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Honey, I shrinked our marriage!: Pioneer
New Delhi, July 20: * Varsha is the executive vice-president of a top software company. At 28, she already draws a six-figure salary and oversees operations in five countries. Cupid struck when she met Rohit, 29, a software engineer at a business meeting. The two plan to get married this October. That is, if Varsha does not change her mind by then. The reason? Rohit`s father wants his bahu to come home early everyday and cook dinner.
New Delhi, July 20: * Varsha is the executive vice-president of a top software company. At 28, she already draws a six-figure salary and oversees operations in five countries. Cupid struck when she met Rohit, 29, a software engineer at a business meeting. The two plan to get married this October. That is, if Varsha does not change her mind by then. The reason? Rohit's father wants his bahu to come home early everyday and cook dinner.
* Twenty-six-year-old Anurag, a copywriter, loves partying. Six months back, he proposed to Anisha, a TV reporter whom he met at a party. The lovebirds have bought a love-nest they'll move into after marriage. But Anurag is a little apprehensive. Anisha doesn't answer his incessant SMSs when out on shoots and loathes his concern about her male colleagues. She says he cramps her style.
Meet the new-age urban couples who do not want months of wooing and arduous courtship to culminate in a disaster. Like Varsha and Anurag, more and more couples are readily sinking themselves onto the shrink's couch to iron out contentious issues much before saying "I do". Counselling for post-marriage blues, quite clearly, is passé.
After three sessions with their psychiatrist, Varsha and her fiancée, Rohit, are shopping for curtains for their new house with renewed zeal and charting out ways to deal with his father's expectations. Anurag says the counselling has helped him realise that "I don't own Anisha and she has a right to her space." His relationship, he confesses, has blossomed after he has "stopped breathing down her neck."
Pre-marital counselling, a trend in the West in the seventies, has come to stay in India's metros, as an increasing number of Indian professionals in the past five years have found the need for objective, experiential and confidential help to cope with the pressures of matrimony. So, out go the gray-haired family friends and pundits. Entrez the shrinks.
Dr Jitendra Nagpal, consultant psychiatrist at Vimhans, who sees around 20 cases a month for "pre-happening guidance", says that 75-80 per cent of his clients are professionals - in the age-group 24-30. And it is the 'semi-arranged' marriages, ie, marriages which start with love but are formalised by the partners' families, that send alarm bells jangling the most.
The women dread the shubh mahurat more. As many as 10 soon-to-be brides throng clinical psychologist Aruna Broota's counselling clinic every day at the peak of the marriage season, without telling their parents, who fear that counsellors will make their girls "too modern". At 10 a month, men trickle in relatively smaller numbers. Partners who do come together usually do not open up as much as the ones who come solo.
So, just what plagues women before marriage? Apprehensions like, "Is it the right time in my career to get married?", "Can I continue to meet him after the roka?" and even, "Does his fidgeting mean he has a psychological problem I don't know about?"
Women are paranoid about adapting to the alien ways of their fiancee's home. Says Dr Vasanta Patri, chairperson of the Indian Institute of Counselling: "I once had an Andhra girl engaged to a Punjabi. She detested the idea that she was expected to serve guests in the best crockery at her in-laws' home!" But the number one fear factor is - the mother-in-law, especially when she has only one son. Dr Broota confesses that most of her female clients would love to kill them!
Says Dr Broota: "The modern woman is very confused. A top executive doesn't want to be put in the traditional mould after marriage. She wouldn't want to give up a single penny of her earning to her in-laws. But she also thinks that her husband's money is hers, because of her traditional values."
The men worry more about the upkeep of traditions - "If she is a CA working late nights, how will she give me my dinner?" As Dr Nagpal puts it, "the Indian male psyche is under threat. Many feel threatened when their fiancés start asking for space early in their courtship and turn out to be too smart for them."
Sex figures high on the list of concerns. "A common woe of the boys is that the girl is too frigid. But they worry if she enjoys the act and knows the erogenous zones," says Dr Nagpal. According to Dr Broota, "Women worry about being misunderstood about their virginity. They readily question the man's potency, and want beautiful, not hungry sex from him. They also worry about their ability to reach an orgasm."
