The Post-Marriage Story (Part I)

Santosh Helekar

As advertised, I present below a short account of what happened after the two sons in Bambino's riddle got married. This is indeed a post-marriage story as George billed it to be, and a marital one at that.

But it is actually about three marriages, and not just the two of the two sons. As you might have guessed the cow married the goat. What follows is Part I of a two part post-marriage story.


Part I – The Marriage of the Sons

The sons married two well-mannered, soft-spoken and non-opinionated Goan women who had become religious because they enjoyed the freedom of thought that religion offered, despite having read an old clipping of a 1964 article in the Navhind Times, by an elusive Goan journalist who had warned that there is no such thing as freedom of thought.

"It's all an illusion", he had written, exhibiting a sense of condescension and arrogance that made you wonder whether it was all a lie, not very different from the ones that are rumored to be told in a far away land called Houston. He was known to be a man of superior intellect, but also had the distinctive ability to intuit with the help of his heart.

The two damsels, however, were unusually loving and caring, and had time even for people who might be prejudiced, and who might have the tendency to hold forth authoritatively on topics beyond their field of expertise. And above all, the two women thought with their hearts.

On the other hand, the sons were a pair of unemotional anti-hedonists who thought only with their minds. Their only redeeming quality was that they were staunch believers in the infallibility of received wisdom, by virtue of which, they too enjoyed the apparently illusory freedom of thought. But the unfortunate circumstance of their being averse to all forms of hedonism landed them in serious marital trouble with their loving wives, right from the very first night.

Their long departed father, the puritanical ultraconservative bhatcar that he was, having made a killing as an opportunistic moralizer, had made sure his sons were untainted by scandal, even though he himself was finally caught with his pants down.

He had therefore schooled them in all the commandments of life, except for the one that creates it. He had made it a point to burn, just before he died, the only two copies of Kamasutra that he had in his possession under lock and key for most of his life. One copy, he had secretly bought for himself.

The other was given to him, as a parting gift by his dear mistress who had made good of an opportunity to elope with a pesky globetrotting ex-president of the United States, whose irresistible charm she had come under without abdicating her illusory freedom of thought.

So the bhatkar's sons had had no occasion to sneak a peek into either one of the two copies of the Kamasutra. Is it any wonder then that they grew up believing that God created each new human in His own image, without the intervention of man?

Thus, the two sons and their wives had a problem on their hands.

There had to be a way to teach the husbands the art of procreation. But it was a difficult task, because the two wives wanted to make certain that their anti-hedonist husbands would not be able to discern the distinction between procreation and recreation. This was very important, considering the fact that they were receiving anonymous phone calls, in the middle of the night, from some one on the east coast of the United States, who kept insisting there was such a distinction, and that even Stephen Jay Gould had plucked it out of polluted air. But knowing that their husbands were also anti-evolutionists by instinct, they felt that the best way to fool them would be to highlight the fact that both procreation and recreation share "creation" between them.

And yet, how does one solve this marital problem in the most judicious way? Of course, old Solomon, the wise would be the obvious answer, although such an obvious answer was not apparent to the two conservative sons who proceeded to ask that question repeatedly in many different ways.

In any case, finally the day arrived when the two sons with their wives marched up to King Solomon's court and presented their problem. Sol heard their plea patiently and without prejudice. Not even an initial mental response such as "Patronizing rubbish" or a gut reaction of "So what" sprang in his mind. Then without the least bit of hesitation, he asked in soft but authoritative voice, even though this topic was now outside his field of expertise (He had recently become a musician), "Do you have the Bible with you?"

The two sons and their wives, with a look of puzzlement on their faces ventured, "Yes – Of course!" "Then read it, and your problem will be solved", said old Sol. "But don't read the whole thing. Just read the Song of Solomon. It can beat the Kamasutra any day."

The two wives, in utter disbelief but with biting curiosity, began to wrestle for the only copy that they were carrying with them. One of them managed to snatch the copy and open it. And lo and behold! - as if by some miracle, the holy book lay open at the exact page that had the verses from the Song of Solomon printed on it. A quick look at one of the lines was all they needed for their faces to light up like sunrays bouncing off the cold white snow in Canada, where they see illusions everywhere they look.

The line that they chanced upon read:

Song of Solomon 1:2
"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine."

Unable to contain their excitement they read further:

1:13
"A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts."

2:3
"As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."

2:6
"His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me."

2:16
"My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies."
(This is simply one of the most beautiful lines I have ever read).

3:4
"It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me."

4:5
"Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies."

4:11
"Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon."

4:16
"Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."

5:4
"My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him."

5:5
"I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock."

7:6
"How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!"

7:7
"This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes."

7:8
"I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples."

7:12
"Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves."

8:3
"His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me."


And it was everything that the two sons and their wives ever could have asked for.


(This concludes the first part of the post-marriage story, the second part is about the marriage between the cow and the goat.)

From: "santoshhelekar" <Chimbelcho@a...>
Date: Tue Apr 30, 2002 2:41 am

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