Autumn, spring, winter, summer. These are the seasons one grew up with. Now up has sprung the so-called ‘marriage season’. More and more marriages — even thousands on a chosen day and time — have given rise to a whole new army of service providers: card designers, gift specialists, garment boutiques, flower designers!

Meanwhile, despite the general and conspicuous celebration of marriages, divorces too are rising. As strains ripen and tensions mount within a marriage, counsellors and the so-called experts are pressed into service, until things reach a point of no return.

There’s nothing really baffling about this. The fact is that amidst all the tamasha and band-baja of your average marriage ceremony, the seriousness of such an important personal commitment gets overlooked. Most young people seem to be under the impression that a marriage is all about the frills — shopping sprees, gaudy settings, incredible displays of food, photo ops and special invitees. They do not seem to comprehend the sheer fragility that is inherent in the institution.

In fact, over the last few years, whenever I pass even a stranger’s marriage procession or a gaudily lit marriage pandal, I mumble a small prayer for the longevity of the union that’s being celebrated. The prayer is just one line: “God, please make it last”.

Going a step forward, I have of late decided to gift newly weds a copy of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. For although Gibran himself remained unmarried until he died, he has written some very sensible lines on marriage. Let me quote a few of them for all those newly-weds whom I will never get to meet:

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