Should Amrita be generous?

In a poll conducted on Mumbai Mirror, we asked women in the city if Saif Ali Khan came knocking on ex wife Amrita Singh’s door, should she forgive and forget and accept him back into her life. (The chap’s just broken off with girl friend Rosa.) And many women were of the opinion that the estranged wife must not accept her ‘unreliable’, ‘philandering’ pati, that such a ‘cheater’ cannot and must not be trusted. The responses reminded me of Mahesh Bhatt’s autobiographical film, ‘Arth’. The betrayed wife Pooja, played by Shabana Azmi, refuses to accept her cheating husband with that all-important question: “Would you have accepted me back into your life if I was in your place?”

Now, I realise this is a complex issue with no easy answers. Also, the question of children comes into play. In Saif’s case, the actor is known to be very close to his kids, so should not Amrita, for their sake, give her husband another chance? Clearly, this is a grey zone and it’s foolish to expect pat black and white solutions.
However, here’s my own uneducated view in this matter: When I look at people around me, I see rampant cheating. And this sort of cheating happens on the hide, where the man/woman strays clandestinely, and when the affair fizzles out (most of these diversions tend to be transient in any case), they simply resume lives as if nothing happened. The people I speak of don’t necessarily see this as an issue. They have no intentions of leaving home and hearth, but also don’t see it as a sin to ‘enjoy’ that what life has on offer… the zip and excitement that’s missing in their otherwise predictable lives. As a close friend once said, “That what is not told, can do no harm.” And in our changed, very liberal times, I see this tweaked ideology of relationships becoming increasingly inevitable. Today, couples find it hard to maintain the so-called sanctity and sacredness of marriage, they have learnt to live with the truth that diversions can AND will happen. Once we accept that changed reality, perhaps the concept of marriage will survive rather than die because of reasons of infidelity.

Coming back to Saif, what Amrita chooses to do will be decided by her own sensibility. However, we have to admit unlike the rest of the zillions of cheating partners, whatever Saif did, he at least did it openly… he wasn’t having fun on the hide, while pretending to be faithful. And ironic though this may sound, this makes him, in my judgment at least, an honest man who should be sympathised with, even respected, and not crucified.