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I sit and write this article empty stomach and without even a drop of water since morning just because my editor wants it today itself. (**@&*&&&*@@@). I am the 'Saat janam relationship woman'.
I love fabindia and good things, I believe in Pepe and Levis, I know of Gucci and Prada, I wear Elizabeth Arden and CK, I cling 109degree F on my shoulders and adorn Okleys on my eyes. Yet I wake up at 5 in the morning to begin the fast that I am to keep the entire day without food and water, work all along all day and then wear the gaudiest maroon/red saree that I have ever owned, with red on my nails and lips and forhead and dress up.
10 minutes of the little pooja and then begins the long long long wait, for the chanda mama to peep out of the cloud cover and bless all fasting Indian women with a glass of water.
I am a post graduate by education, earn well enough to run a humble set up all by myself as well, address my husband by name and not as 'aji sunte ho' or ‘sunna zara Meher ke papa’. Believing and telling the world that we are both at par and respect each other equally. And yet, I touch his feet before I get some water to gulp down.
I can think of 1001 ways of expressing my love to my husband, and the best part is… he knows it. Not that starving myself to death would make it any better.
Never the less, these rituals form the inseparable part of our existence. I might condemn it as much as I like but somewhere deep inside I too want to prove my love to him with this silly little effort.
So with all the love in my heart and read paint on my nails, I proudly present to you all the 'Saat janam relationship woman'.
As far as the Indian scenario goes, we are stuck with relationships everywhere. Even our parents siblings don just go by uncle and aunt; there is chacha, bhua, maasi and maamu. And to confuse it all the more, there is mom’s chacha, bhua, maasi, maamu and dad’s chacha, bhua, maasi, maamu, other than my own. How on earth can one remember all of them, and then there respective siblings? Well, if you are born with them, you might still learn to relate to them as the maamu who brought the imported colouring books and the bhua who brought that favourite dress.
But how do you manage on all of them when you just get married??? My husband has 5 Maama’s, 2 Massi’s, 4 Bhua’s and 3 Chacha’s. That conveniently makes it a family of 14 (Excluding spouses, children and children’s spouses and of course Grand children.) Besides that there is the “mooh bole bhai” as well.
Amidst all the wedding ceremonies and functions, like any other normal Indian bride I have no clue of how many feet I touched (Though there definitely is a count of the number of money stuffed envelopes I received). Then thankfully in the wedding hush hush, everyone does not really expect you to remember who they are. But once you have had the switch of the surnames, the expectation changes. You suddenly seem to become a part of their clan. Once on that side you just cannot afford to mix up on the names. You never know, you might just end up mixing the ones from the opposite clan.
So you spend your blissful first wedded night, trying to cram the names of , who all came, what their names are, how are they related and then match the children to the respective parents and grandparents, in the chronological order. Ooooffff !!!! Can some one please tell me why did I even think of marriage as a good option? In this age of gone super heroes I am not expected to be Spider woman, or Super woman or even Bat woman but the “Relationship woman”!!!
Randomly surfing through channels last night, i caught on Pinjar ... (Urmila Matondkar, Manoj Bajpai & Sanjay Suri ). A movie that talked of the Independence and the pre independence era.. A time when women were loved, cared for but for some reason not respected enough. A time when even though Lillet Dube's elder daughter is getting married.. she herself is bearing a child... The movie took me back to another one that i had seen some time back with my family.. Khuda ke liye... A lovely movie from Pakistan, that talked about how each woman's opinion and right to speak her mind needs to be respected. Its not about movies, its about us .. the young women of India, born and brought up in the urban section of the society.. Young women, convent educated, with masteres from a few of the most renowned institutes, earning well, rather doing exceptionally well for their young ages. Yet somewhere, lost in a world, where they are addressed as 'aap' but still treated a noone. Where they are taught to say what their heart feels and believes, but not always allowed to do so. Have we actually become so urban for the ages to be accepted as those young docile daughters, who need to know how the world was back then, who need opinion, who need help.. but only to take their own decisions eventualy. All of it, only to decide how they want to live their lives in the years to come. Getting married is such an agenda at homes, but then how many of us can actually tell our moms, that we donot want to get married to this guy, because i don't think we could be physically compatible, because i cannot imagine myself sharing a bed with someone like him. How many of us want to say all this, or for that matter, how many times would our parents not get embarassed with all this or, just at the end say that it is another lame excuse of ours. I at times feel like putting in a reality check alarm in my mom dad's phones. That should almost everytime remind them, that their daughter has never had a drink in her life, not gone around experimenting bed time partners, never done drugs in life, Never done a financial ghapla, never been arrested in a crime, never killed anyone... nothing of such sort.. nothing... , Still knows how to maintain a house, still knows how to cook, Still loves being home with family, still reads good books, watches clean television, respects her parents, Prays everyday... Why is it that they for some reason donot want to see all of it...There are times when i want to sit with them and say all of it ... But then wonder 'should i' ??? Is it about convincing them or telling myself that i need to change ? Is it about them or yet again is it about me ? In my attempt to even out the gound to find some comfort, have i actually forgotten that wearing slippers might just make my journey easier???
