The Beginning Of Always

I have heard of this so many times.
I have listened to innumerable reasons, why not to take the walk.
I have almost been taken in by it all.

We read so much about it in the media.
Every Sunday read, there is always a section on it.
The central theme has always been how the two poles don’t ever meet.
One of the #1 Best Sellers is ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus’.

For some, they follow the adage ‘once bitten, twice shy’.
For others, it’s just a chosen way of life.
But the rest, are just ‘chickened out’.

The last time I was home, we celebrated my grandparents 50 years of marriage.
The best times spent with them, for as long as I can remember, were those when they were engaged in a seemingly never-ending debate with each other.

Grandma, the more controlling between them would disagree or rebuff everything my grandpa said or did. She rarely wears a pleasant expression when he was nearby.

When he says, ‘Yet (that’s my pet name), get up early tomorrow because we are going fishing ’. That was music to my ears. Grandma knew that I have wanted to accompany them on their fishing trips. Though, happy for me, she would say to me within grandpa’s earshot, ‘Early? You don’t have to get up early. Don’t listen to him. Just get up by 5:30am’.That was just to spite on my grandpa. My sister and I could not help smiling at their shenanigans.


Oh, those winter nights after dinner, when the whole family sat together around the fireplace, chit-chatting, having ‘kwai’ (betel-nut, also known as pan), are still so vivid in my memories. Grandpa and grandma was our centre of attraction. They were at their best ‘dueling’ spirits, trying to get the better of each other.

Through the years, age caught on grandma earlier than grandpa. She soon was confined to the bed. Where was grandpa? He was on the nearby bed, regaling her with his escapades. He likes to brag how he climbed up the orange tree that day, how he saved the cat from getting stuck in the drainage pipe. Grandma would tell him to shut up, pretended she was sleeping but the second any of us walked into their room, she was wide awake again.

Now age got its hold on grandpa too. So he is confined to a bed like grandma, in the same room. When we feed them lunch or dinner, prayer of thanks would first be offered. Grandpa always did the honors. Along with all of us, grandma would close her eyes as grandpa begins to say the prayer. But while grandpa was half way through the prayer, grandma would have already started on her food.:-))


Amidst all this differences in opinions, amidst all the drama, when you looked into their eyes, there is a connection that is hard to define. It radiates a warm and peaceful feeling all around.

My grandparents are heroes.
They took a step which a thousand so called X-generation guys of today, dare not take.
On the assumption that relationships end after marriage, on the argument that marriage is a compromise, they shirk away from it. They are proud to wear the ‘commitment-shy’ tag.
Let us not be politically correct. Let us call a spade what it is. We who fear at even the sense of the word ‘marriage’ are nothing less than ‘Cowards’.

I salute every parent.
They took a chance and believe in the possible.
When they walked down the isle, with hope in their hearts, with faith as their guide, they knew that this was ‘the Beginning Of Always’.