(Funny Videos on Youtube/Facebook)
If we were to research, we’d discover that no topic has evinced more amusement and a sense of elated release from one’s own mundane marital woes than listening to the ‘tit for tat’ repartees between two intelligent consenting grown-ups who happen to be much married for decades on ! Despite surviving it, people talk about being married in mock seriousness & self-deprecation. Here’s what Henry Youngman said “We were married for better or worse. I couldn’t have done better, and she couldn’t have done worse.”
The legion of quotes on marriage is extensive. In one of our banking seminars on work-life balance, the humorous speaker said in jest ‘Marriage cannot be described in one word, it is a ‘sentence’ for life. It may appear from literary works of men that men are ‘oppressed’, yet Ruth Bader explains ‘In every good marriage, it pays sometimes to be a little deaf’. However, Ogden Nash feels ‘Marriage is the bond between the a person who never remembers anniversaries and one who never forgets them’ ! And in this struggle of wits & patience ‘its one where each partner secretly suspects they got the better deal’ ! Stand up comedians (ones who play it safe !) haven’t still got tired of making cracks at the much-married class, starting with their own spouses, so that’s nothing very novel.
But of late, Tandra and I are both hooked in the battle of wits and words between a real life pair, Dheeraj and Supriya Sarna, who have been prolific in making short videos on their domestic tussles on virtually every issue that arises with the middle class domain. What’s fascinating is the level of comfort each derives while ‘fighting’ and standing their ground – be it shopping, entertaining, household budgets, child’s educational demands, time with friends & drinking beer, planning holidays & most importantly : ‘FOOD’ ! It’s so real and amazingly hilarious that they almost hold a mirror to us all married folks.
Interestingly, it’s clear that though they’ve been married for about 15 years, Dheeraj & Supriya share a great rapport, but in arguments that arise on almost every subject that comes up for ‘important discussion’, Dheeraj is hopelessly ends up unable to convince his wife, who invariably terminates the talk. It looks eerily familiar to people married for years on & who often think ‘East and West- twain could never meet’. This pair succeeds in making us enjoy realizing that lots of energy is spent in disagreements and verbal battles that arise on daily basis but are quickly forgotten: for another fight another day!
Hat’s off to their acting prowess as they play their parts with realism and ‘Sarnas’ have our whole hearted applause for a comedy act that’s clean and free from profanities. The lesson we can get – ‘Married folks are funny, let’s have more comedy than melodrama !’
Working on Living 