The slap of being taken for granted…

You take me for granted… Jainee sighed…

After 2 days of cold silent treatment, I felt I should try to figure out a way back to normal – even though I knew it must be something I would have done… so I asked and got this back…

I was genuinely taken aback… I know (& maybe because of my PDA our friends and family know too) how much I love her… she knows how much I need her… how much I value her… that is the last thing I would do… so in stead of just quietly apologising without even asking the reason, I decided to take the plunge and ask what have I done for such a horrendous judgement… and I am pretty sure, knowing how smart Jainee is, if I wouldn’t have asked for the cause, she would have seen through my half hearted attempt to gloss things over and push them under the carpet…

She said… you told me you will go to play tennis at 8 and come back by 9, you came back at 10… I was like… seriously… we fight so rarely… and you are upset about this small thing?

She got even more upset… you know Vaibhav, this is the reason why I am saying this… you don’t even realise why this is a big thing… Not calling if you will be late in office or from an event, committing a time to me and then just forgetting about it… and this is not the first time is it that you have done this… if this is not being taken for granted than what is…

Ya, but it wasn’t that you had any other plans… you were home, kids were going to be in bed… did you miss anything because of it? We have a full time helper to whom you can delegate a lot of things if you made last minute plans… And have I not adjusted whenever you have asked me to cancel my plans if you have something planned and I am required to be at home with kids?

You see Vaibhav… I have to tell you of my plans, then you confirm if you can adjust… you tell me of your plans if I ask because you assume its ok first… and granted that if after knowing your plans I tell you of a conflict, you will adjust too… but why should I ask all the time? And what if I stop telling you when I will be back or am unavailable without notice…

And – why is it that I have to be the one managing and planning everything for kids and home by default, whilst you get to assume that unless asked, you don’t have to bother your carefree life in those aspects… you see Vaibhav, you do take me for granted… you take running this home and raising kids for granted… you are in your mind secure that by providing financially, by default it ends your role as a husband and a father… anything more you do is out of the ordinary, applause worthy… almost charitable…

Suddenly… within that 10 minutes, I was feeling pathetic… the silent implicit anger at the start that arose from being almost accused of being a MCP by my own wife – after having an image in my mind of being a genuinely loving, caring and modern husband… was giving away to the depressing reality that she was speaking the facts…

Jainee – you are extrapolating isolated incidents into a very big generalised statement… yes, I sometimes just forget about all this things at home and kids or you… and yes, I agree that I should be more careful… but it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you or respect you or need you… or anything like that… and I am sorry if you feel like that… but please don’t take one off incidents to mean anything else… I will really try not to repeat them – but because they are unintentional, I cannot promise they will never happen again… if they ever do, please know that they are not by intention and let me know ASAP… I will correct them again…

I couldn’t let go of my image and stand even though I knew that ideally I should just accept the truth and say sorry… I still decided to express my genuine affection and hope she feels differently… and also not over promise…

Vaibhav – Need and love is different and I very well know that you feel that for me… true respect and not being taken for granted is different… your actions will prove the true depth of your apology… lets see how things go… maybe I need to expect less from you…

The whole idea of being taken for granted… is that of respect… in the movie English Vinglish, Sridevi mentions in the end… that in a relationship we should feel equal… if one is down, other should pull one up… and remain equal (implicitly not feeling being pushed down in a relationship all the time)… and that she was not looking for love… but respect…

The movie thappad… is also the same basic story… one person in the relationship taking the other for granted and assuming that a lot of things that he does are just ok… with scant feeling of privilege for the value he enjoys that the other brings in his life… he starts assuming it is his right… and a lot of things which are really not ok or right become normally acceptable…

The movie goes into an isolated incident of physical violence… but depicts it as the symptom of a bigger underlying relationship disease that is conveyed through a sense of entitlement and lack of remorse from the husband till almost the very end of the movie…

The movie actually rightly lays blame on the parents and society in stereotyping roles for boys and girls both… conditioning the boys to be spoilt brats who need to only earn money and then everything else is ok and girls as compromising sacrificial goats who need to find happiness in their family and not in what they truly want…

