Since I have been a contributor to a couple of Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul series books, I have often been forwarded questionnaire on couple compatibility or sought response to whether or not mobile phones have made partners come closer or how does one see PDAor do people need closure with their ex. Sometimes I have posted my response and sometimes I have not answered saying that I don’t have a partner. So, when I was asked this question, “You don’t have a partner?” I replied, “Yes, I am single.” And then the obvious question to follow was,“Why?”
Looking back at my thirty eight years of life and still being single I realize I have to address this question in public at some point in time and not escape with a smile like I have done so many other times. So, I answered, “Never found any. Actually, however utopian it may sound, I am married to literature. It is very difficult to find someone who will be my second wife.” And then I added, “But I love many and that too without any guilt. If one eschews the family structure then one can avoid the guilt. I believe the traditional family structure was formed as a safeguard against the irresponsible behavior of human beings on the path of civilization but as we have progressed we have seen newer family structures. Being single is also a family structure. It is a single person family structure and though it may not have certain advantages, it gives precedence of the individual over a group. In fact we do want diversity in society with different lifestyles co-existing harmoniously and no one gets stifled into a herd mentality.
I have been facing the argument from friends and family that one needs someone with whom one can share things with and someone who will care for each other especially in old age. But does marriage guarantee that, especially an arranged marriage? A person like me who jealously guards his literary space and is not willing to compromise on that front will require someone equally immersed in that space to be compatible. I have not exactly come across such a person so far. A person, who is married, has his/her spouse and kids as first priority before he/she can indulge in any literary activity. Here comes the question of responsibility. I would not like to marry and end up being an irresponsible husband and father. Often I feel that living a different kind of life itself adds literariness to that life. I try to bring that literariness in my life as an aspect that makes it pregnant with possibilities, even though never actualized. The society often indulges in a kind of duplicity where a literary character is appreciated in a text but such a character in real life is not appreciated. Haven’t we appreciated characters like Florentina Ariza, Anna Karenina, Yuri Zhivago, Madam Bovary, and even Paul Morel and Maggie Tulliver. Why can’t I live my life as literature?For me living a life as literature is a creative challenge because it demands on me to create an intellectual and emotional utopia. It goes beyond the binaries of right and wrong and is rather amoral for it is the only space where life as art survives and thrives.
“So, you believe in polyamory. I could sense that,”came the rejoinder. Immediately I felt the need to explain a bit and said that I enjoy the state of being in love. To do something for someone when one is not duty-bound to do anything gives such a high. To care for someone just out of love and not because one is n any relationship is so much better and selfless. From the people I love I don’t expect anything more than friendship. Living a life with the chronic symptoms of falling in love every now and then and being in love with more than one person at the same time can be seen as aberrations in social behavior pattern in any individual. But I realized that facet in me without any guilty conscience and have been living with the sense of being in love most of the time in a controlled manner without letting my feelings to reach its logical conclusion. I do this because I cannot find an answer to the question why I should sacrifice one love for the sake of another and not have it all. For me love should make me liberal, magnanimous and all-encompassing. I believe that love should make one love more rather than put restrictions, unless one is willing to commit to a single person. The former case of polyamory is natural and the latter case of commitment is social, born out of the need to protect the family structure.
The next question that followed was, “But the others with whom you are in relationships, do they understand it too?” I answered that earlier I have had crushes and infatuations when I was really young but I found no single individual had everything I wanted and I did not have everything they probably expected. Some have called me commitment phobic. Perhaps I am that because if I commit I have to guarantee steady income, proper attention and mental fidelity pertaining to love, all of which I cannot guarantee. But very lately I have expressed myself to a few. To those whom I have confessed my love I have also confessed the multiplicity of my love. And I am glad that they could understand my point of view. But here I must clarify one thing. Loving someone can be platonic too whereas being in a relationship has a sexual side to it. That is why I say I don’t have a partner and I am single because, even though I am in love with a few, I am not in a relationship with any. I choose not to have a family in favour of having multiple loves. This can also be seen as living in a utopia but at least it does not make me miserable with longings.
And then my inquirer said that she too felt this way except that she plunged into marriage before she realized that she feels this way. I replied that I believe many married people think this way. In fact most often if someone follows a different value system it is misinterpreted as a wrong value system or no value system. We must not forget that we belong to a society where polygamy, polyandry, monogamy, monoandry, matriarchal households, patriarchal households, single-parent families, joint families have all existed. So, there is nothing wrong in being single or loving more than one person at a time. Those who do so with a sense of responsibility are not wrong but just different and society has to accept it.
