…and it’s unquestionable!
Was enjoying Sunday evening coffee and Masi entered and I offered her a cup of coffee and she started as usual #ghisapita dialogues “Look at you. You have no fixed work hours, you love travelling — trekking, not taking care of kitchen…A new bride is expected to please her in-laws, to care for the house and the family; to take on the responsibilities of the house and blab la bla…”
And my Maa, she was ready to attack me with the same old topic “Marriage”. She’s ready with her support system (Masi is actually her support system or in Guajarati સંકટ સમય ની સાંકળ).
After dramatic episodes of daily soap (for Maa and Masi it was conversation), had finally prevailed upon me to create a ‘marriage resume’. They referred to it as ‘biodata’. This resume did not talk about my abilities as a person, but only my physical traits and some genealogical facts — age, weight, height, community, sub-caste… You get the drift. Maa wanted me to source some of my best pictures for this document. I obeyed.
I showed her almost all the pictures in my photo gallery, and guess what all were rejected by the shaking of her head. Her verdict was, “Let Ishan (my brother who’s a known photographer) click a few pictures.”
The definition of a best picture was a photo of me facing the camera from the front, not breaking into any poses, smiling but not overtly smiling, with hair let down but not messy, wearing an ‘Indian’ attire but nothing too traditional. It would be all the more better if I came across as mellow or shy in those pictures, she said.
This got my goat. “Why do I have to pretend to be someone I’m not?” I stared straight into the camera, giving a solemn look, hoping the ‘suitable boy’ would be creeped out at the first sight of my photos.
Regardless, Maa found it difficult to deal with me. Why couldn’t her daughter be like the other girls she knew of; those who had a ‘normal’ job, got married when they were still young, and soon enough brought their own parents a world of happiness by producing kids? Where did she go wrong?
Yet, deep within the cage of her heart, she adored her daughter and I knew it. She loved me, more dearly than anyone in the whole world(Maa ka unconditional pyaar!). All these years she allowed me a free hand, but getting me married was a societal responsibility she could no longer shirk off. She thought owed it to me and herself. At all events, our relatives had begun hounding her, asking her why she was delaying this. Was I pursuing an affair with a boy from another community? Was there a problem with me? Did an illness, disease, or some irreversible condition exist which they didn’t know of? (Seriously! Such typical behavior and so called typical questions…)
Thus, Maa set off on a mission to present me as the prospective and ideal marriageable woman. She began sending my bio data to many WhatsApp groups run by marriage bureaus. These groups were sometimes a free service run by old and retired uncles-aunties to “help the community” (at least that’s what they thought they did) and sometimes a paid service because it took effort to maintain the quality of resumes and to verify the authenticity of the applicants.
Maa should better hurry up on this task, or it will be too late, they said. After all, her daughter had turned 30 and that by Gujarati standards is an age range to worry about (A lot to worry about!). As the age goes upwards, the probability of finding a suitable match goes crashing down. The market, in economic terms, becomes ‘very bearish’.
After her routine work, she began to take her place at the study, armed with a notepad and a list of phone numbers she had to contact.
“Jai Shri Krishna… (Here she go…!) Yes, she has studied business management and working in…” Bla Bla Bla conversation started with JSK and ended with the same after all Gyan she shared about me.
Oh God! Sometimes (no no every time) I really feel like am I some product or what?
Maa continued this routine for days on end, and her disappointment took a strange turn. One late evening, she sat next to me and asked me if I could quit my job. A preposterous thought, I said. I asked her why.
“Not one. Practically all prospects have the same thing to say.”
“That is?”
“With erratic working hours, you won’t have a peaceful married life. You will not be able to take care of your in-laws and neither will you give any time to your husband. It will be an unhappy marriage.”
“Whoa. How are they to decide that? Doesn’t it rest upon my husband and me to work things out after marriage?”
“Look at you. You have no fixed hours, travelling and sometimes you work on holidays. A new bride is expected to please her in-laws, to care for the house and the people; to take on the responsibilities of the house.”
“And no working woman takes care of the house she is married into?”
“It is different in our community. It would be better if you quit and find another kind of a job or just focus on family (I feel like she’s talking about population growth, otherwise what will happen on earth and what god will do?). Maybe getting into teaching — fixed working hours will allow you to divide time between home and family.”
“Do you even hear yourself when you talk, Maa? You want me to bail out on my passion because an orthodox and uninventive man somewhere has already judged how my married life would be?”
“It’s not just one person, okay. If you are to settle with a decent family who loves and accepts you, you ought to do this.”
I was like WHAT?… “You know what, this is it. I don’t want to get married. I am not going to trade my aspirations for a family who doesn’t respect me or my job. In fact, I myself refuse to even consider such a family. What kind of a family judges the sensibility of a woman by her age, weight, height, and job?”
“What are you going to do? Stay alone all your life? This passion of yours is soon going to fade away and when you’ll feel lonely, you will have no one around,” said Maa in a raised tone.
I try to leave the room. I could feel Maa still looking at me. So I will make one last attempt.
“Try to step off that pedestal of yours and see my point of view. I like change. I like risk and unpredictability. I don’t want to feel safe and comfortable all the time. I don’t want someone who simply loves and accepts me the way I am. I want someone who pushes me, challenges me, and calls me out. Someone who excites my mind as well as my body. Someone fearless and fiery.”
“You’ve pulled this out from another one of your romantic novels, haven’t you? That’s not real life. Real life is different and real life needs compromises to move forward. Your father and I have made a lot of compromises to get here,” said Maa.
“I will be the sole decision maker about the compromises I want to make in my life. Not any random person. End of discussion.” I leave the room.
For days on end, maa didn’t talk to me and neither did I talk to her. We were holding on to our forts. I stopped eating breakfasts and unlike herself, she didn’t try to pacify me this time. During this period, I was also working on a project which had so far been the most important assignment of my career and I didn’t have any time to think about my fight with Maa.
My family, of course, was barely aware of the work I was doing. For the longest time. But when it comes to sharing the details with people my parents feel proud.
One night, as I came home from work later than usual, I saw a gift. On the box was a yellow sticky note which, in my maa’s handwriting said: “I am proud of everything you are. Forgive maa?” Despite the happy note, I could not control my tears. I ran to her. She was fast asleep, snoring gloriously. I unlocked my phone and typed in a text message: I’m proud of you too, Kalpu.
Just for information in that gift box she gifted me one big panda mug for my COFFEE!, I know Kalpu loves me more than Ishan… ;)
À bientôt.
