Nothing’s brighter than the sun shining through dense trees. And so it was one afternoon in Vandalur Zoo. We had a wonderful walk in the park with the view as a bonus.
While I waddled on my way, I chanced a glance upwards. And whom should I see but Ra himself, throned in all his might and glory.
Sometimes being an average Indian means that you don’t tell your parents about what you want. What if they couldn’t afford that toy motorcycle, and by asking you’d only make them guilty?
It happened to me. Growing up, I never had the courage to tell my mother I needed my own space. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment and I had to sleep with my parents since my older brother, who had a lot of studying to do, needed the other room for himself. And the worst part of it was my parents thinking it was alright for a twelve-year-old girl not to have her own room.
But it felt weird to me. I was a loner, and I liked spending the day lying on my stomach with my face glued to the Chronicles of Narnia. I’d stay up all night, leaning on a wall beside my bed, inhaling page after page of Harry Potter. And when I wanted the lights on, my parents wanted the lights out.
Sure, I could’ve sat in the living room with my book. But it wasn’t the same as snuggling in a smaller room that I could call my own. It bothered me that I never had a little special place I could crawl into when Hedwig died and the world paused for a moment. It made me crave privacy like it was a heard-to-find gem.
But then I grew up and things seemed to brighten up. I got a job in a bigger city so I had to move out of my parents’ house. And because I was going away to an unknown city, my parents suggested moving into a hostel where I would have some company to understand the pulse of the bustling city that was so much unlike our modest one. I couldn’t afford to get a place of my own, anyway. So I agreed and stayed in a hostel room with three others.
And just as I had imagined, I had the company. But I soon realised that hostel was worse than sharing a room with my parents. Perhaps it’s just me, but after a long day at work, I’d like to come home and crawl into my bed with warm cocoa, soulful music, and a racy book. And instead, I’d come walk into a room full of chattering people trying to drown the television that screened the vanity in reality shows. Privacy still eluded me.
After much self-contemplation, I decided to move out of the hostel and even congratulated myself for being such a grown up and making my life decisions myself. And so I told my parents I considered getting a place of my own. I knew it would cost me a little more than sharing a room with three others. But at least it would be mine. My parents disagreed.
And they had their reasons, too: It’s unsafe for a twenty-one-year-old to live alone in a city she’s lived for three years already. That’s when I understood. According to them, I hadn’t moved out of their house at all. I had only moved away from home. My hostel life had been a temporary arrangement because I worked in a different city from my parents’. They even volunteered to move into the city to live with me. That way, the whole family could be in one place, they calculated.
I heard my clarion there.
I loved them, yes. But I had already spent a childhood living under my parents’ shadow, and I wasn’t going to spend my adulthood doing the same. So I tried explaining. But I had never told my parents what I wanted before, and it wasn’t easy to start doing it. I appealed to them that I needed my alone time. And they responded with rolling eyes and a statement: “Girls your age shouldn’t live alone.” So I decided to give up explaining.
It was time to take a more radical approach. I told them I’m moving out from the hostel. But I also decided they meant well worrying about my safety. So I made a compromise; I’d rent a two-bedroom apartment and share it with two of my colleagues. This time, however, my colleagues would share one room and I’d get a room of my own.
Telling my parents what I wanted was hard. But it was easier once I had reached my tipping point. And that point came when I read a chapter from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. What a woman.
They hadn’t seen each other in years.
Life had taken a sharp turn from college into reality. They were both salaried employees at different multinational corporations. Their income and expenses tallied on most months, while payday loans saved some days. They’d wake every day and make mental to-dos with the morning coffee. They turned on autopilot to greet colleagues with a “good morning” a “hi there” and a “nice seeing you” — without even seeing who they’re saying it to. Headphones had become the lover that never disappointed. Caffeine was the impetus as the day waned. Free dinner at work with colleagues compensated the lack of company. Home had become an empty room with a vacant chair and a mug with morning’s coffee dregs. They took Facebook to bed and woke up next to a harmless-looking space grey metal block.
And then came the acquisition.
Life took a sharp turn from reality into a harsher reality. They had become salaried employees at the same multinational corporation. Their income and expenses tallied on most months, while payday loans saved some days. They’d wake every day and make mental to-dos with the morning coffee. They turned on autopilot to greet colleagues with a “good morning” a “hi there” and a “nice seeing you” — without even seeing who they’re saying it to. Headphones had become the lover that never disappointed. Caffeine was the impetus as the day waned. Free dinner at work with colleagues compensated the lack of company. Home had become an empty room with a vacant chair and a mug with morning’s coffee dregs. They took Facebook to bed and woke up next to a harmless-looking space grey metal block.
But they’d sometimes smile at each other over the vending machine. They weren’t in love anymore, just in denial.
