Is it friendship or is it love? We thought Karan Johar was the last word on it, at least in the movies. But trust the Gujjus to be way ahead of the game when it comes to food and sex
Is it friendship or is it love? We thought Karan Johar was the last word on it, at least in the movies. But trust the Gujjus to be way ahead of the game when it comes to food and sex. They have perfected the art of the maitri karar, or friendship agreement, a notarized document that cheerfully allows a married man to live with other women. It was popular in Gujarat in the 1970s, when bored, urban, middle class Gujarati men who wanted "something on the side," could still felt morally upright, simply by virtue of being vegetarian. No onion or garlic even, so heaven's gates were 100% guaranteed.
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But now, the Gujaratis are gobsmacked ever since a Hindu-Muslim couple in Gujarat has signed a maitri karar, because the Hindu girl is 19 and the Muslim boy is 20, whereas he needs to be at least 21to marry under the Special Marriage Act that allows inter-religious marriages. What's more, when the boy's family sent the girl packing to her natal home, the boy filed a habeas corpus petition in the Gujarat High Court, and the High Court actually upheld the maitri karar, stating that as an adult, the girl could not be forced to stay where she did not want to. The Gujaratis in Gujarat had thought, "When we live in, it's maitri karar, post-nup 100% vegetarian sex, but when you live in, it's love jihad." They are wondering how it has come back to bite them. That's not all: a report by the no-profit Partners for Law in Development in 2010 states that "karars and affidavits have also been used by lesbian women, within and outside Gujarat." What's sauce for the Guj...
Living-in has different codes in various parts of India. For instance, the sambandham (relationship) was common in Kerala during that society's more matrilineal phase. It called for neither legally pretentious documents nor vegetarianism: the man simply handed the woman a piece of cloth before an oil lamp, and that was that. But the need to live in crosses boundaries of space and time: today, even senior citizens looking for companionship often prefer to live together, as it minimises the chances of legal and property disputes between their adult children. Some embarrassed children insist their live-in parents live apart, which, well, defeats the purpose.
And, nobody can beat the French in the cool art of co-habitation (co-abita-syon), which, for them, is as common as aloo gobhi. Fiammetta Rocco once deliciously wrote in The Independent, "It was the Anglo-French Sir James Goldsmith, a renowned believer in the formality of keeping a long-term lover in your life, who said that by marrying your mistress, you create a job vacancy." In fact, at the funeral of French president Francois Mitterrand, there was a flutter when both his wife Danielle and their children turned up, as well as his mistress Anne Pingeot and Mazarine, her daughter with Mitterrand. Pingeot had been his mistress for 34 years, since he was a 46-year-old married senator and father of three, and she was a 19-year-old Paris art student, still legally a minor. She once said, "François had a marvellous phrase. 'The only eternal love is one that hindered.'" Karan Johar, we hope you're taking notes.
Meenakshi Shedde is South Asia Consultant to Berlin Film Festival, award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. Reach her at meenakshishedde@gmail.com
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