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“Nuru, It’s our 25th Wedding Anniversary?” My wife looked at me quizzingly.

“Yeah, I already wished you” I replied, not getting the point.

“People write so many lovely things on Facebook, Instagram, and look at you. You don’t appreciate me” my wife blinking her eyes and trying to be cute.

“Last month your friend Rajdeep wrote such nice things for his wife on Facebook.” my wife continued.

“I know what he wrote, You are the light of my eyes. You are the air, that keeps me alive. You are the wind in my sails. You are the Bhindi in my Bazaar and so on. All usual garbage.” I said.

Rajdeep called me yesterday and was yelling “ Bloody COVID. Biwi ghar pe peene nahi deti and bloody all the bars are closed. Flights are closed too. Can’t even go to Bangkok. They are asking me what emergency do I have.”

But like every Wife-fearing husband. I still had to follow her wishes. So here goes.

We have completed 25 years of marriage without killing each other. That’s an achievement correct? Many a time, I have wanted to kill myself but I thought “Why should I do her work?” She will have all the fun and my life insurance money too.

Flashback to the day of our marriage. I was 22 years old and Ashish was 18. We were waiting outside National college for my friend Jehangir to take us to court. Ashish had dressed appropriately for the occasion. She was wearing a black T-shirt, with “I don’t care” written boldly across it in silver color.

Jehangir had borrowed a car for the occasion. I prayed to God, “If I am doing anything wrong, please let me know. Oh God, please guide me.”

In a few minutes of my praying, the car met with a small accident, a fender bender at the signal. I did not understand.

A song on the radio started playing “Dil me Chupa ke Pyar ka toofan le chale, hum aaj APNI MAUT KA saman le chale” – I did not understand.

At Bandra court the lawyer told me you can’t get married, you need to have 3 witnesses. You only have two, Jehangir and Kaushal”– I did not understand.

God must have said to himself “I am not going to start an earthquake for this idiot to understand”

We found a third witness. Kaushal caught a random person who had come to court for his work and requested him to sign as a third witness. The time we got married, I was doing my CA articleship and earning peanuts. She still married me. Years later, when I asked her why? She said “Our family astrologer had told me that I was Manglik and there are strong chances my husband can die in the first year of marriage. Now I know he was a fraud.”

After completing my studies, I got a job in New York and an H-1 and called her here. Sometime later, when she got her first job at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, she had to pick the funds for her retirement plan. She looked at me with disdain and told me “Why the hell did I marry a CPA? You do it and you better make sure the account keeps going up”. After the 2008 crash, I was hiding her statements for two years until the stock market came back up.

The children have saved our marriage. They keep my wife so busy that now she has no time to fight. She cooks great, more so for my son than me, but still, there is a lot left over to fill me up too.

Lots of wives get angry and fight with their husbands and run away to their parents or brother’s house. She never gave me that pleasure. She always told me it’s my house, if anyone is going it is you.

I have more great things about my wife, but I want to save some for my 50th Wedding Anniversary. That is if after reading this if we still have one.