#dum dum dum #gettimelam gettimelam

"The more educationally qualified you are, it's difficult to find you a groom. Don't you want to settle down in life? Get married? Have children? Raise your own family? You're no longer young! See... we're not forcing you, we know what's good for you and that's why we're insisting that you start thinking about marriage."

I am not being gender biased here, but let's be honest, almost all women get this family-talk right from their early twenties, especially in our Indian context. I am no feminist who would want to argue that I want to be an independent woman and that I will choose my prospective husband-to-be and all that. I am simply a human being with a penchant for imbibing solitude.

Is it too much to borrow a few extra years of solitude from my own life?

Is it too much to ask for some time till I finish my studies and figure out what I want to exactly pursue in life?

"You're well-educated, it doesn't really matter if you get a job or not, because your prospective husband-to-be will be okay with you not working. You could still enjoy after getting married. Whatever this solitude is, have it with your husband! Look at your cousins and friends... aren't they happy after getting married?"

Really??? Solitude with spouse? I am no philosopher, but I somehow find it difficult to digest the fact that my prospective husband and I will become soulmates in just an hour or two, and together experience the power of solitude by giving each other our own space. And what exactly should I ask my cousins and friends? Whether they are happy with their marriage? Creating a chaotic self-introspection into their lives would be the last thing that I would ever want to do! If they are happy, so be it, I too am happy for them.

"Arre... when will you get married? I want to wear that 20,000 Kanchivaram sari, your wedding will be the perfect occasion to flaunt my bright red-silk sari!"

Seriously? My wedding is more like a fashion parade to you? There are these annoying auntie-jis everywhere. They are just waiting to parade on the marriage aisles draped tightly in their brightly coloured kanchivaram silk saris, with their blouses trying to suck in almost every bulging part, yet failing miserably and leaving evidently more fleshy masses hanging! No! I don't want my wedding to be a disastrous fashion show platform!

"If you're a married woman, then you're eligible to have upto 500 grams of gold without showing the source of income for its purchase."

Right! Now the government gets to decide my fate in marriage! So, in order to have extra gold, I should get married! Wow!

The illusion most of the settled people have is that they believe they're settled. They have the same settled friends' circle who have almost the same job and have been married at the right age. It is very difficult to break this illusion that they have, and the worst they do is impose their beliefs on us.

Let me tell you, giving up on your dreams and living somebody else's dream was not the biggest regret of your life. The actual regret was when you were too afraid to say, "No!"