Who decides child custody

29th April, yesterday, was the 4th anniversary of my marriage, an arrangement under laws that govern man's social profile. The evening found me alone in my small den, to be pondering aimlessly over the arrangement is breaking to pieces. It is not my intent to delve into the machinations of the breaking down because I wish to tell all of you a different topic, and I'm under an unwritten oath not to vilify the privacy of affairs ( and thus the privacy of my spouse).

We have a three year old daughter. The poor child is soon supposed to be an object of possession as the law will decide where she will fit in the wreckage of contradicting emotions. Law will decide the custody of our child.

I was sharing a couple of personal takes on this entire system or rather than the propriety of its tenements with a friend of mine who has been heartbroken by this development. I thank him for his empathetic stand as he stood by me.
And I thought I'll put my point of view in front of all of you. If you feel like, let me hear you out. If time has taught us to be silent over the issue, I consciously question the supposedly disambiguate legal philosophy that guides the courts to just decisions. I ask in honesty, loud and clear.

I OPENLY QUESTION THE LAW THAT HAS EXISTED TILL NOW. I DO NOT AGREE WITH IT.

There's a whole lot of contradiction here as far as justice in custody claim is concerned. I like to push The Woman in the forefront. I can be called a soft feminist. And I don't question a mother's emotions, her rights. It's not about winning or losing. It's about the rules of the game, and I can dare to hope that mothers will agree with my focus - fairness and justice.

Matrimonial separation is supposed to be guided by laws relevant to the society and its times.
But I'm realising that when it comes to child custody, you just can't afford to bring it under a set of laws that are objective in nature. There are so many nuances in the play of Psyche because here's a child, from your flesh and blood(there's a reason why I put that in a phrase, crass with an organic overtone)and his future, so parental affection cannot be placed under objective scrutiny.

I didn't have any idea of the immensity & intensity of a love so pure, can fill up a father's entity. I never knew that I would be able to have so much of love for another human being, it's different. When she falls asleep on your shoulder clinging on to you to the gentle tune of a quiet lullaby, the feeling is imcomprehensible. A warm little bundle of innocence & love has surrendered all worries for the warmth of your embrace - you feel gratified and yes grateful too. Life seems complete.

It's not some property dispute over its possession, it's yours, and yes as much as it is her mother's. I don't know but can try to have an idea of maternal instinct. It might be a trillion times intense than yours, but that is nature's law, your love can by no means be quantified by rules set by men of a different era, drawn mostly from the prevalence of precedence.
The point is : you are filled with love to the brim, just as a mother's. THAT is the point. The mother is fulfilled 100% by her love for a child but so are you,100%. There is no an iota of breached slander anywhere. If one doesn't know how to swim, a big lake doesn't hold any less threat than an ocean does for him if he falls in the water. He'll drown anyway.

I find it outrageous that the child custody part of a divorce is determined by prefixed, outlandishly glorified set of norms put down in paper by ink.
My chest tightens up as I write these words, but I'm in no way contesting for full custody of my daughter, through my protest. That would be unfair on her mother if I win. Because if I see it from the other side, there's no reason why I shouldn't express my plead with the same intensity of emotions.

Child custody is a subjective matter, and I know justice has to be meted out. I think the rules of marriage should be made very strict as far as subsequent parting of parents are concerned. Parents with a child should have to think a million times before proceeding to separate (to deny the child its natural right to command the love of two doting parents).
We chose to share our love for a child in our lives so that it is fulfilled with Love,& we do not have the right to take away pieces from her fulfillment. And I refuse to surrender my paternal affection to a set of laws that is corrupt in content of thought. It is my love for her that gives me strength, and I'm going to make a lot of noise so that the rattling takes my perspective far and wide.
I want to hear some noise here.
ж ANIRBANSPEAK
<http://anirbanspeak.blogspot.com>

Sent from my BlackBerry®
Anirban Chaudhuri,
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India.
✉ drchodri@yahoo.co.in
✆ +919870611252
☎ +912228440150/51
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"Whatever I did, I did it my way..