Today, in a moment of reckless bravery that can only come on a wedding anniversary, I’m going to ask my wife the most dangerous question known to husbands across civilizations.

“Do you love me?”

Now before you applaud my courage, let me clarify that this is not being asked in the first year of marriage when romance is still on EMI and everyone is well behaved. This is going to be asked after forty-four years of shared blankets, with me landing up with the whole blanket in the morning, shared arguments, shared remote controls, and a shared understanding that the other person, that’s me,  will never load the washing machine correctly.

I will feel like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, clearing his throat and venturing into emotional territory normally avoided by practical men.

In the film he asks Golde his wife, “Do you love me?” And she replies, “Do I what?” That, I assure you, is the most honest marital response ever recorded.

So I will try.

“Do you love me?” I ask.

She looks up from the grocery list she is editing with the seriousness of a finance minister preparing the national budget.

“Do I what?”

Encouraged by familiarity with the script, I persist. “Do you love me?”

Her response could be lifted straight from the song.

“With the children married, the house needing repairs, and this electricity bill, you’re worried about love?”

There is something magnificently practical about a wife of forty-four years. Love, to her, is not violins playing in the background. Love is remembering which medicines you take, and when.

Love is asking whether you carried an umbrella.

Love is telling you that your shirt does not match your trousers and saving you from public embarrassment.

Tevye presses on in the song, asking again and again, and Golde finally replies that for twenty-five years she has washed his clothes, cooked his meals, cleaned his house, given him children, milked the cow. If that is not love, what is?

In our case, let it be recorded for history that for forty-four years she has tolerated my columns, my deadlines, my absent-minded searches for spectacles that are on my head, and my firm belief that I can fix anything with a screwdriver and confidence.

So I ask her once more, softly this time, “After forty-three years, do you love me?”

She pauses.

“For forty-four years I have cooked your meals, washed your clothes, worried about your health, listened to your stories, and stood beside you. If that is not love, what is?”

There will be no orchestra. No dramatic lighting. Just the ceiling fan making its usual complaint about an approaching summer.

And yet in that ordinary room, I will realise that love is not a question asked once in youth. It is an answer lived out every single day for forty-four years.

And though this story is imaginary, I know it will play out exactly this way and the answer is yes!

“Yippee!” shout two bearded guys together!

And then I see two women, one Indian, and the other looking at Tevye, asking, “Do you love me?”

“For twenty-five years…” sings Tevye, “I’ve…”

“You’ve what?” asks the Indian to me.

And as Tevye winks at me, I shout, “Yes…!”

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