Delhi Live-In On The Edge
“I come from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district. I fell in love with a boy there who is about eight years elder to me but the problem is that my parents will not approve of this relation because of our different castes. I knew that my mother would commit suicide and my father would shoot me dead if they got the wind of it. Vijay and I decided to run away but that didn’t materialise. I told my parents that I wanted to pursue my studies for a higher degree. They were rather reluctant but I somehow cajoled them into sending me to Delhi. I started living in a rented flat. Then after two months Vijay too came and we have started living-in here. It’s been a year. I will get married soon with or without parents,” Shivangi name changed revealed.
Two unmarried persons living life like a married couple out of the wedlock, sharing not only good and bad times, tears and cheers but also the chores and the money to support the tie is what we know as live-in relationship. In Indian society live-in relation has many eyebrows ride up a mile with wrinkles on the nose. It seems a bitter pill to swallow down the throat. It is unhygienically a misfit noun in the society’s grammar book and the term is severely frowned by almost many. However, it’s awaiting a nod from the court.
Though contractual marriages are a distant thing in country like India, live-in relationship is catching a high-pitched fever, a hot fashion statement. Most from outside Delhi are living-in sans all taboos on it. They take it as a trial marriage and also view it as a way to know each other better before finally tying the nuptial knot for good so as to minimise the chances of divorce. They may even walk two different ways if their mental chemistry refuses to agree. In Delhi, many couples are living under the garb of married couples, few hostels and PGs are catering to the needs surreptitiously.
Here hostels and Paying Guests (PGs) system are mushrooming at an alarming pace. Thousands of such accommodations have come up with all the required facilities, though clandestinely, one needs as a hosteller. Some hostels owners feel insecure; they demand that they should be provided a license under some guidelines and norms. They do not even mind shelling out some thousands otherwise every other day they have to wrestle with the problems pertaining to the local Police.
Hostels and paying guests sprout around institutes, colleges and corporate houses. East Delhi is such an example; the whole stretch of Vikas Marg is brimful of organisations like CA Study centre, GNIIT, Air Hostess Academy (AHA) and Frankfinn. Some call centres also fall on this side of the river to make the hostel business a boom. On the other hand many out station students and working lots find it a tad cheap for accommodation. They can get one like meant for ‘couples’ otherwise they can split the room nearby for budget lodging and above all hassle-free and not too many dos and don’ts.
No one knows as to how long it may take for the law to come into force but then there are many unmarried couples living as the married ones. Who cares as long as the landlords get rentals on time?
Many cases have hit the headlines of dailies where a boy and a girl have been living on the sly away from their native towns so as to avoid being spotted but sometimes it turns out to be fatal.
Just a week ago in Noida, a couple attempted to commit suicide by consuming poison. The boy is reported to have gone to the girl’s rented room and the landlord noticed them together and informed the girl’s family in Gawalior fearing defamation and family backlash . And the couple took this extreme step.
Local vocal
“Lately, I had a young girl insisting on accommodation for her and her boyfriend. They wanted to live together. When I turned her down she literally broke down. I do not understand what happened to today’s girls,” said Jasmeet running a plushy PG. She gives to females only after a thorough verification. Everyday she has inquiries with regard to services like ‘hostel for live-in’. One Rakesh Sharma of Ganpati Hostel discloses saying that this stretch of east Delhi has been thickly populated with students; civil services aspirants and working class coming from the adjoining states so are the hostels and PGs mushrooming to accommodate them.
“We are big no to live-in, there is none as such in the area. I’m very particular about all this. I not only ask them for their identity and residential proof but I have an interaction with their parents and their local guardian as well,” said Poonam Pal, has been running a well-furnished air-conditioned girls’ PG in east Delhi’s Shakarpur. Nobody can fool her around by giving false identities or producing fake parents just to trick the landlord. She can make out the difference between a brother and a ‘cousin’ a common term used for a boyfriend.
It’s curfew after 11, if at all there is any one working the graveyard shift she must inform her off hand so that she prepares accordingly and she stands against girls boozing at home. Her olfactory senses catch one down with pints of beer as no girl can pretend to wash her hair with beer. “If any girl wants night out at times under the pretext of someone in a relation falls ill all of a sudden or night shift or party at a friend’s place I do not object but it should be cross checked with her parents or LG(local guardian),” Mrs Pal says candidly on the right angle. She supports live-in relation saying: “what’s wrong with this if two people agree to live together.”
“How can you afford a girl in Delhi despite the fact that the prices of every single commodity are rocketing through the roof? I have seen girls make friends for various purposes like one who can afford pick and drop, shopping, hotels, pubs, discos etc for all that they have different boyfriends. I think that they betray their parents,” Anil working with a monitoring centre feels. Anil has not been too old in Delhi but he seems to have read the Delhi belly well. His friend has recently been out of a live-in after a period of two years as the girl was already in such a relation at the same time. He thinks it’s an expensive affair.
Sushil Kumar Gupta of Gupta Hostel on Vikas Marg vehemently spoke in the negative on the stand, “Because of proximity a huge influx of students and marketing guys is absorbed here only. Besides, many reputed institutes, companies are quite close by, metro connectivity, other facilities and above all accommodation are easily available and that too at cheaper rates. We cannot start or convert our hostel into the one meant for the couples in live-in relationship.”
Priya Jaiswal, 27, from West Bengal, practising chartered accountancy, averres. For live-in is like a trial marriage or sort of a mock test.
Live-in relationship to Gyan is good only when it goes to the marriage but he finds Delhi a tough city to find one.
Arshad Idris coming from Allahabad and putting up at Gupta Hostel on Vikas Marg feels that girls cannot stick to one for long. They just keep changing their boyfriends like anything. Yes, they go around with boys for money who can fulfil their needs. Live-in is even tougher deal, I cannot comment,” he says.
