‘Power is balanced when repair is attempted at every rupture’
| Photo Credit: Illustration: Zainab Tambawalla

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.’

Since I had no bright ideas of my own, I decided to give it a try. If nothing else, at least I would be better hydrated.

Later, I called Phuphee and told her the jasmine tea hadn’t cured anything.

‘That’s a shame,’ she said, tutting.

‘You know, myoan shoosh [my lungs, a term of endearment], in life almost everything that can be broken can also be fixed, but what is important to remember is that the act of fixing is always more important than the act breaking,’ she said. ‘Repair is always more important because the rupture isn’t always intentional. There are times we hurt people even when we try our best not to. But repair is always intentional. When we set out to undo what we damaged, we acknowledge our own wrongdoing and we give the other person a chance to tell us how we can make things better. This act of giving back some of the power that you took, can heal, restore and sometimes strengthen.’

I could feel the tight knot in my stomach easing.

‘You are two different individuals, but marriage is a team sport,’ she continued. ‘Both of you are excellent players in your own right, but from now on what will matter is how well you play together. You are both on the field now. Sometimes he will bat and you must be ready to run, and sometimes you will bat and he must be ready to run. That can only happen when there is trust, and trust is at its healthiest when power is balanced. And power is balanced when repair is attempted at every rupture.’

I felt overwhelmed by what she had told me. How many attempts at repair would it take in order for the relationship to be strengthened? Was this going to be a Sisyphean task?

With her advice as taeveez (a spiritual prescription), I tried to approach every rupture with an attempt at repair. What I understand now, after so many years of marriage, is that we have very little control over what happens in our lives. At the beginning, this realization caused a mountain of anxiety, but from Phuphee I learned that no matter how deep the rupture, I knew what my first step would be. Many times my attempts at repairing failed miserably, but it was some consolation that it wasn’t for lack of trying. Ruptures have come from us and, at times, from outside. But what continues to hold us together is the knowledge that one of us will always attempt a rescue instead of simply abandoning everything. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

Saba Mahjoor, a Kashmiri living in England, spends her scant free time contemplating life’s vagaries.