Emotional Trauma/Torture = Normal Wear & Tear?

With reference to an article in the Times of India “Marital tiff not cruelty, can’t be basis for divorce”, a few points come to mind:

1. How do you prove emotional trauma/torture in court?
2. When you fear to return to your house and spouse after work everyday, is it normal wear and tear?
3. Does the court recognize the fact that certain couples are incompatible and that incompatibility could be the reason for the absence of trust, respect and responsibility?
4. How do you prove the absence of trust, respect and responsibility in court?
5. Why is it that the judicial system recommends that divorce be granted only when people are "at fault" and does not usually recognize that relationships can suffer "irretrievable breakdown"?
6. The court considers marriage to be a sacred ceremony and worries about the future of marriage due to the flooding of divorce petitions. Why is it so easy to get married and so difficult to get divorced?
7. In marriage and divorce cases, should the court consider prevention to be the best cure (unlike criminal cases where the court needs to act after the problem arises)?
8. Should counseling and third-party mediation/certification be made mandatory before marriage rather than before divorce? Maybe, couples who are getting married should also visit the District Family Court and observe the proceedings for a day or two, and understand the shoddy environment and situation, the pain and agony and also, the prevalent deceit inside and outside court.
9. If the court assumes that the couple were adults at the time of marriage, should not the court assume the same at the time of divorce?
10. Does the court recognize the fact that in lots of cases, couples have gone “through hell” and life could be on the brink of disaster without aggravating and destroying lives by prolonging cases and waiting for couples to reach some kind of mutually agreed divorce?
11. Is there justice if it is delayed and can the court take a few years of life if not all?
12. Does the court recognize “the stigma of being divorced” and does the court condone such a thought which seems to be similar to an old custom where widows (and maybe, widowers) were treated as stigma?

Proposal 3 (2001)

The winter’s been long and harsh.
The fields like awakened graveyard
With lines of trees mere skeletons.
Escaping from palaces-or gaols?-
Across empty parks with long shadows
With the blue sky along promising hope.

I followed a lone cloud,
To a world of reflections;
I see a face in those waters,
Once shy, once sly, teasing.
Scared to reach and touch and disturb.
With a smile, she continues the chase.

It’s a journey through shades.
Ground rug-worn, grass crushed,
And couples in the distance.
In the light or in the shadows?
Under trees, behind bushes or in the open?

Choices. For then or now?

There are messages etched on trees,
And the velvet ground beckons.
Let’s rest for a while.
And listen to birds, our breath,
Echoes of the sounds of past lovers.
Let’s leave our mark. Shall we?

My lady, forgive this simple mind
For conjuring often used sights.
Is old love bad love? I wish I knew.
Material truths can be unkind.
Let fantasies make paupers knights.

Fantasies or love? I wish I knew.

Away, away from princely tales.
What does a man need?
From the edge of our land,
Over wild flowers and a silent vale,
Spying fog-laden mountains,

Whispering secrets, hand in hand.

Step out onto the balcony, my love.
Beyond those mountains, there’s a tribe
Racing for money, buying selling company.
Here, in little rooms in little plots
With prayers from lips to lips, lovers stand bare,
Watching this same serene sight.

Come back within and make me whole.
Should we step lightly on these floorboards?
And rest gently upon these sheets?
Feel the air pregnant with passion.
No more a captive. No more restraints.
Let’s follow His will – to live and to love.

Proposal 2 (2001)

Can you guess who she is?
Is she praying or…?
Can you guess where I am?
Am I kneeling or…?
How do I mould her blush and my breath?
You know the answers.

Proposal 1 (2001)

Skeletons in the closet. Are there?
From the Neanderthal in animal skins
To cosmopolitan Mr. Anonymous.
Buried deep or loosely scattered,
I gather the fragments hoping
To capture the heart and the mind. Fool!