Leo Tolstoy wrote, “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.”
Couples who come from different backgrounds may deal with family pressures and organise double wedding ceremonies. But for Tollywood cinematographer and a Tamil Hindu, K.K. Senthil Kumar, marrying a Muslim girl, celebrity yoga expert Ruheenaaz C., it was the best decision of his life.
“When I first met Ruhee, I never imagined I’d be marrying a slim, modern girl with extremely short hair. But I was wrong. She had everything I needed and wanted as a life partner. Slowly we started meeting and decided to get married, knowing that it would take a lot of sacrifices.”
They met through a common friend, Deepa, Bhumika Chawla’s stylist. “We met at Bharat Thakur’s house. Deepa insisted I meet her best friend Senthil but initially I was reluctant,” says Ruhee.
They were strangers who met randomly and hit it off instantly. Coming from different cultures, Senthil and Ruhee became the best of friends and after two months of courtship they tied the knot.
Ruhee says, “The days leading up to my wedding were very special. It was an extremely busy time with the shooting of Magadheera at its climax. We had decided that the wedding would happen only after the release but the movie was late by many months… so we went ahead with it during post-production.”
The days leading to their marriage were chaotic. “Since our wedding was in Hyderabad and Senthil too was busy with Magadheera. I was supposed to do all the arrangements by myself. Friends came to our rescue. But for me everything was new. A new city to settle in, in-laws and I was very nervous how marriage would be like,” says Ruhee, who teaches yoga as a consultant at Apollo Wellness Centre and has celebs like Prabhas, Tamannaah as clients.
Recalling an interesting anecdote from the wedding day, Senthil says, “There is a ritual in which the groom points towards the sky and asks the bride if she can see a star called the Arundati nakshatra. The bride is suppose to say yes — even if you don’t see the star. We both went ‘Nah, we didn’t want to begin our lives together with a lie’. So I asked her if she could see the lamppost and she agreed and we both laughed.”
Theirs is an interreligious marriage. But with the support of their families, things did start to change. Everything started to come together. “I was nervous about the families being comfortable with each other and not hurting anyone's sentiments, as my father-in-law was a Muslim and mother-in-law a Catholic and my parents Tamil Hindus. So the only pressure was about everything going right,” says Senthil, and she adds, “Our families came together to grace our marriage from different cities and backgrounds so our priorities were that all should feel comfortable.” The couple, who has two children – six-year-old Ryaan Karttikeyan and five-year-old Dhruva, feels, “Disagreements, conflicts, challenges and difficulties are inevitable in every marriage but resolving them requires knowing that there is a problem, accepting the challenges around it and adjusting to the differences. And for all this to happen you need to communicate. This happens only when you are in love with your spouse and you are willing to go that extra mile for them.” “Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband (me),” laughs Senthil.
