In recent times, I hear and read a lot about ‘Relationship’.

Thesaurus says ‘the way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected.’

Surprisingly, this topic has been spoken both by young as well as old. It is widely discussed and written in the media. The context in which the old and the young speaks only varies.

Let me first talk about the younger generation’s concept of ‘relationship’. The arc is quite a big one starting from platonic, emotional to physical. All understandably depend on the individuals in relationship. These, in case, turned out to be love, and to end in marriage, it definitely has to endure for long. Does it? I am a bit uncertain about it. Because once two persons enter into matrimony, a lot of adjustments and compromises have to be made whether they like or not. But, if they are just in ‘relationship’ without matrimony they can say ‘quits’ at anytime. A new gen movie I watched recently in Kannada spoke about it. Marriage, as one understands involves legal binding than emotional. So, today I think many youngsters who are on their own prefer ‘relationship’ than ‘marriage’.

Surprisingly, in a country where a lot of literature, religious and moral tags have been attached to one-man-one-woman relationship, that too through matrimony has started crumbling slowly. So even widowers and widows, separated and divorced look for ‘relationship’ individually and also through agencies. I was, in fact, shocked by the crowd gathered in Gujarat some years back where an agency had arranged a meeting for elderly loners to choose a companion or partner. Here I am not sure with the least possibilities of physical, how the platonic or emotional quotient can have influence on the couple. There are exceptions for this also.

The relationships between elder family members, siblings and cousins nowadays do not carry much value. Friendship had almost replaced all these. Most of the parents and children and their families are financially independent and live away from each other. Parent-children contacts have drastically gone down and that is one reason why we find a lot of luxury senior citizens’ home to free asylums for the abandoned.

Personally speaking I find all relationships survive as long as the emotional bonding binds the two individual souls; be it husband and wife, friends or family members. The ‘emotion’ angle also can start withering with time and lack of contact. It is bound to. Yes. After a period of time, in many cases, the emotional connect also breaks. Out of touch, out of mind. No blame on any party. Today, I started believing that any relationship also comes with a price tag (not always, some times) and also an expiry date.

Yes. In some cases, it lasts long; I feel they are exceptions.

The only relationship one can be sure of is their personal connect with God or Almighty; because it is purely based on faith and faith only from one side.