I was at work trying to write a blog convincing business owners to buy our software. And as I sat staring at my blank screen, my mobile screen lit up. It was a message from my classmate. I picked my phone amazed because she hadn’t spoken to me since our reunion at school two years ago. I opened the message and there it was, in shiny font and bold letters, an invitation to her wedding the next day. Come to think of it, almost all of my classmates are either married or engaged to be married. Some have kids, even. It seemed like I am the only one writing about marriage and not, in fact, marrying.
It’s not as if weddings are easy. Apart from having to find the perfect match for your life, weddings are also weird in a way. In the way that they’re the epitome at displaying wealth. And I was lucky (or not) enough to see a few weddings myself.
I’ve sat listening to grooms ramble about the all-important wedding outfit. The bride’s saree had cost him five months’ worth of salary. Plus five additional sarees that the bride should wear on the same day — one for each wedding ritual. I listen because the funniest part comes at the end of that story: the bride wouldn’t wear those sarees ever again — they’re too heavy and uncomfortable for everyday use.
Then come the miscellaneous expenses like makeup and hairstyle, hall and stage decoration, food and lodging for the guests, train or air tickets to and from the wedding location, snacks during the commute, tea, coffee — with Boost or Bournvita for those who drink neither. And the booze. By the end of that list, the couple would have lost two years of their savings preparing for one day of supposed-celebration.
And if that wouldn’t turn them off, the in-laws have their own demands — not actual demands, but more of obvious stuff the couple would need to move into their new home. Some call these “gifts” while some say dowry. “Gifts” include furniture, jewellery and investments, air conditioner and washing machine, and the essentials like carpets, curtains, and pillow cases.
And then comes the big day, the wedding day. The bride and groom wake up from yet another night of beauty sleeplessness to pressure. While the heater gets ready, a final checklist would come to light.
Shopping-done. Extra gold coins, done. A variety of lip-smacking food, done. And after a shower is the “getting dressed for the wedding” part. That’s when they’ll realise: No matter how much they pressed on the buttons on the air conditioner’s remote, they’re still burning up from the heat and beads of condensation sliding from their temples.
A tiny makeup glitch, safety pins that have gone a wandering, borrowed bangles that shrunk overnight, anything could make them cry. And with five pounds of heirloom jewellery, two and a half pounds of designer saree, and the curious case of the missing bobby pins—tensions are high. And when they think it couldn’t get any worse, the bride’s father would walk up to the groom and voice his displeasure about the drunken best man.
If they’d thought weddings are fun and full of life, they’d soon wish to just get it over with.
That’s the problem with a big fat wedding; on the day of it, the bride and groom are no longer love birds. They’re not the passionate pair, but just tired folks who want to sleep.
Weddings are meant to help them start their life anew. It’s a day to celebrate two souls that agree to sacrifice their tastes and the preferences for the greater good. Marriage is a promise they make to themselves to approach one person’s problem as it’s the other’s and drive through it as one.
As for weddings, they’re just a day to deck up in jewellery and spend the day gossiping. There’s no point in them and I’d rather not go to such a wedding, even though I got my invitation on WhatsApp the previous day.
When I was still young, I hated my vegetables. I’d eat my treats and leave the rest for the trash. Beans involved too much effort to pop into my mouth and cabbage was too rubbery to chew. My mother wouldn’t notice the oddity, though, and neither did my father. They just told me I complained too much and it was wrong not to eat the gnarled vegetables.
I was avoiding the minerals and nutrients that cookies lacked, my mother said. And no matter how much I argued that mashed potatoes were good enough for me, my parents never considered me serious.
But they did more than doubt me. They gave me a reason to finish my whole meal, unattractive though it was. I’m lucky, they said, to have a plate groaning with spinach while poor kids halfway across the world didn’t get a proper meal a day. A double-hazelnut and chocolate chip cookie is a luxury they can’t afford. And therefore it only made sense that I ate all the vitamin-rich foods I got.
How that helps starving kids remains a mystery, but I was much too young to think about the nuances of logic.
It messed with my head, though. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand poverty and global hunger. I was eight and my mother said, “Don’t waste food, there are plenty of people starving.” And being eight and eager to remain the apple of my mother’s eye, I ate the final slice of apple even when I didn’t want it.
I was dining with my friends last night and knew I had eaten enough. But there was some pasta left over, so I grabbed a fork. I can’t help it that I can’t waste food. Because even though I’m twenty-two, I don’t feel satiated until I’d wiped my plate clean.
While at another table sat a kid with tears in her eyes. Her mother coaxed her to finish her meal. And the father threw a stern look at his daughter. “You should be thankful you have food on your plate.” He growled cutting through his wife’s gentle reproaches. “Now eat!” And she eats.
As I sat there, I saw a girl who had already eaten her share, eat the rest too. Just because somewhere someone doesn’t have enough to eat, another young girl gave into the pressure without even realising it could make her sick.
The Chaos Within 