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Indeed! I am a 20-something millennial who is ranting about marriage, but who isn’t? This open letter goes out to all those impatient folks who are constantly advising me to 'get settled'.
Indeed! I am a 20-something millennial who is ranting about marriage, but who isn’t? This open letter goes out to all those impatient folks who are constantly advising me to ‘get settled’.
All things considered, regardless of where humankind is going, Moon or the Mars, some things neither change, nor can be averted. Like heartbreaks, exams, governmental issues, wars, gossip mongers and parents (particularly, Indian parents!).
It doesn’t make a difference what you do or what you move towards in your life or how effectively successful you are at it, for them, everything boils down to ‘settling down’. Also goodness gracious! Settling down (according to our parents) doesn’t mean owning a house, a car, having a great job and living a decent life. Damnation no! It just signifies ‘getting hitched’ and ‘beginning a family’, because I am incompetent if I’m alone. Bite me.
Truly, I never comprehended this whole organization of marriage, and don’t even get me started on orchestrated arranged marriages. I’m not against any of it but rather, it just overwhelms me. In the event that you hail from an Indian family, odds are, your folks weren’t cool with you having a beau or a boyfriend/girlfriend, and the whole idea of dating didn’t speak to them. However, at this point similar guardians need you to go out and meet some irregular ass individual, once you hit your mid-20’s. What the sacred f***? How did we go from not conversing with strangers to marrying them? HOW?
What’s more, guess what? This isn’t even the most noticeably worse part. The most exceedingly terrible part comes in when the female clique comes into the scene. While PM Modi is caught up with authorising ‘Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao’, guardians still trust that getting their girls wedded is a definitive triumphant arrangement. Fuck ‘Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao’, we have a superior arrangement: Marriage. At this point, why even bother with the ‘Beti Padhao’? Why even put us through schools? Why not simply get us wedded? That would spare so much money, time, and exertion.
On the off chance that you feel that marriage is a definitive objective, a definitive meaning of a supposed impeccable life, the best thing that can happen to a young lady, you truly need to refresh your definitions. I’ll send a word reference and thesaurus your way.
As if our parents were insufficient at constantly reminding us to ‘settle down’, there are these irritating relatives that put more thoughts in their brains. You hit your 20’s and go to any family function, all you’ll catch wind of is the manner by which you will be the following one in the family to get hitched! Such blockhead questions I tell you, “Aur beta, shaadi ke kya plans?”, “Job lag gayi na? Chalo accha hai! fatafat shaadi karke settle ho jaao”, “Zyaada late na karo beta accha ladka/ladki nahi milega”, “Kaam/post graduation ka kya hai, shaad ke baad hota rahega sab” and the rundown goes on. (Editor’s Note: For those unfamiliar with Hindi, all these translate to the same thing roughly – get married soon!)
In any case, tell you what Aunty ji, Uncle ji, I didn’t put myself through school and college and coachings for nothing. I don’t work my butt off 9 hours a day to simply ‘get hitched’. I have my own dreams, aspirations and interests rather than to simply get married and have children! Quit showing pictures of qualified bachelors to my folks, for the love of all that is pure and holy! Our planet isn’t coming up short on individuals, actually, we’re stuffing it. I’m certain, I will discover somebody I’d need and more importantly want to marry, once I’m prepared.
Also, in conclusion, my dear mother and father, I will get hitched once I’m prepared – candidly and rationally. What’s more, regardless of whether I absolutely never prepare for it, will be it such a major ordeal? Maybe. Is it because of the “log kya bolenge”, that I should stroll into something I’m not prepared for? Absolutely not. You always showed me the benefit of being autonomous, certain and independent, and at that point why abruptly does it have to turn out to be so essential to get associated to someone else and their family? Am I not sufficient to deal with myself or you folks or my future?
All I ask is for you folks – the parents, the guardians, the relatives and the neighbours to give it a thought and quit pestering your children and to not stifle every one of their achievements and measure marriage above everything.
Yours sincerely,
A 20-something millennial
A Marketer by the day and a Writer by the night. Books, music, beaches, and french fries make her happy. A hardcore feminist and a hopeless romantic, trying to maneuver her way through the 21st read more...
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I huffed, puffed and panted up the hill, taking many rest breaks along the way. My calf muscles pained, my heart protested, and my breathing became heavy at one stage.
“Let’s turn back,” my husband remarked. We stood at the foot of Shravanbelagola – one of the most revered Jain pilgrimage centres. “We will not climb the hill,” he continued.
My husband and I were vacationing in Karnataka. It was the month of May, and even at the early hour of 8 am in the morning, the sun scorched our backs. After visiting Bangalore and Mysore, we had made a planned stop at this holy site in the Southern part of the state en route to Hosur. Even while planning our vacation, my husband was very excited at the prospect of visiting this place and the 18 m high statue of Lord Gometeshwara, considered one of the world’s tallest free-standing monolithic statues.
What we hadn’t bargained for was there would be 1001 granite steps that needed to be climbed to have a close-up view of this colossal magic three thousand feet above sea level on a hilltop. It would be an understatement to term it as an arduous climb.
Why is the Social Media trend of young mothers of boys captioning their parenting video “Dear future Daughter-in-Law, you are welcome” deeply problematic and disturbing to me as a young mother of a girl?
I have recently come across a trend on social media started by young mothers of boys who share videos where they teach their sons to be sensitive and understanding and also make them actively participate in household chores.
However, the problematic part of this trend is that such reels or videos are almost always captioned, “To my future daughter-in-law, you are welcome.” I know your intentions are positive, but I would like to point out how you are failing the very purpose you wanted to accomplish by captioning the videos like this.
I know you are hurt—perhaps by a domestic household that lacks empathy, by a partner who either is emotionally unavailable, is a man-child adding to your burden of parenting instead of sharing it, or who is simply backed by overprotective and abusive in-laws who do not understand the tiring journey of a working woman left without any rest as doing the household chores timely is her responsibility only.
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