I'm Sticking to What I am

A wise cousin just said that I am a top prime candidate but I should not marry yet. I am apparently too much of everything right now. I will drive myself to the edge and take the poor guy along for the fall with me! So for the sake of his kind (the cousin is obviously male) marriage is not the best thing for me or the guy. He prophesied that in few years, I will mellow down, become less argumentative, less aggressive, less driven, less of everything making me the perfect marriage material.

I do not know why suddenly at certain time, at certain stage, rules just change for women. She can get drunk but she can’t do anything ‘inappropriate’ afterwards. She is supposed to live a make-shift life and not feel anything odd about it because women are supposed to flow like water, taking shape of the container it is poured into and pebbles as she passes by. She is not supposed to feel like she is giving up too much of herself when she is expected to change her entire life for one relationship and start planning her life around it. And she is told, women for centuries have done it, they have willingly give up their lives for the family and feel happy about it, so if I feel any differently, it’s my fault.

Ok, whatever, it’s not a big deal that my dad thinks it’s unhealthy for a woman to touch electronic gadgets, not because he is afraid something might happen to me; he thinks it’s just not the right equation—electricity and woman—they just don't fit. He also thinks it’s not good for woman to buy newspaper, travel alone, have a bank account, to work...paranoid anyone?

Oh, I was recently told that independent women are all cool and nice but independence makes them self-centered and all about ‘I’ and ‘me’ and not ‘we’. So am I supposed to think I am committing a crime against humanity or something?

I have not even gotten around to telling you about the month of Mangsir when all the talking heads are busy snooping around, gossiping, and keeping the marriage market alive. Oh, the four times a year festival when you are reminded again and again by every one that marriage should happen at a certain age and once you are past that,  you are off the marriage market and on the pity shelf. The entire dead-end, close-minded society thinks there is something terribly wrong with you, maybe something unmentionable, a disease, or maybe a defect in you karma or something or even worse, you are in love with a person so un-displayable that you have to hide it from the world.

And then they are people who think you are moving on in life too fast. Women are just not supposed to do that, I guess. Basically, clinging is our thing!? I am wondering if I mellow down, be less of everything, then would I be me anymore? I’m pretty sure the faded version of me is not going to be me. So, I’m sticking to what I am. I guess I would have to let go off the “top-prime” candidate title, and anyone who want it can have it.

This blog originally appeared on absenceofanswer.blogspot.com on December 30, 2007.