Will You Cancel Your Honeymoon For A Cricket Match?

Cricket is a religion in India, we all know that. But how steadfast are its followers is clear in the findings of a recent survey in which 42 percent people said that they will choose to cancel their honeymoon for a crucial cricket match if their preferred team or athlete was playing the match. According to a report in The Times Of India, the survey also found that Indian cricket fans are very optimistic, as compared to fans from other nations. 44 percent of Indian cricket fans believed that they will see their team win an international tournament in the coming year, as compared to the global average of 34 percent. But I cannot even bother to process the latter part of data about optimism, as I am still stuck with 42 percent of people choosing to cancel their honeymoons for a cricket final. Is it that cricket presides over everything for a good amount of people in our country? Or is it just that honeymoon isn't a big priority for couples anymore?

SOME TAKEAWAYS:

• 42 percent people said in a survey that they would cancel their honeymoon for a crucial cricket match.
• Does this data come as a surprise in a cricket crazy nation?
• Does it matter whether you choose to watch a cricket event over your honeymoon, as long as you are on the same page as your partner?
• Would you take it lightly if your partner chose cricket over devoting their time to you so early in a marriage?

Is it that cricket presides over everything for a good amount of people in our country? Or is it just that honeymoon isn't a big priority for couples anymore?

Mind you that there is no mention of gender in these statistics. As per a research conducted by ICC last year, women made up for 39 percent of cricket fans in our country, which is quite substantial. So, one will proceed assuming that an ardent female cricket fan is as much likely to cancel her honeymoon, and a male fan, to root for her favourite player or team. Why does this data unsettle me? Perhaps not being a cricket fan it is difficult for me to see a person choose a sporting even over something that could help you lay a solid foundation for the coming years of your marriage.

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In India, even today a majority of couple choose to get into matrimonial alliances arranged by their families. Which means that you have a limited access to your partner before you get married. Honeymoon thus becomes a period when you get to focus on your relationship truly for the first time. You not only get to know each other better, but it is also perhaps the only time when you devote your time fully to your partner, before work, children, friendships or tediousness takes over your relationship.

Having said that, not everyone has the same priority, which is why, to a lot of people honeymoon is way lower on the priority list than a lot many things. Would you hold it against a person for cancelling their honeymoon for the sake of work? Or because a crucial family engagement has cropped up? Perhaps you will, but then, what matters, in the end, is that you are on the same page with your partner. That your partners has an equal say, irrespective of gender, in whether you should cancel your honeymoon for any reason.

Romance and dedication form the foundation of a marriage, along with the amount of agency both partners have. If you push your wife or husband to cancel your honeymoon for a match, it could disbalance the dynamics that you share with them in more ways than one. Not many people would like to have a match prioritised over them, or perhaps they may feel let down for not being given a voice in the decision that you chose to make singlehandedly. It takes two people to make a relationship work, thus honeymoon or cricket match, whatever be the choice, it should be a unanimous decision.

Image Credit: Zimbio

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Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are the author’s own.