100 years from today, marriages would be a thing of past.

Various events in the last few months have ignited quiet a few interesting marriage controversies across the world. There is a visible trend in these events which seems to be suggesting a new way in which we all human beings will live in the future. For example, take the case of some celebrity marriages that have got shaken in the last six months because of peoples secret extramarital affairs coming to light whereas, some celebrities have got into trouble while attempting to get married after having already being married once.

The Tiger Woods sex scandal has shocked the world which is still coming to terms with his multiple infidelities involving over a dozen mistresses. John Terry is another story on similar lines making headlines in England. And in India, we are witnessing another such marriage controversy ignited by tennis star Sania Mirza who recently announced her wedding plans with Pakistani cricket captain Shoaib Malik. Interestingly, Shoaib seems to be avoiding his existing marriage with another Indian girl Ayesha. The list of these controversies seems to be endless and every story is very attention-grabbing.

Not that these types of controversies did not exist in the past, but with life becoming increasingly public, they are coming to light faster. Thanks to the influence of mobile phones and social networking sites, the world is getting smaller making it impossible to keep anything out of public scrutiny unlike the past. Such is the immense influence of technology that even celebrities have to accept the reality that every little thing they attempt to do in private has the potential to be the newspaper headline the next day.

Well, coming back to our topic of marriages, something that been an essential part of human existence for a few thousand years now. In today's fast changing environment the concept of marriage as an institution seems to be losing its charm due to the rapid upswing in the social exposure that an individual is getting. As we get to meet, know and network with new people in everyday life, our tastes and choices are changing faster and so are our principles, ethics and moral values.

People seem to be loosing faith in the concept of staying with one person through a lifetime and that brings the age old idea of marriages under serious threat of getting wiped out. With more and more people wanting to live life their own way, the question that comes to mind is weather marriages are really relevant in today’s world? Well, what is it today that an individual achieves by getting married? Are we not moving towards a society where decisions with respect to ones partner seems to be more spontaneous and for that very moment only?

It is very difficult to find answers to these questions. Also, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep an upwardly mobile well connected individual tied down with age old idea of marriage. I am sure, it is just a matter of time before this becomes an opinion of the rest of the world and our traditions change forever.

For me, I seem to be pretty sure that in about 100 years from today, marriages would be a thing of past. Think I am giving it a reasonable time to go extinct.

Supreme Court shows the way.

Our way of life is changing faster than we think and so is the definition of everything that we have ever known. Yesterday, the Indian supreme court ruled that the choice of adults to have pre marital sex or to live together with their partners without having being legally married cannot be termed as criminal, rather it is a part of the right that an individual has under the Indian constitution. With this ruling, the court has tried to make an extremely timely point that people need to change their age old point of view on the concept of co-habiting and accept the reality of the day.

While making this point, the court even sited an example of Lord Krishna and Radha who were co-habiting lovers rather than being a married couple. “When two adult people want to live together, what is the offence?” the court said. “Living together is not an offence. Living together is a right to life.”

This view of the Supreme Court is an extremely significant one, because it comes after another landmark judgment announced this year in July, when the Delhi High court overturned a ban on gay sex and had ruled that sex between consenting adults (of same gender) was not a crime. Ordering that the rights of citizens were violated by the 150 year old colonial era law and terming it as illegal, the court declared that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code 1860, in so far as it criminalizes consensual acts of others in private, runs counter to basic human rights guaranteed by articles of the Indian constitution.

I think our courts need to be congratulated on having a modern day view on this sensitive subject, something that even many of the developed countries of the world have not being able to achieve yet. Views like these not only act as milestones towards initiating a thought revolution amongst the members of the society, but also help in steadily breaking down the traditional taboos associated with the concepts of co-habiting or same gender sex.

Congratulations for taking the first step!

There are other ways to promote Marathi.

Politics in Mumbai has been centered on the topic of “Marathi” over the last 2 years and every political party has been scrambling to take up the Marathi cause ever since. Goondas from Shiv Sena and the MNS have even vandalized the city on a few occassions as if it is a desperate attempt to save the Marathi people, their language and its culture. The issue seems to have been blown up so much that it looks as if that Marathi language is about to go extinct or something

It is important to understand that Marathi is not a language spoken by just a few people in the city of Mumbai. Rather, it is one of the 15 most widely spoken languages of the world and one of the top 4 languages spoken in India. It is the oldest of the regional literatures in Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about AD 1000. There are 9.5 Crore (95 Million) speakers of Marathi Language and I think it is highly unlikely that it has any chance of going into extinction in the near future

I agree that it is important to promote the language, but there are other ways to do that. Rather than bashing up people for not being able to read Marathi or by forcefully putting up sign boards in Marathi, there needs to be attempts to promote the language through enhancing its appeal to an average Marathi household or anyone who resides in Mumbai or Maharashtra or anywhere in the world.

If one happens to look around, it’s easy to realize that there are enough good things that are already happening for the betterment of the Marathi language. Last 4 years have seen the creation of over 10 new Marathi TV channels which seem to be doing well. Marathi movies seem to be doing extremely good these days (Infact almost all big private players are entering the Marathi movie industry) and thankfully, no government or political leaders can take credit of these successes.

As far as the government goes, there seems to be a clear lack of a plan on their part as it seems to have a very little idea of what should be done towards the development of the language. In my opinion, the government should allocate more resources towards promotion of Marathi literature, art and culture. Efforts towards identifying and promoting people who want to dedicate themselves for the cause of Marathi language should be the priority rather than getting involved in petty controversies like mandatory knowledge of Marathi for the issuance of taxi permits. Such unnecessary controversies often turn detrimental for the constructive growth of the language and do more bad than good.

Also, Marathi speaking people should promote their language in a more inclusive manner which is not forceful on anyone; people are bound to take notice. A simple example is the fact that today a lot of non Marathi people are lining up to produce, direct or act in Marathi movies while nobody is forcing them to do so. Don’t you think this is a great sign of better times to come?

There is an urgent need for people to get united towards eradicating the menace of these goonda politicians who are trying to instigate Marathi people to take up wrong means. People should be sensible while supporting any political opinion towards the enhancement of the language. Yes the cause is important but so is the means

There are other ways to promote this extremely rich language.