After seeing quite a lot of hype, I finally watched the #MyChoice video starring Deepika Padukone and a handful of others. (Calling it Deepika Padukone’s video was a little too much.) I personally support a number of points from the video just because that is how I think, that’s the kind of person I am. For example, I do not think there is anything immoral about having sex before marriage. I do not think it is mandatory for anyone to be a virgin if they have to get married. But whether you want to marry a virgin or not is your choice, I am not against that either. If you don’t want to get married to someone who is not a virgin, suit yourself. There is nothing wrong in that. But you wanting to marry a virgin does not mean someone who has lost their virginity before marriage is a slut. That is his/her choice. As long as we respect that, we are civilized.

This article is not about the video because people have already analyzed and counter-analyzed the video word-by-word. I don’t find the need to add another article to the lot choosing whether the message of the video was right or not. However, one point which made quite a lot of row from the video caught my attention as I have been for some time thinking of writing on it. I am not taking just one sentence in the video out of context and accusing the makers of sending a wrong message – I am not. I am just writing out my views on it which have been in my mind already.

As you have guessed already, it is about having sex outside marriage. Most people misunderstood ‘sex outside marriage’ as having an extramarital affair while it just means ‘sex without getting married’, which is absolutely fine as I said before. But in their urge to support the video, without even understanding the correct meaning of the lines, I saw a number of people justifying extramarital affairs or even sleeping with someone else when you are in a committed relationship with someone. Developing serious feelings for another when you are already committed to someone else is, no doubt, one of the saddest and worst reasons for the failure of a relationship. But no, I won’t call it immoral because it has got to do more with integrity than morality. There is a huge difference between the both. While morality is different for different people, integrity is singular. I guess if people stop imposing their morals on each other and start living their life with integrity, things will be a lot better.

Now both the partners being open about their out-of-the relation affairs and being okay with that is a different story. No, I won’t call that immoral either because I am no one to judge them if they don’t have a problem with each other.

Having said that, developing feelings for another person and pursuing that while keeping your spouse/partner in the dark is an act that is definitely out of the realm of integrity. If for some reason you have decided to start a relation with another person, the least you can do to respect your partner is let him/her know the truth. If you are sure you want the new person, at least end your existing relationship Choosing to go with a new person is your choice. But that is your choice only when you end your existing relationship. It will sure break the heart of your partner. But that is way better than the heartbreak they will encounter when they find out that you have been sneaking out with someone else behind their back. I am not advocating divorce or a lack of commitment. But I believe being true to yourself and making a difficult decision with integrity is any day a better option than two-timing and cheating on your partner.

Let us exercise our choice making sure we are not making anyone else pay for it.