Or else, tips like these would have been dismissed as prissy

Madhu Jain

spouse: the truth about marriage Shobhaa De Penguin India Rs 250

The other night on television, chat-show host Vir Sanghvi asked Shobhaa De whether her good looks pushed up the sales of her books. De, bedazzling, decked in designer wear, replied without a blink that her ‘looks’ were actually more of a ‘nuisance’. So, can the Beautiful People make it to the high table of the literary circles, moving up from the ends of the table reserved for the sex-and-shopping fare?

De’s columns are astute, pinning down a trend before it becomes a cliché. And she certainly pioneered the trend of Hinglish in the English-language press long before political journos did. However, her reputation has so far rested on her steamy kiss-and-tell kind of fiction. And, face it, her looks. Had this book fervently espousing the case for marriage not been written by her, or a Page 3 fixture like her, it would have stayed on the shelves. Spouse: The Truth About Marriage, a requiem for the institution and a plea for its restoration to its rightful place, would have been dismissed as preachy and prissy and anachronistic in our age of fast food and disposable love. The book is like a love letter to a husband in the late summer of life, when romance has to be shoehorned into busy schedules.

It’s almost marriage according to grandma. It’s all about trade-offs to keep the peace and the sindoor in place

Not only is there the mandatory photograph of the author on the back cover — appropriately lovey-dovey (maturely) with her husband, Dilip De — there’s another photograph of the author that takes up much of the inside cover: De trussed up in seductive mode, like a film star. If this were not the case nobody would listen to her. Listen? Yes, because in this book, De is talking to her readers.

Chatty, with lots of heys, gals and pyjama party chatter thrown in like punctuation, De has actually produced a do it yourself manual for marriage: part ‘dear Abby’, part like the platitudinous bits of Reader’s Digest, part Oprah-wannabe, and most importantly a survival kit for marriage. For instance, she prescribes deep breathing to deflect an impending fight, in addition to mentally mouthing a mantra or a multiplication table for the secular. There are even bullet points at the end of each chapter iterating the dos and don’ts for those not given to much complexity of thought. It is a wonder that there isn’t a quiz at the end to grade your skills in rescuing a marriage.

If anything, the book is pragmatic, realistic, and in the end, useful for those who want to save their floundering marriages. It’s all about trade-offs to keep the peace, the mangalsutra and the sindoor in place. At times the remedies appear almost reactionary. Everything has to be sacrificed at the altar of marriage: colleagues, friends — especially if they are close. Evenings are for the spouses: no ladies’ nights or weekends out. It is almost marriage according to grandma: in De’s book of rules, she obviously knew best.

In the tango between the self and the duo, the self inevitably has to bow out. So, when Mr De tells his missus that he thinks she looks ugly in a salwaar kameez, out they all go. If he raises his brow at a particular friend of hers, out goes that friend. Of course, he will do the same with his friends — meeting them outside the sanctity of their home.

De’s portrait of marriage is not just rosy. It can be a drag and limiting, requiring too many multiplication tables or mantras. In her book the exit door is clearly marked for a rotten marriage. Yet, one can’t help think that here marriage is, above all, about convenience: love, the coming together of minds or souls only have minor roles in this scenario. Perhaps, sniffing yet another trend De has tapped into the moral rearmament going on in the US, where ‘family’ and ‘marriage’ are making a comeback.