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I am 22 right now. An age to finally find complete freedom.
Freedom from being thought of as a child. Freedom of being who you are, of
following your aspirations, of reaching for the stars. But what if when you are
just about to pluck the star from the sky, you’re told that’s your limit? What
if you know you are capable of plucking each star from the sky and rearrange
them in beautiful intricate patterns that make more sense to you? What if the
very ones you trusted to hold the ladder still are the ones cutting it short so
that you fit comfortably into their perspective of you?
Many a times you find yourself in a position where all you can do
is try to stop your dream land from caving in is to try to push everything back
to the exact place you made for it. This, ironically, is what makes the sorrow
of not attaining the just-within-reach dream worse than it would be otherwise.
As an Indian girl belonging to a “proper” Indian household, the
clock is ticking for me. No I’m not a fetus and no one will kill me right when I’m
born. But everyone I know these days looks at me funny. Everyone has started to
“examine” me like I’m a lab rat so as to put me in the best suited cage for me.
The cage being an arranged marriage. A marriage built on very fragile egos of
parents of the groom and bride where the bride must bear the burden of keeping
the family image up and good for everyone. But what if I have no intention of
being the proper-ty wife of someone? What if I have no intention of giving up
my surname? What if I don’t want to give up my job because I must move to the
land unknown where my husband wishes to stay? What if I want to be an equal
just the way a marriage is supposed to be?
And how is one supposed to just meet a person 4-5 times (A LOT
based on my cultural background) and decide if he’s the one for me? With one of
my cousins getting married recently and other one on the verge of, I have come
to know of some traditions and values which are frankly quite shocking to me.
One of these is, the girl’s parents must be the one to contact the boy’s
parents because they are the ones in need. Another one that makes it to the top
of my list is that the girl’s family must bear the cost of transportation for
all the guests on the boy’s side. WHAT?! Am I really a burden? At the age of
22, am I really a sore to my parent’s eyes that they must be the ones “pleading”
to the guy’s family?
Okay let all this be damned, I also got to know me meeting the
potential groom would be sort of an interview and I will only be an
interviewee. I am just supposed to answer any of his queries? How am I supposed
to fall in love with a guy and lay in his bed on the first night without even
clearing out my doubts? How am I supposed to make that guy fall in love with
the real me when I’ll be sitting there pretending to be a shy, introvert person
who is okay with being the second priority to everyone when in reality I am the
alpha bitch? Strong, independent, in love with self, isn’t afraid to question
norms. And why am I expected to not be the real me for the rest of 40-50 years because
doing that would mean being of no “use” to my husband and stay quiet in fear of
being… left?
All I want to do is pluck that one star and not forget my real
name because I’ll be a missus of a stranger.
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