Delusional Illusion - The Marriage

The other night I was out at the bar, enjoying some time away from the house and the kids. I’m a stay at home mom, so every couple of weeks I need a break. NEED.

I like to go out singing at my favorite karaoke bar. It lets me stretch out in my own skin for a while without any demands being made of me. It’s rejuvenating.

Since my favorite hobby happens to take place at a bar, I do get hit on from time to time. After ten years of marriage, I’ve gotten used to explaining to guys that I’m not only married, I’m committed-married. One would think a gold band on the third finger of the left hand would do it, but more often than not it simply elicits questions like, “Well, does that matter?” or “If you’re married, why isn’t your husband here with you?” – as if to imply that married people aren’t allowed hobbies of their own or time apart.

This last time I was out, however, I had an experience that changed the way I think about my answer to those questions.

A nice man (and, yes, married people can find other people nice) was chatting with me when suddenly the questions shifted a bit and I could tell he was starting to feel out if I was available. He was polite about it, and after I told him I was married, he asked, “Do you think it’s forever?”

I’d never been asked that before, in that context.

My reflex response was, “Well, yes – he’s my best friend!” I then talked for a bit about our life together, and some of the high-level stuff that made this a “forever” marriage.

That night as I drove home, though, the question came back to me. I thought about it’s implications some more, and I had some really beautiful revelations.

This is a forever marriage.

He truly is my best friend.

I can be out in the world and see other people who are attractive, intelligent, engaging, and fun, but they are all of those things in that moment.

My husband is all of those things to me, forever.

The man I’ve met in the moment has no idea which album is my favorite to listen to on Sunday morning while we make brunch.

He doesn’t know how to push my buttons by purposely mispronouncing words, or the hilarious arguments that can invoke.

He doesn’t know that when I grab his hand in a certain way, what I’m asking for is an epic thumb wrestling war.

He couldn’t possibly know the words to the song we made up about our old dog, sung to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot. This man I’ve just met doesn’t know that I can be depressed in the winter, and that I need a little extra emotional support over the months of February and March.

Or that I can be an explosive rage monster when I’m stressed out.

He might not be prepared to be a crazy hippie with me, raising and slaughtering chickens and rabbits for meat.

He sure as hell wasn’t there to keep our family from starving to death when we were homeless for a time in 2009.

He hasn’t put in the long hours of grueling work so his children could be raised at home by one of their own parents, which we agreed to do from the time we first discussed having a family together.

He didn’t intuitively know how to push a pressure point in my back during labor to ease my tension and make for an amazing, spiritual birth of our son.

He certainly didn’t conceive that son with me on a cold Valentine’s night on a crappy old mattress on the floor of a crappy old apartment that perpetually smelled like pot from the neighbors down the hall. It was the first place we lived with four solid walls after losing our house, and it felt like a mansion.

I’ve always known that we have a “forever” marriage (day by day we choose to make it so), but until I was asked that question in that context, I hadn’t really thought about the entirety of what was behind my response when I’d say, “I’m married.”

The guys who ask, “Are you happy?” are asking about now. And, truthfully, not every moment of a marriage is going to be happy. That question doesn’t examine where you’ve been or where you’re going. It asks you about now, because the goal for them is for satisfaction now. But, I never answer the question in the “now.”

Marriage isn’t a “now” thing. It’s a continuum.

I’ve turned down nice guys, creepers, and your average drunk who is throwing out lines in every direction hoping for a nibble. My rejection of the man has nothing, NOTHING, to do with who they are.

It has everything to do with who my husband is, and what our marriage is.

He is my best friend. And our marriage is, day by day, forever.

Marriage isn’t cheap, and it isn’t something to be taken for granted – real marriage is forever. Click below to share if you agree.

Hasnen Anwar Warekar & The Killings

The residents of Kasarvadavli village in Thane woke up to a horrific sight of a woman in blood soaked clothes, her throat slit, begging for help. She was trying to escape from her brother who had killed 14 members of his family.

Hasnen Anwar Warekar (35), allegedly killed his wife, two kids, four sisters, parents and six of his nephews and nieces with a butcher’s knife before committing suicide by hanging himself.