‘STRAIGHT’ COURT MARTIAL
Live-Love-Leave
No damage so long as two minds are living in tune together under the same roof as husband and wife as long as they want and can afford without fears. No alimony in case the relation reaches a sorry pass and finally splits. Cohabitation implies that the parties are having sexual intercourse while living together, but the definition would not apply to a casual sexual encounter. Legal tests have been filed to determine whether cohabitation would refer to the same sex partners, which is important to those involved since “cohabitation” is the basis of certain rights and privileges under various laws, regulations and contracts. The findings of the courts vary on this question, but the trend is to include long-standing homosexual relationships as cohabitation.
The Delhi High Court has ruled: “A partner in a live-in relationship can walk out of it at any point of time without any legal consequence and neither of the partners can complain of infidelity if one ditches the other.” Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra said, “Live-in relationship is a walk-in and walk-out relationship. There are no strings attached in this relationship, nor does this relationship create any legal bond between the parties. People who choose to have live-in relationship cannot complain of infidelity or immorality as live-in relationships are also known to have been between a married man and an unmarried woman or vice versa.”
Cohabiting couples may face difficulties when one of them becomes ill and requires hospitalisation or long-term care. The case of Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson illustrates this problem. Kowalski and Thompson lived together for four years before Kowalski sustained serious head injuries in a 1983 automobile accident. She was left paralysed and seriously brain damaged, but able to communicate. Kowalski’s parents refused to allow Thompson to see her or to participate in decisions about her treatment.
However, the Delhi High Court’s decision must be considered together with the Supreme Court’s earlier decision awarding a share of self-acquired property to a child born into a live-in relationship. In this sense, the Delhi High Court’s statement as to the non-applicability of legal consequences applies principally to the partners themselves.
Girls go for indecent boys: fact file
According to a survey conducted by a leading daily, girls prefer boys with ill mannerism, cheap habits and abusive lingo. As many as 200 colleges were surveyed, experts and researchers say that girls love to go around with those who are insensitive, dubious character and arrogant. A report conducted on human behaviour in Japan says that such boys have more sexual prowess. Peter Johnson from New Mexico State University supports this statement by giving an example of James Bond, Pierce Brasnon. David Smith faculty from Bradlay University travelled around 57 countries and interacted with 35000 people, it is found that males with bad habits leave an impression on most females and their ephemeral relation with them remain successful. Johnson discovered that most females like to establish a relation with indecent boys. On the contrary, New Scientist magazine says that the girls with such raw attitude are too less in number and do not get attracted to bad boys.
“I’m comfortable here in hostel. Of course, I have a boyfriend I just meet him out as my landlord does not allow him. There should be some law where you can live with your boyfriend without much of hassles and there should be some law to support the people like us. Hostel is cool but living in a PG is an ordeal with loads of dos and don’ts,” Divyanshi, 27, an MBA working with a multinational bank said.
There are people who remain evasive, do not interact much fearing the cat out of bag. They portray themselves a holy cow as if they are born last week only. They just pretend not to know the world. “Live-in relationship, I think it’s in no way good, but then dating a guy is cool, there’s no harm,” Gazala Chauhan, 23, an MCA student from Himachal Pradesh, staying as a paying guest, said.
“I believe that there should be some commitment in any relation whatsoever. I do not mind people having a live-in tie, it depends how they carry themselves. If you two like each other for one good reason or the other, go ahead,” Bhawna Prasad 30, a scribe boldly said. But she does not want live-in for herself, she adds in the same breath that she can do any damn thing even elopement (run-away marriage) is no big deal but she has set her LoC. She stays at Pal’s PG.
On the other hand, a girl who comes from Delhi itself, is staying at a PG for she wants freedom, liberty and she can do whatever she feels like doing without anyone meddling with her stuff. “What I do, where I go, it’s nobody’s business, it’s my life, and I want to live my life the way I want,” Bhakti Arora, 19, avers on a note as time won’t turn up, life is just once. She does not mind having a live-in relation as long as there is understanding between two of the individuals; they can even part ways mutually if their mental tuning sours and the hearts split. She believes in live and let live and above all live-in. Umesh, a student, feels that girls prefer cheap and indecent looking boys in the ongoing scenario. They just go about making boyfriends one after another just to show off in their friend circle. “I feel, sporting a friend as such seems somewhat a status symbol, it falls heavy on the wallet many a time as today’s girls are too demanding. One like me with a small wallet cant’ afford one, I want and I can go for a live-in but my parents will object.”
Rafique Ahmed, a restaurateur who, has recently got married, feels, live-in relation is harmless, you go about sharing things not just the work and other related responsibilities, expenditure, rent and the stuff, you can go Dutch, whatever you take up to spend . “I was far happier before I got married. I had a healthy and steady relation but now the same girl declines to adjust with me in any fold. She’s begun to throw weight around. She has become demanding, dominating, loud and too fussy. No one can understand a female, one should get married as it’s a difficult subject to handle,” he complains of females’ volatile nature and multiple mood swings.
Girls seem to be more security oriented at the same time they want to enjoy life to the hilt with, zindagi na milegi dobara type mental format. “In these recent years a sea change has been seen afloat on the surface. Psychological format of a female barring a very few exceptions has changed. First, metropolitan city corrupts even the best of minds, second, the needs, by needs I mean social, emotional, physical and fashion, to satisfy the need and greed you’ve got to have a hefty bundle of dosh. Hunting someone with a long and luxurious car, richly adorned and ostentatious lifestyle attract many girls,” Dr Sanjeev Kalra, a known psychiatrist says.
By Syed wazid ali from New Delhi
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