Meenakshi Shedde: Post-nup, veg 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 heavens gates were 100 guaranteedBut now the Gujaratis are gobsmacked ever since a HinduMuslim 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 interreligious marriages Whats more when the boys 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 its maitri karar postnup 100 vegetarian sex but when you live in its love jihad They are wondering how it has come back to bite them Thats not all a report by the noprofit Partners for Law in Development in 2010 states that karars and affidavits have also been used by lesbian women within and outside Gujarat Whats sauce for the GujLivingin has different codes in various parts of India For instance the sambandham relationship was common in Kerala during that societys 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 livein parents live apart which well defeats the purposeAnd nobody can beat the French in the cool art of cohabitation coabitasyon which for them is as common as aloo gobhi Fiammetta Rocco once deliciously wrote in The Independent It was the AngloFrench Sir James Goldsmith a renowned believer in the formality of keeping a longterm 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 46yearold married senator and father of three and she was a 19yearold Paris art student still legally a minor She once said Franccedilois had a marvellous phrase The only eternal love is one that hindered Karan Johar we hope youre taking notesMeenakshi Shedde is South Asia Consultant to Berlin Film Festival awardwinning critic curator to festivals worldwide and journalist Reach her at meenakshisheddegmailcom