The sole survivor of the massacre is Hasnen’s 22-year-old sister Subiya, whose screams roused the neighbours and brought the police to their doorstep.   It is with the help of traumatized Subiya, who has received 25 stitches on her neck, that the police is trying to reconstruct the sequence of events eading to the midnight killings.

On Saturday, Hasnen had invited his three sisters and their children home for dinner. While no specific occasion was cited, he insisted that everybody joins him at his house. “Subiya, who stays in Koparkhairne, initially refused to join them since her daughter, Arsiya (5 months), was unwell. But he went to her house and picked her up and would not take a ‘no’ for an answer,” said a relative of the family.

It is suspected that Hasnen, an accountant, had laced their food with a sedative and slashed their necks after they went to bed, all of them having decided to spend the night at the house.

Incidentally, all of them retired to different rooms with Hasnen and his family going to sleep upstairs, the parents in the hall area and the sisters in another bedroom on the ground floor. Preliminary investigation by the Thane police suggests that Hasnen had procured a butcher’s cleaver used for sacrificing animals during festivals and killed his wife and children first. He then came downstairs and killed his parents before proceeding to kill his sisters and their children.

What has baffled the police is the apparent lack of motive as Hasnen was known to be a quiet and unassuming person with no known mental ailment. One of the theories doing the rounds is the possibility of the massacre being a ritual slaying which possibly had something to do with the accountant’s skewed understanding of the concept of ‘qurbani.’ Hasnen worked with a private company in Mumbai and had no known financial troubles or disputes.

Hasnen stayed with his wife Jabin (28), two kids — Mubashira (6) and Humaira (3 months) — in a two storey house in Kasarvadavli villa off Ghodbunder Road.  His parents — Anwar Warekar (55) and Asagadi (50) and an unmarried sister Batul Warekar (30) — also stayed with him. Three sisters — Subiya Bharmal (22), Maria Fakhi (28) and Sabeena Khan (35) — were married and stayed elsewhere in the city.

At around 2.30 am, a neighbour heard the sound of a vessel being struck on a window. When she checked it out, she heard a faint scream; the alert neighbour roused others in the cluster who rescued Subiya after breaking open a window grill.

“Subiya was standing at the window sill on the ground floor: her clothes were soaked in blood and she was screaming for help. When we tried to open the front door, she warned us that her brother Hasnen was out there with a knife and he had killed everybody in the house; also, that he was trying to kill her too. She asked us to break open the window grill and get her out,” said one of the rescuers giving a graphic account.

Sources claim that after Hasnen slit Subiya’s throat, he killed her five-month-old daughter in front of her. She also saw her one of her sisters and their children’s throat being slit. “She did not succumb to her injuries like the others and pretended to be dead; after he left the room, she dragged herself to the bedroom and managed to lock it from the inside. She then started hurling vessels on the window to wake up the neighbours,” said a relative.

Some of the neighbours, who tried getting into the house through another window, claim that they saw Hasnen allegedly roaming around the house with a knife. “He was alive when we got Subiya out. But five minutes later, when we tried to enter through the kitchen window, we saw him hanging from the ceiling fan with the bloodied knife in his hand,” said Farzan, a childhood friend of Hasnen. The police were alerted and they broke open the front door.

“There was blood everywhere – splattered on the walls, on the floor, on bed-sheets. It was horrific,” said an officer who first reached the house.

Death of British indie-pop band Viola Beach members along with their Manager

Four young members of British indie-pop band Viola Beach have died, along with their manager, when their car plunged through the barrier of an open bridge into a canal in Sweden.

Swedish police said the men, aged between 20 and 35, were killed in the early hours of Saturday when the vehicle plunged more than 25m (82ft) through a gap in the highway bridge which had opened to let a boat pass underneath.

The band, made up of four friends from their hometown of Warrington, Cheshire, were guitarist and vocalist Kris Leonard, 20; guitarist River Reeves,19; bass player Tomas Lowe and drummer Jack Dakin, 19. Manager Craig Tarry, 32, was the fifth person in the car.

