The Seventh Step

I don’t remember what I did before I met you. The days are sort of blurry. I went to school, I worked, I partied like there is no tomorrow on the weekends, but I cannot quite remember any specific details. It is all in black and white. Sort of.

You and I were married twice. To each other. Once in the US, a couple of months later in India. It was not planned so. I always had wanted a small wedding. I did not even really want a Vedic ceremony. So many of its rituals seem to have lost their context. I would have been happy signing the register and celebrating it with close family and friends, but you believed in the sanctity and purity of fire and wanted us to be married the Vedic way for that, if not anything else. And I decided not to press my point. Did it really matter how we were married? A grueling six hour ceremony, many saree changes and many untranslated chants? So be it.

But I must have wished really hard for a small ceremony. Because, soon after our engagement as my full-of-lawyers family began to enquire into where the marriage would be registered, it became apparent that it would be easier to just get it done here before we left for India. We went to the county court and got our license. I came back home and looked up a Justice of Peace and booked her for Sept.20. at 9:30 a.m. I wore turquoise Dharmavaram, the only saree I had with me. You wore a business suit. And thus we were married. No rings exchanged because, the wedding bands were already ordered for in India. The two of us and three friends as witnesses. A lot of our friends did not even know this, since it was so sudden. A close friend brought a chocolate cake to celebrate and the “reception” was held at a place dear to our hearts - a Starbucks shop - over slices of rich chocolate cake and lattes.

The funny part of our wedding was this. Our friends had decided to throw us a bachelor/bachelorette bash the next day (which was a Saturday). This had been planned for many weeks and a big junta was invited. So imagine the surprise (and I suspect the letdown) most of our friends had when we announced that we had been married by the justice of peace, the day before.

It will be six years tomorrow since that early autumn day in a county court. I look upon that day and see it as a day when we loved each other the least. For, even though our love changed and took on many different avatars, it never ceased to grow. While most husbands and wives go out for dinner or a movie on their anniversaries, or plan a trip to the beach or the mountains, we celebrated our anniversary last year at the cardiac recovery unit. You had a stent put in your heart that very same morning. The irony of that day never ceases to stun me.

But as we step into our seventh year, I hope the worst is behind us. And while I have wanted diamonds or flowers or gadgets on our anniversary before, I ask for nothing more than your health and companionship and our unity.

Happy Anniversary, love.