And it also lays blame on the person who is suffering as well for allowing themselves to be put in such a position…

I have a friend… and she once told us… I have tried being such a good daughter in law for a decade… but in that I lost my chance of being a good wife or at least enjoying being one… and now I don’t think I can take that anymore… because I don’t feel happy in it… and maybe I would have if there was respect in it… but my wishes won’t be respected with that role… I am to blame for having fooled my own self for so long and turning blind to my own true feelings…

The movie has a lot of finer sub plots… and the one that touched me a lot was when the father of the actress asks his wife who wants her daughter to compromise… why… its not required always that the women move on and let go… did she have to… and the mother/wife says… yes… she wanted to be a singer… but she decided not to as after marriage it wouldn’t have looked good… she compromised… the father/husband says… did he ever stop her… and then was the gem of a reply… the mother/wife says… was he not aware of her talent and aspirations… did he not see that she was suffocating them for the family… why did he not say or do anything then… because you mr. also felt that I was doing the right thing in comprising and letting it go… so please…

It’s such a subtle but hard hitting moment… no one will disagree that a wife beater is a criminal… some will be comfortable however in proper role definitions about the traditional way of society… some may feel that no – we should be equal in all ways and in our mind do not force our better halves for anything… to all of this last category of us… this being a silent witness to our spouses suffocation is nothing short of being an accessory to the crime even if not the actual criminal… and that’s a very difficult fact to digest when we think of ourselves as the good guys…

There are many such subplots in the movie…

The message that the lead actress lawyer and another independent educated neighbour try to project… that one can be just happy by themselves and everyone should be so alone if need be… is a little utopian and flawed… it may really not be possible… we are social animals and a happy isolated existence in mountain caves is only possibile for hermits… humans need relationships and close ones – for which we need to be able to adjust with one another… but that is irrespective of genders… I can only really speak of myself and I say this based on my own experience… I can be very happy alone many times… but there is a limit… there is a void that I feel when Jainee is not with me… I do miss kids after a few days… so no relationship is not something I think works…

Do I agree to a view then that one should break up based on a single incident… absolutely not… in fact the lead actresses lawyer in the movie (who by the way could have been played by a more stronger personality) says and rightly so… that all relationships need work and mending time and again… one definitely cannot just be bull headed and almost stupid at breaking up on the first instance of an issue…

But when the issue is not the isolated incident but the actual rotting relationship that the incident symbolizes… where one doesn’t accept his or her fault… is so blinded by his or her own needs only… feels that things are not a big deal… then one should not stay in such toxicity… for that slap is not the one on the face…

It is one on a persons worth… the slap of being taken for granted…

And after the movie, if as women you find anything relatable from the movie, I can only hope you are not over playing the projection in your mind…

But as men… I am sure most of us will find a silent discomfort… whilst we may analyse the performance and speak of the story and movie as a normal conversation… deep inside it does lead to a bit of soul searching… for all of us will try and relate to ourselves as the father of the actress… who in true sense we feel is the right ideal – making tea for family, standing by his daughter, reprimanding his son when he is wrong, calling his wife with respect… none of us will be the perennial wife beater from lower class, the self indulgent upper class husband who ignores his diabetic wife, the lead actor who doesn’t realise his mistake and apologise or launches into a diatribe in anger…

But you will find yourself stealing a glance and gazing in the eyes of your better half… hoping to find that she believes that as well about you… some of us may find it easy to have the conversation… some may find the feeling a temporal exaggerated moment and dismiss it as only a movie effect… but the thought will come of self introspection…

And the only thing to remember is that all one is required to do is realise the mistake and apologise as the first step and then make efforts to not repeat it… as the brother of the actress does… and the lead actor does not… and that action takes a herculean effort… very rarely does anyone have a precocious talent for it…

And by the way… its been 6 months or so right now from my last fight with Jainee… and I have not made that mistake again… or at least I think so… and I dread but hope that Jainee has not lowered her expectations from me and now stopped telling me…