The phone rang. I picked it up.
It was my friend.
She sounded perturbed.
On prodding, I learned it was about her daughter. She's 26, well educated, holding a fairly good job, brings home a decent salary.
But she doesn't want to get married.
The parents have tried to persuade her gently. But she takes it in a different way.
'How could I marry someone I don't know?' she asks them, when they announce they are going to search for someone for her.
'But, won't you get old delaying marriage like this? Who would look after you once we're gone?' Logical reasoning coming from the parents.
'I can pretty well take care of myself.' She replies.
'Ok, at least find some one for yourself. We won't mind if he's from any community.'
'Don't bother till I'm thirty!' she adds with effect.
She retires sulking to her room, angry that her parents brought up this topic yet again.
The atmosphere in the house is tense for days, till the dad decides enough is enough. No more asking her for her opinion. He'd just go ahead and find someone for her.
'Okay, then go ahead, do what you wish..but don't think for one moment I'd remain happy with him ever,' she retorts.
Now my friend wonders why is it that her daughter refuses to get married. What if she gets very old, thirty nine..forty five and then no body would be willing to marry her then..? Naturally worrying her motherly mind.
She rues the day she stepped into Mumbai with her kids. Maybe it's the city that's brought this change in her kid, she concludes.
I go back to our times, when kids were submissive to parents.
They thought parents were like God to them. But nowadays kids are over ambitious, care two hoots for anyone's wishes, follow their own chosen, sometimes destructive path and then blame the parents later for not intervening in time.
