Love Marriage of an Average Indian Girl

An Indian girl born to orthodox parents and in love with a man of her choice has a task tougher than rolling the rock of Sisyphus back to the top. More so in the recent times than ever because you no longer face violent brothers and fathers who make you rebel and hence be more determined to pursue your heart, you no longer have supportive mothers whose only task is to negotiate between you and the male members of your family and whose support is unrelenting and because you are no longer caged and locked in the rooms. Instead, you are left stranded in the middle of nowhere. It is not an extreme that you are pushed towards, you are slowly and gradually forced to a state of continuous deterioration, a state where you actually understand why the phrase ‘having no choices’ was coined.

It starts with the revelation. Your once proud parents, you are told, become the bearers of the world’s deepest shame only because you dared to choose a man you want to spend your life with. From being proud to being humiliated, the transformation is so sudden that you wonder if you would've done them better by not doing anything in life and just marrying by their choice. The initial violence and the shedding of tears is replaced by their so called acceptance of the situation. You are elated beyond imagination. You call your boyfriend and tell him the first battle is won and you thank god for having ‘understanding’ parents. You both feel at the top of the world.

Then starts the phase you had no idea existed in your love’s journey because you were only told that parents either agree (they might take time in this) or they disagree (you have to fight to make them agree) but you had absolutely no idea about them agreeing and still behaving as they never did. They tell you they need time to move further. This is the phase you feel absolutely helpless in because you don’t know what to do, you can’t bring on the subject because you want to give them their time. You anyway feel it’s been tough for them. But they bring it up at the most inconvenient times that too not to have a further discussion on it as they promised but only to make you feel bad about the whole thing. Any problem in the world happening in the family after that is left to your credit and at last it’s you who has to suffer the outrage, the emotional outbursts and be at the receiving end of the pent up frustration.

The moment you start feeling hostile towards them, the instant your self-respect gives you a call, they come back to console you, their same loving selves before the revelation. The vision of your ageing parents with their eyes welled with tears leaves you back again with a guilty conscience. You accept their evident but unsaid apology and feign normalcy till the moment of a slightest tension in the family for any reason when the cycle repeats itself with you being at the receiving end for no justifiable reason. Each incident only leaves you emotionally weaker and more distant and alienated to everything around you.

Not to forget, the privileges and the freedom you were entitled to all your life are cut short and you make sacrifices after sacrifices just in hope of a better time and wishing to have you parent’s acceptance whatever it might take to get it. After years of being raised to respect to your rights, being shown the way to ask for them when refuted you are suddenly deprived of them and a lot more. The feeling that was supposed to leave you happier, only ends up dividing you into two people-the one you are inside and the one you are at present but never wanted to be.

You go through moments of extreme depression and sadness and you share them with your partner. He is supportive. He tells you he loves you and he will be with you whatever the situation might be. You feel better, He is you only hope. You presume it will better after this phase is over. But soon the frequency of your emotional outburst increases as the situation in the family become more tensed. You go back to you boyfriend, he is supportive still, he loves you after all. He feels helpless for not being able to help you. Your mistreatment in the family increases and you tell him that. He is very angry because he stands for the same rights that you once advertised, that you once advocated and that was the reason why you fell for him. He makes evident his uneasiness and instead of feeling good about it, you feel more tensed. Why? Because you don’t want him to disrespect your parents, you fear his alienation to them. You want them both.

Then comes a moment when you stop sharing your problems even with your boyfriend because it irks him to think of your situation and you don’t want him to hate your parents as it is easier for him to do that because he has never seen their loving side and he never knew how wonderful as parents they have been. Also, you don’t always want to put him in a situation about which he can’t really do anything as you always say no to the alternatives like eloping he suggested to ease your pain. You suffer silently.

Then, you parents convinced that you don’t love them due to your oblivion to everything and unable to bear the tension any longer decide to get you married after a series of conflicts and issues pertaining to the boy you chose, the customs in his side of the family(if different), the sacrifices they had to make for you, the shame you have brought upon them. You by this time are used to remaining silent and shedding tears at the drop of a hat. It is a convenient situation as no resentment, no ideas of protest appear even on the periphery of your mind. You are plain indifferent. The only thing you have to do is shed tears which you are quite adept at by now. Meanwhile, your partner complains of a change in you he doesn't like, degradation of your personality and courage and you have no explanation that he will understand. So, you keep quiet.

Then one fine day it is the day of your marriage. Why does your heart weigh heavy? Is it only the discomfort of leaving your family? Is it only due to the gloomy atmosphere that surrounds your marriage? Is it because of the guilt of leaving your parents to suffer alone in their old age? Is it because of the bitterness that now surrounds your relation with you partner? Why does it not feel like you thought it will when you first fell in love with the man you are going to marry?

Then it dawns upon you. Everything has lost shine because you no longer have the same eyes. The eyes that once told you your fate would be different, your relations better and your life your own despite being a girl.