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I love how my mother cooks something special for their anniversary and my father brings home chocolates, and yet the two keep it all hushed up like a newly married duo.
Oblivious to the world’s happenings, after an entire day of staring at the screen, I was spending my night-time tapping through my cousin’s WhatsApp status. I learned that Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt tied the knot securing their ‘happily-forever after’.
While how I put it in words could make you think of me as an incredibly silly romantic, I nonetheless suppose that I have enough arguments to vouch for why I believe marriage is the most ideal form of a romantic relationship.
But that’s for another post. Tonight I do not wish to debate. Tonight, I wish to solely romanticize.
Flowers, garlands, laughter, fragrance, silk and frills, gemstones, music, and all the warmth. I’m not particularly a fangirl of the couple. However, in general, I simply adore the idea of people coming together.
As a child, the idea of girls leaving their houses, their parents, family, friends, and everything that they could call theirs for unfamiliar people and foreign places, terrified me. It sounded to me like diving into an ocean of uncertainty.
But with every passing day, as I grow little by little, I am starting to realize that my parents aren’t superheroes like I thought.
I observe how the two of them make tiny human adjustments for ‘us’. How my father takes over the kitchen whenever he can lend a hand, how my mother loves doing anything and everything in her capacity like stapling papers and organizing my father’s workspace, all just to support him whenever possible. I love how my mother cooks something special for their anniversary and my father brings home chocolates, and yet the two keep it all hushed up like a newly married duo. I like how they look at each other amid social gatherings and even without moving their lips, an exit strategy is ready in their minds.
I do not fall for the big fat royal weddings of Bollywood. Well, it’d be wrong to say that I am completely repulsed by those. However, what appeals more to me is how couples develop wrinkles together, observe each other grow old, and yet dye each others’ grey hair with as much love as they had in their hearts when they married.
As much as I like words, I like the idea of people bonding without words. Chats and calls are frivolous at times. Comfortable silence is what I seek. I like promises which are made and kept. Because everything else seems like a waste.
Maybe years from now, I’ll believe more of it. Maybe then, I’ll be able to enrich this essay even further, or maybe I’ll delete it forever.
“I need a man who’s patient and kind Gets out of the car and holds the door I wanna slow dance in the living room like We’re eighteen at senior prom and grow Old with someone who makes me feel young I need a man who loves me like My father loves my mom”
Sukanya Basu Mallik's works have been featured in Reader’s Digest, Times of India, Sahitya Akademi, Writer's Life, UK, AIPF Int. Anthology ( Diverse City Youth Contest, Austin, US), etc. Bestowed with Best Manuscript read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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