Happily Divorced!

A man and a woman can't be 'just friends'… unless they have gone through a marriage and come out of it alive

- Ananya Ghosh

The divorce lawyer is mighty disappointed. She has landed a couple who have so far not managed to provide her with even an ounce of drama that one would expect from a regular divorce process. And now while filling out the form, they can’t even remember their wedding date and the husband has resorted to ‘phone-a-friend’ for help. Her face reflects her abject exasperation. As they make their way to the court room, the wife stops to click pictures of the staircase while animatedly discussing their evening plan to celebrate the divorce over Old Monk while intermittently cracking lame jokes.

The experience of growing up amid domestic violence and then seeing her parents go through a bitter, prolonged, and complicated divorce, has been instrumental in her becoming a divorce lawyer herself—she wanted to help couples like her parents and make the process less painful. She is still a junior lawyer and is filling in for her ‘ma’am’ on the last day of this divorce hearing, and it is the first time she is encountering such an estranged pair. “I have never seen such a happy couple, are you sure you want this divorce?” she can’t help but ask. “We are happy people because we are not a couple anymore,” quips the woman.

That woman is me. And that was four years ago. My ex-husband and I had an arranged marriage, which lasted for about one and a half years. But it took us about 3 years after my moving out due to compatibility issues to file for a divorce. The reason? Compatibility issues! One of the few things we had (or have) in common is our laziness.