like wedding henna, marriages fading over time
Divorce rates in the national capital have been rising at an alarming rate in the past 10 years or so. Divorce petitions have gone up manifold more than a 100 divorce applications are being filed in the city's courts every day. Most of those splitting up are members of India's thriving, urban middle class whose lives have been transformed by India's economic boom and whose aspirations are radically different to those of the earlier generations. It is the Delhi Police's Special Police Unit for Women And Children (SPUWAC) where most couples seeking divorces are formally routed in the city. At the SPUWAC office, professional counselors, both hired and trained by the Government, probe the possibility of reconciliation between the couples. Today, along with women police officers, professional counselors brought from the country's pioneering social work institutes like the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, are making the best of the efforts to save the family first and, in case it fails, then the priority instead is to look for separation on amicable terms without spending much on courts or lawyers. Mostly, the mediators or counselors convince the couples to agree to a one time settlement, so that there is no trouble in the future.
Through women cells, mediators and counselors are at the service of the city's crumbling couples, yet the question arises: Did they really marry to get separated one fine dayIJ Definitely not, but at times living together becomes difficult for two people under one roof. Mostly divorce issues range from domestic violence, dowry, cheating, impotence etc but the major cases in Delhi shows a new trend: Not respecting each other's parents, changed habits, ego issues and intolerance force couples breaking their marriage at remarkably short notice.
When all reconciliation attempts fail, couples go for separation, but at times contested divorces may drag on for years in the court. Delhi's soaring divorce rates is a growing symptom of spats coming in from urban couples that are competing for individual careers, a sense of identity and a set of egos, beyond the fabric of family. It seems marriages for many in the national capital are not so happily ever after. And like the wedding henna, marriages, for many, are not permanent, though reconciliation efforts by agencies abound. Beyond a cultural clash between an older India and a new India, families are mostly affected by ambitions, both local and global, set in the backdrop of a highly competitive world. The worst ever toll of divorce comes on children, and then a new generation of people are being affected for no fault of their own. Understandably, divorces in emerging global cities like Delhi need to be handled carefully as it adds to both mental and physical trauma, apart from social stigma of living as a divorcee. However, it is also true that divorce has socially become more acceptable today than a decade before.
