With the wedding season going on in full swing, actor Asha Parekh candidly spoke about her decision to stay unmarried. That is why she is an inspiration!
In this age of feminism, film actress, director and producer Asha Parekh spoke about her decision of staying single in an interview with Verve. Born in the era where marriage was the ultimate goal for a woman, it is bold, and frankly, quite unexpected, coming from a 77-year-old woman.
By choosing to remain unmarried, Asha Parekh doesn’t say she is against romantic relationships. In her book, The Hit Girl, she reminisces about her former co-stars. She also candidly confessed her soft spot for Nasir Hussain, the only man she loved.
However, loving him didn’t turn into attaining him being the only objective of her life. Instead, when asked why she never got together with filmmaker Nasir Hussain, she said, “I know I admitted to being in love with Nasir Hussain in The Hit Girl. But as much as I loved him, I could never consider breaking up his family and traumatising his children. It was far simpler and satisfying to be on my own. Make no mistake, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to get married.”
Taking examples from Rajesh Khanna and Vinod Khanna getting chided by their girlfriends for going out at night instead of being in bed, Parekh says she doesn’t want to get married as “[she] would’ve never been able to take someone dictating terms to [her] — [she] was just not cut out for it.”
Don’t the liberating words of the Love in Tokyo actress make you question the necessity of marriage? Yes, you, obviously, might ask ‘How will I look after myself in utter solitude in old age?’
However, making compromises and depending on someone you don’t vibe with, for the rest of your life, won’t make you happy, either. “Time and circumstances are everything. You can’t stop what is meant to happen, and you can’t force what isn’t fated to occur.”
Surprisingly even for Gen Z, both, men and women are put under pressure to get married even before reaching 25. Marriage has been an integral part of our culture and tradition.
From social and financial security to societal pressures, family expectations and even love, marriages are a part of the culture. But, marriage should have our consent, it should be our choice.
We need a world where choosing to get married doesn’t make a woman less independent. Or remaining single making her being judged as the crazy spinster aunty with a house full of cats (I mean, what is wrong with being a cat-lady?)
Asha Parekh is brave enough to stick to her ground and abide by her decision, even though her mother did make an effort to marry her off. But here she is: successful, beautiful and happy!
Getting married should be a choice, not a necessity to save yourself from a lifetime of being on your own. Feminism is all about the choices we make, not the roles that we are forced into.
An English literature student with a love for reading and writing, and who chills tucked under a cozy blanket, with a cup of chai, and a big, fat book on her lap. read more...
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This strange love story reminds me of Princess Diana when she gave an interview about Prince Charles - "There were three of us in this marriage!”
This love was flawed and broken the way only we humans know how to break things with our ego, pride, insecurity and complexities!
Where do I even begin to tell the story of how deep a love can be, how it transcends time, place and people. Perhaps this is a story about how women are their own worst enemies. Either way it is a story that tells us how frail, fragile and fraught we are as humans and how much we hurt each other.
‘I don’t wear the bindi anymore na, Didi! Neither the thread. He felt I am not wearing signs. Signs of being his. So he lost his temper.’ Preeti pressed the ice against her cheek and walked to the sink full of dishes.
She stared nervously at the bed again. It was not going to be a good day – the dark brown blotches, staring at her as they spread, still fluid, told her.
Pragya was mired amidst her internal demons, which stopped her from moving out of an abusive marriage. Then one day, she did.
Pragya needed that cup of tea. It always helped her to pause for a few minutes and reflect. And reflecting is all she had done in past 11 months. So much so that even when her husband thrashed her, even as he slapped her hard on her face, pushed her so she fell flat on the floor, yanked her with her hair and hurled her, threw objects at her, belted her, and treated her to any number of display of his insanity, she kept reflecting.
“You’re branching into men’s shirts and pants now? You’re going to take measurements, touch men in all sorts of places? Be touched by them?” he’d thundered.
2019 is the year in which our beloved writing contest, Muse of the Month gets bigger and better (find out how here) and also takes the cue from the words of women who inspire with their poetry. The writing cue for March 2019 is these lines from Indian-British poet Nikita Gill, who has inspired millions of young people with her words, from her poem poem, Lessons From The Cosmos #2 It would take one million of him to make even a single you.