our first fight took place. The irony was that immediately after the fight, I couldn’t remember what we had fought about. But even now, nearly 20 years later, I remember the mean words that we hurled at each other. As a Kashmiri, you would think that I would be pretty used to shelling, but no, nothing had prepared me for that first marital bust up.

What I found most shocking was the intensity of the violence with which we both hurled these verbal grenades at each other. Had we made a terrible mistake? Had we rushed into marriage? Should we have taken more time to get to know each other? Do we involve the elders? What was the next step? The next few days were confusing. We spoke to each other about the daily business of our lives, but that was it. I thought it best not to show any emotion and he stopped making any eye contact. Surely, I thought, this was not how love was meant to look like.

By the end of the week, we were mostly back to normal, but neither of us had addressed the elephant in the room. So, I picked up the phone and called Phuphee.

I could hear Phuphee taking long drags of her cigarettes as she considered my predicament in silence. After what seemed like an eternity, she spoke, ‘Gachh banaav attri poash chai [go make some jasmine tea]. I have put the teabags in your Quran box [all brides are gifted the holy book].’

I was a little annoyed. Did she really expect a cup of herbal tea to cure my marital difficulty?

‘Jigras yelli naar aasyi, telli gatchi choan [when your liver is on fire, you should drink some],’ she explained. ‘Call me later.’