Marri 'age' - At what age?

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20^th Nov 2009

2:30PM

My father: Karthik, Bad news. Sudha fell down in her office while climbing down the stairs and got her leg fractured.

Karthik: Appa, shall I come?

My Father: Wait I will let you know

FYI, Sudha works and lives in Chengalpattu only.

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3:15PM

My Father: It seems the injury is heavy. It is difficult to cure in Chengalpattu. So we are going to shift her to MIOT hospital, Chennai through ambulance. So you start from Bangalore now and come to MIOT hospital straight away.

Karthik: Ok Appa, I will start now. I ll reach hospital probably by 10:30PM

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Kavitha is already in Chengalpattu since she gave delivery to Nambirajan a month back. Latha also came to Chengalpattu and later she along with my father came to MIOT hospital. We 3 took different responsibilities.

Kavitha and my mother are taking care of Vinu, Sriranjani and Nambirajan. I was with my father helping him throughout the process. Latha is going to be the attender for my sister in hospital.

Sudha was operated on Saturday (21^st Nov) and she was shifted to general ward from ICU yesterday (23^rd Nov) and then only I returned back to Bangalore.

Only because, we 3 siblings were there, my parents were able to tackle the problem without any one else's help.

I have never felt, 4 children were too much for my parents. I (we) have always felt the importance of each sibling throughout my (our) life time.

Now I compare this with the ‘one child’ culture widely getting spread in our society these days. Our generation is planning a lot. We plan till retirement and come to a conclusion that 1 child is more than enough.

Leave alone disappearance of relationships like periamma, periappa, chithi, chithappa,mama etc (uncle, aunt) , leave alone population explosion of our country, there is another side to this 'one child' culture.

Who will be there for that son/daughter after the demise of their parents?  Who will be there to participate in the goods and bads?

I am not recommending everyone to have 4 children. But it is advisable to have at least 2 children (be it of any combination boy-boy, boy-girl, girl-boy, girl-girl). People need some one of their contemporary age as a close relation.

"Ok Karthik, how is this related to the post title?"

Wait wait, I am going to address that only now.

One of the reasons for this ‘one child’ policy is the late marriages happening these days. Boys tend to marry between 28-30 and girls during 26-28. There are proven research about miscarriages during 30s. When a girl, marries after 26, then she will probably give birth to the first child during 28-30. After that, 3 yrs gap for the next child is necessary. So the 2nd child birth ll happen only in 30s.

This is where the couples start thinking like what will be our age when the child attains an age of 20, Will I be able to settle these children before I retire and so on.

I think, the couples should give birth to 2 children before their early 30s for which the marriage should have been done when the guy is during 25-26 and girl during 23-24.

To quote example from my own family, Sudha got married at 24 and she has 2 children now. Even Latha got married at 24 but she had some other issue, so only 1. Kavitha got married during her late 26 and she got a baby just a month back (when she was 28). Now she is reluctant towards 2nd due to age factor.

This is just my personal opinion. You may completely agree, kind of agree or completely disagree . Whatever it may be, pls feel free to share your thoughts.

I know, some well-wishers of mine are now going to ask “Karthik, when is yours?” :)

Don’t worry. Application form will be available online, shortly ;)