Friday, June 5, 2009

of marriage and marriageability

what makes people put up with crap? i am enraged as i write this. i have been witness to an ongoing tamasha of the marriage market for a 33 yrs old woman in india since the last few years. a dear friend of mine, who hasnt had the good fortune to have a relationship work, who didnt find a companion from the online marriage market, a lovely, beautiful, hardworking, successful girl who has a never say die attitude. she'll make a great girlfriend and a wife. she is a fabulous friend. always there when you want to rant, talks rationally even when emotions are running high. she hasnt found anyone she'd rather spend her life with. so what? its sad, that her father is driving her crazy. what started as nagging has engulfed her whole life and she is tired of being jugdged only on the basis of not being married. things came to a head yesterday when she packed her things, unable to take the constant harrassment and walked out of her parents home.

to judge your own child because she hasnt "settled down". to tell her, she needs to be married to live in this society. that even if the guy is nothing like she wants in a partner, she should "compromise" cos she is thirty plus? and to wash away all that she is, as a person, as a woman and as a successful manager just because she hasnt yet said "i do"? what kind of person will do all of this?

and what is it with us? that we cant leave someone alone to decide their own course in life? that we always think we have the solution or the wisdom to help them make a "better choice". that everyone around us is not intelligent enough to choose for themselves? like so, what are you going to do after your studies? when are you getting married? when are you having kids? when are you settling down? that the next milestone will bring them nirvana? why cant we mind our own damn business? and who says marriage is the best thing in the world? that you are incomplete without it? i know of atleast 10 friends and acquaintances with relationships in shambles. so who the hell are we to judge?

i feel for this friend of mine. that she politely has to get out of conversations which finally come to "so...when are you giving us good news" when she wants to tell them to F off.... i really wish everyone, her father included will just stop breathing down her back.... you dont realise how much strenght it takes to take all this crap and still keep smiling.

2 comments:

Raaga said...

amazing... my weekend thoughts were about blogging on a similar topic... people who get married because they have to!

Sundar said...

it's bad enough that people get married because they 'have to'. Worse (in my opinion) when they have kids because they 'have to'.