The up-and-coming band was in Sweden to perform at the Where’s the Music? festival in Norrköping on Friday night. It was their first overseas gig.

The bridge, at the Saltskogs junction between the E4 and the E20 motorways, in the Sodertalje area of Stockholm, has a middle section that rises directly upwards without tilting, leaving a gap that the Nissan Qashqai drove into, Swedish police said.

A barrier, 50m before the opening, has flashing lights and signs warning there is a bridge opening, the officer handling the case said.

Inspector Martin Bergholm said: "For some reason, the car drove through the barriers and crashed down into the canal."

Police received a call at about 2.30am and were first to arrive on the scene, a "maximum five minutes" later. Police and fire brigade divers recovered five bodies.

The band is described on its Twitter page as "Bucketloads of loveliness and 'dreamy shoegaze pop'." It was just weeks away from playing a sold-out homecoming gig at Warrington's the Pyramid on March 12.

Viola Beach was also due to play at the Boiler Room in Guildford, in Surrey, on Saturday night with fellow band Blossoms, but the gig was subsequently cancelled.

The group - who have a huge and loyal UK fanbase - had also announced plans to play their biggest home town show at Warrington's Parr Hall on October 1.

The singer Billy Bragg posted a message on Twitter saying: "Tragic news about Viola Beach. Young band, first tour outside the UK. My thoughts are with their families and friends."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "We can confirm that five British nationals died in a car accident in Sweden on February 13.

"We are in contact with local authorities and supporting the families at this difficult time."

Truck driver Jonny Alexandersson told the Stockholm-based news website Aftonbladet that he was behind two other stationary vehicles when the car drove past at "at least 70-80km/h (45-50mph)" as the warning lamps flashed and two barriers blocked the road.

He said he heard a loud bang when the car drove into one of the beams on the bridge, then it disappeared.

"Many were obviously very shocked by this," he told the news site.

Folkert Koopmans, the CEO of FKP Scorpio, which arranged the festival in Norrköping, said: "It is horrible, a huge tragedy. I saw them playing on Friday night and it was actually the first time they played outside of the UK. They were really excited about it. My thoughts are with their families and friends.”

Kris explained last year how he formed Viola Beach with drummer Jack Dakin after bumping into him at Warrington bus station.

The pair both went to Bradshaw Primary School, in Grappenhall, Cheshire, but had lost touch with each other.

Kris had already met guitarist River Reeves on a music course at Priestley College and met bassist Tom at Warrington bar 'The Lounge'.

The Lounge was also where the band played their warm up show before making their debut at Liverpool's legendary Cavern Club on July 15.

Kris, said: "To play in this historic venue in front of all these industry people was a wake-up call.
"We had someone there from SJM Concerts who are now promoting our shows for us."

Viola Beach have also had airplay from Huw Stephens on Radio 1, Steve Lamacq from 6 Music and Jo Good at XFM.

The band's last post on Facebook was on February 2, when they excitedly wrote about playing a huge

gig in the USA next month - as they started to break into America.

They posted: "Very excited to announce we've been invited by to play BBC Introducing and PRS for Music Foundation's showcase at SXSW Music Festival in Austin Texas at Latitude 30 on Wednesday 16th March!!"

Viola Beach have become one of the fastest growing bands on the music scene after frontman and former cleaner Kris Leonard sent a track to BBC Introducing while in local newspaper The Warrington Guardian's office toilets.

The four-piece went on to tour with the Courteeners and work with Communion Records founder and Mumford and Sons producer Ian Grimble.

David Bowie Dies of Cancer aged 69

Singer David Bowie, one of the most influential musicians of his era, has died of cancer at the age of 69.

A statement was issued on his social media accounts, saying he "died peacefully, surrounded by his family" after an "18-month battle with cancer".

Tributes have been paid from around the world to the "extraordinary artist" whose last album was released days ago.

Sir Paul McCartney described him as a "great star" who "played a very strong part in British musical history".

Bowie's son Duncan Jones, who directed Bafta-winning film Moon, wrote on Twitter: "Very sorry and sad to say it's true. I'll be offline for a while. Love to all."