Much like Anita, 30, a Mumbai-based TV producer, who is under counselling to decide whether her fiancee, 33-year-old TV director Ajit, will sexually gratify her for the rest of her life. "I don't want boredom to set in after a few years. I want the honeymoon to last forever!" she says.
So does counselling discourage people from tying the knot? "Never," says Dr Patri. "People come to us very starry-eyed and sure about their partners." Echoes Dr Nagpal, "they just want a mediator to settle some issues." Well, better to unknot thorny issues before tying the knot!
* Twenty-six-year-old Anurag, a copywriter, loves partying. Six months back, he proposed to Anisha, a TV reporter whom he met at a party. The lovebirds have bought a love-nest they'll move into after marriage. But Anurag is a little apprehensive. Anisha doesn't answer his incessant SMSs when out on shoots and loathes his concern about her male colleagues. She says he cramps her style.
Meet the new-age urban couples who do not want months of wooing and arduous courtship to culminate in a disaster. Like Varsha and Anurag, more and more couples are readily sinking themselves onto the shrink's couch to iron out contentious issues much before saying "I do". Counselling for post-marriage blues, quite clearly, is passé.
After three sessions with their psychiatrist, Varsha and her fiancée, Rohit, are shopping for curtains for their new house with renewed zeal and charting out ways to deal with his father's expectations. Anurag says the counselling has helped him realise that "I don't own Anisha and she has a right to her space." His relationship, he confesses, has blossomed after he has "stopped breathing down her neck."
Pre-marital counselling, a trend in the West in the seventies, has come to stay in India's metros, as an increasing number of Indian professionals in the past five years have found the need for objective, experiential and confidential help to cope with the pressures of matrimony. So, out go the gray-haired family friends and pundits. Entrez the shrinks.
Dr Jitendra Nagpal, consultant psychiatrist at Vimhans, who sees around 20 cases a month for "pre-happening guidance", says that 75-80 per cent of his clients are professionals - in the age-group 24-30. And it is the 'semi-arranged' marriages, ie, marriages which start with love but are formalised by the partners' families, that send alarm bells jangling the most.
The women dread the shubh mahurat more. As many as 10 soon-to-be brides throng clinical psychologist Aruna Broota's counselling clinic every day at the peak of the marriage season, without telling their parents, who fear that counsellors will make their girls "too modern". At 10 a month, men trickle in relatively smaller numbers. Partners who do come together usually do not open up as much as the ones who come solo.
So, just what plagues women before marriage? Apprehensions like, "Is it the right time in my career to get married?", "Can I continue to meet him after the roka?" and even, "Does his fidgeting mean he has a psychological problem I don't know about?"
Women are paranoid about adapting to the alien ways of their fiancee's home. Says Dr Vasanta Patri, chairperson of the Indian Institute of Counselling: "I once had an Andhra girl engaged to a Punjabi. She detested the idea that she was expected to serve guests in the best crockery at her in-laws' home!" But the number one fear factor is - the mother-in-law, especially when she has only one son. Dr Broota confesses that most of her female clients would love to kill them!
Says Dr Broota: "The modern woman is very confused. A top executive doesn't want to be put in the traditional mould after marriage. She wouldn't want to give up a single penny of her earning to her in-laws. But she also thinks that her husband's money is hers, because of her traditional values."
The men worry more about the upkeep of traditions - "If she is a CA working late nights, how will she give me my dinner?" As Dr Nagpal puts it, "the Indian male psyche is under threat. Many feel threatened when their fiancés start asking for space early in their courtship and turn out to be too smart for them."
Sex figures high on the list of concerns. "A common woe of the boys is that the girl is too frigid. But they worry if she enjoys the act and knows the erogenous zones," says Dr Nagpal. According to Dr Broota, "Women worry about being misunderstood about their virginity. They readily question the man's potency, and want beautiful, not hungry sex from him. They also worry about their ability to reach an orgasm."
Much like Anita, 30, a Mumbai-based TV producer, who is under counselling to decide whether her fiancee, 33-year-old TV director Ajit, will sexually gratify her for the rest of her life. "I don't want boredom to set in after a few years. I want the honeymoon to last forever!" she says.
So does counselling discourage people from tying the knot? "Never," says Dr Patri. "People come to us very starry-eyed and sure about their partners." Echoes Dr Nagpal, "they just want a mediator to settle some issues." Well, better to unknot thorny issues before tying the knot!