“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” - Robert Benchley.
And then, as Wong Kar Wai would have us believe, ‘somehow everything comes with an expiry date’, (He Zhiwu in Chungking Express). Both statements reflect a different perception of reality and both may find many takers. Though increasingly relationships tend to expire while the can is still half full, those that stand the test of time are the ones that raise eyebrows and provoke questions.

At the same time there are millions of guides to make your relationship better, stronger, to make it last longer. What they all essentially tell you is to keep the spark alive, to communicate and to spend time with each other. All of us know that this is what it takes to make a relationship work, in theory at least. Yet why do people drift apart all the time? And what about couples who made it work when there were no experts dishing out advice at the drop of a hat? Before the days of marriage therapy sessions and self help manuals? How did they make their relationships last beyond lifetimes?

Did they have a secret chant that they recited every night before they went to bed? Was it some secret potion they fed each other? Was it simply a lack of options? Or the acceptance of society’s norms that once married a couple should stay married? Just like today we accept society’s view that if things don’t work out, just give yourself another chance? Or was it the acceptance of a partner himself or herself, the realization that both were on the same ‘side’, that enabled them to look ahead, beyond the boundaries of life and death in the same direction?

It is difficult to fathom the mysteries behind such deep commitment and emotional bliss. But when I see old couples walking in a park, conscious of each other’s presence without needing to make a single gesture or say a word to acknowledge the companion by their side, drifting along in the limitless expanse of time that is theirs, the world seems a more reassuring place. The glow on their faces hints at secrets that every lover would long to discover, but which you have to find alone. I wonder about their journey to that secret place and pray that some day I too will be able to make a pilgrimage to the place where pineapple cans come without expiry dates.

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