My Marriage to Aishwarya Ray

I married Aishwarya Ray (Aish) last month yielding to her relentless request. Little did I know at that time what was in store for me!

Within the first week of our marriage, I faced death threats from Salman Kaun, Vivek Kabirai and Abhishek Pachpan. If that was not enough, I escaped two attempts at my life and after each incident, all of them called to say that they were not behind it. I even wonder if Salman saw me as a ‘black buck’...

We went to London, Venice and Paris for our honeymoon. We avoided Switzerland since I knew that Abhishek’s chacha lived there. And Vivek was already hiding in the hills of Scotland – wide awake, though 'avivek'.

I did everything you would expect a newly-married groom to do on a honeymoon – book the tickets, open the door, and even make tea in the morning, and expecting Aish only to help me colour-coordinate my dress in return (what did your evil mind think?). But not only did she not do so, but she ruined me by shopping from every shop in the places we visited. Before marriage, I used to catch her in my arms but afterwards I started catching her in my pockets.

Whenever she embarks on one of her shopping expeditions, she used to announce, "I am going to do some shopping. I will be back in about $50,000 or so." Probably I am being too harsh on her; I must admit that she shopped only twice during the week - once for three days, once for four.

The demands went soaring from London itself when Aish asked for the Kohinoor diamond. I should have seen it coming from the bluish green (or was it grayish violet?) glint in her eyes when we were headed for the Tower of London. I got out of the situation by saying that we would have to negotiate with the Queen, which I assured her we will do while visiting Buckingham Palace (I am sure you have guessed by now that we did not visit Buckingham Palace later).

When I hailed a cab and told the cabbie, “The lady wants to go to Macy’s”. The cabbie, who I realize now was an intelligent chap, gave me a quizzical look and asked, "And the gentleman? Does he want to go to the bank before?" I still did not take the cue. On the way when Aish saw YMCA, she remarked, “Look, they spelled MACY’S wrong!”

It was a moonlit evening in Paris and we were atop the Eiffel Tower, when Aish, on spotting Louvre, said that she wanted to buy the Monalisa for her dadi in India. Imagine having to explain to the stewardess the reason for carrying the world’s most famous painting in the cabin! In Venice, she wondered if we could take couple of Gondolas to India. I had a tough time convincing her that our yachts in India were far superior. To cut the short story further short, I have become bankrupt due to Aish. I am visiting Paris next month to appear for the hearing of my bankruptcy application. My luck has become so bad that even my bank is in trouble. They returned my cheque with the comment 'insufficient funds'.

This is the kind of incident I believed would happen to someone else; but unfortunately I did not realise that I was also 'someone else' to someone else. I am sure harried (read ‘married’) men, who have had similar shocking (read ‘shopping’) experiences with their wives will empathize with me. I have served the divorce notice to Aish, considering that Christmas is just few months away. I am going to be more careful in future while considering marriage with Angelina Dolie and Sushmita Pen, who are pestering me. If you know about their shopping habits, please do drop me a 'line offline' (I liked the rhyme); I will be indebted to you and not to my financiers as I am now.

In case, somebody thinks that this post is a result of my imagination, I have attached a photo of Aish and me kissing, taken during our honeymoon. That should probably convince all doubting Thomases, Peters, Pauls, Joneses, et al.

[Disclaimer: Any resemblance to people alive, dead or not yet born may or may not be coincidental, but is definitely not intentional]