India: The Pseudo and the real.

I wanted to read something different this time and I picked a copy of a compilation of 12 short stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni called 'Arranged Marriage'. As I read each story, I found one thing very common in all of them. an emptiness, an lacuna, a compromise, and most often it is on the part of the woman. It is the woman who has to forego everything about herself and is expected to subject herself to her in-laws and her husband. There is nothing left of her own. She lives a life she is expected to live rather than what she ought to live. All her expectations end there and are replaced by the expectations of the others. There by cutting the country's workforce by almost 60%. What is the use of all the studies in high end technology and management  one does, if it is confined to the walls of the kitchen and the bedroom.

I am not writing here to endorse that arranged marriage would be worst option for your life, but it is also not the best option. In India, if a love marriage fails, it is because it was a love marriage and if an arranged marriage fails, we say it happens sometimes. In love marriage the person lives/gets an opportunity to live his/herself individuality, and the partner has to accept how his/her partner is. In arranged marriage, each partner tries to customize oneself and projects good about oneself.  In love marriage, you marry a person because you love him/her. In arranged marriage, you love your partner because you married him/her or were introduced to him/her by your parents/relatives for marriage. There is actually no difference in Job profile and the profile one prepares to be uploaded  on marriage portals. You can equate the job offers one has to choose from, to the prospective brides or grooms that the marriage site shortlists for you. This is not the point I am touching here. It is much more. Read on.....

I tried to look at this widely used protocol in India from a wider perspective. Unfortunately in our country, the individual is not considered important, but what the people think that the individual is, is important. In the long run, we all start putting up a pseudo-image about ourselves in front of others. This is true not only when it comes to marriage, but almost everywhere, in every field. See around you today, there are so many engineers today, not because they want to be engineers, but because others expected them to be engineers or someone said that IT has good scope to mint money. (As for me it was accidental that I joined IT. It is a big story).

 We have tied ourselves with so many things that are unnecessary and we forget that we need to be humans first, and respect our individuality. We are busy calling ourselves Hindu, Muslim, Christians, etc.  or Brahmins, SC/ST, OBC, or from some other quota, or that I am a Maharashtrian,  Goan, or Bihari etc. At the end, do we achieve anything substantial? Nothing.

Can I be myself and not customize myself for others? Can I allow others to respect their individuality? Can I allow others to be themselves? If each one of us make that positive step forward, I guarantee, there will be many ideas that we Indians, who are royally known around the globe for our brilliance and intellligence that will make India, a nation of respected Individuals who are for progress.