Of marriage and single women.....

People who have known me in the past few years cannot help but know my views on the subject.....i firmly believe that people should marry when they are either madly in love (before the initial euphoria wears off) or very lonely....in the first case u dont see what u become and in the second u can console urself that at least u r not alone! but i dont know why indian society cannot accept that anybody, especially a girl can want to remain single...in fact when u think of it...the word bachelor gives a feeling of life being enjoyed in a wild way.....while the word spinster conveys the impression that the poor girl tried a lot but could not get married....

I have been breaking my head and heart trying to make people understand that i am not ready to get married until i m ready to get married....but it never seems to be working....One day i found these similar sentiments on the net Single, and enjoying it? and The dilemma of a single woman in Delhi i felt that the article could have been been better written but it does brings out some pertinent points....it is drilled into our heads that u have to study, earn, get married and have kids, and if u dont agree to this cycle then u r not normal.....it says that society is not ready to accept that u r single by choice and people have confessed that they are single only because they have not found anybody they could marry...well it is a pleasant improvement on the fact that most arranged marriages take place on the basis of "best available option".....if what the author says is true, then at least people are no longer blindly compromising for the sake of getting the "married" tag....and at least waiting a bit before getting married in a hurry....

In my so called "educated" circle, people lose all openness when it comes to the question of marriage...i m told that "abhi pata nahi chalta par dheere dheere tumhare sare friends ki shadi ho jayegi and then u ll feel lonely"....imagine getting married because ur friend circle is falling into the trap.....and if u dare say that u ll marry when u actually begin to feel lonely then the response is that "us samay tumse koi shadi nahi karega" ....I think this says a lot about our society....i get married today so that in some random future i don't get lonely, no matter if the spouse is so irritating that life is living hell, is hell really better than being alone???.....I don't think I am ready to believe this.....yet...coz i dont know how long i ll be able to hold under pressure! The sad part is that even friends dont understand....even after knowing me they don't see that if it is a question of day after day for my whole life, i wud like my own company better than someone whom i dont admire and respect and really want to be with....i wud follow my hobbies and do smthg for my society rather than running the household and bringing up children......

And then u start looking at prospective grooms just to keep everyone happy......dekho agar pasand aye to hi karna....how can i like him if my mind is still not open to the basic idea! and then if u keep waiting then u ll be labelled choosy and 'pata nahi ise kya chahiye, nobody is perfect' and the pressure builds up to marry the "choice of the moment"....."aakhir tumhe shadi to karna hai to isse kyon nahi...at least u know him"......why the hell 'shadi to karna hi hai'.......why can i not have a fulfilling life alone and in peace....is life complete only when i shout and have shikwas with my spouse???.....only when i produce brats and bring them up....is my life incomplete if i try to do things i want, try to hold on to my independence, make my own choices and then when i feel i m ready (if ever) i take the plunge????.....and this holds for both arranged and love marriage.....

I wonder how this attitude in our society evolved....considering that i have not seen a single happy marriage till now, is it not time people started accepting that marital bliss is a rare phenomenon and u r killing all chances of it by being forced into matrimony?.....my detractors will say that arranged marriages are generally happy and esp people who dint want to get married initially generally turn out to be happiest....that doesnt change the fact that it was a compromise in the first place....i dont think i wud be able to give my 100% to smthg whose basis was a compromise...in india we are taught that compromise is good and woh har case mein karna hi padta hai but what if i refuse to do it????

I dont say that i dont want to get married ever...but i feel that everybody shud be given time and space...i shud be able to do all i want and then start feeling the need of someone rather than being shown gory pictures of me being alone and nobody to care for me.....if i get married now, i ll always wonder what i gave up and whether this was worth the sacrifice.....in essence i shud be allowed to reach the decision on my own....i deserve the chance to explore and find someone who lets me be myself.....the other option is that i fall in love and being with that person becomes so important to me that i m ready to give up my bachelorhood for him.....well i dont see that happening in the near/far/distant future........

Marriage is not an insurance policy to be taken at as young an age as possible, neither is it a social contract undertaken to fulfill social obligations, it is a union of two minds, two people and they shud come together only when both want to and both feel they will be able to nurture the relationship and not cut each others throats.....i just pray that i m allowed to set an example for what i m preaching!!!!

Makeover!!!!

Well, all my friends have been assured of a makeover in the making!
and i felt that since i m planning (yes, sadly still in the planning stage, as always....) to renovate myself, why not my blog too!!!
sadly there are no good orange templates available and i dont have the patience to sit and make one....to green se kaam chalana padega...however bowing to my weakness for orange (one of the few fascinations which has succeeded in holding my attention for more than a year!), i have added some orange elements!
also more regular posting from now on.....and since i dont have much of an aesthetic sense, i hope it satisfies my friends with the finer sensibilities in life who know about look, finish etc.....shivi are u reading????

Homecoming......

Well i m bak to where i always return...pune....a city where i havent lived much but i have always come here for refuge in the thicks and thins of life.....i feel at home here more than i have done anywhere else (the vagrant that i am....the max i have lived at a stretch at one place is surat during my engg)....i now wonder if i ll be able to settle down at all! earlier i used to find the wanderings a bit cumbersome, but now i feel it is a part of me...and i get bored at one place but its good to be able to return to one place...it gives me a reference point to judge how much i have changed!

pune holds diff associations for me...i have lived here in so many combinations, so many moods, so many environments ....didi's gang, dd and jijaji, friends, alone, dad, dd ke in laws, married friends...single ....committed....and so on....ab pata nahi chalta kaun si memories dominant hain! where ever i go i am overpowered with memories...of incidents that have happened, of people i have been with.... i am getting scared of nostalgia....i was glancing apprehensively thru college photographs and suddenly i wondered that if we take the snaps to immortalize those moments, then why r we scared of revisiting them?....why did i open albums and then shut them off again without even glancing at all the photos?...why do we smile in snaps? where we really feeling that happy at that moment in time? if yes, then if i am capable of attaining that state, then why am in not able to get that peace of mind now? shud i take the pains of going thru every memorablia and be jealous of my own life, of what i had, or is it easier to just throw off everything as senseless junk?

well enuf of sentiments and nostalgia...they hold a very teeny tiny place in my life....on a more pragmatic note, pune is deteriorating at an alarming rate...the traffic and pollution have become almost like blore....and the weather is also bad now...i remember that once upon a time we dint need fans even in may and now its blistering hot in feb.....every nook and cranny is filling up with highrises....its become impossible to walk on the roads and once i used to love walking here.....pune had always been a laid bak city full of parsis and retirees but all that is changing fast, thanks to the IT deluge....when i feel so cheated, i wonder what the real puneites must be going thru!
well, i guess this is just another testimony to the fact that life changes and generally for the worse!!!!!!!

Thought: Giving up doesnt mean you are weak...it just means that u r strong enuf to let go...

The Overrated Day

The highly overrated day was memorable!!! but not in the way u wud expect.....
Let me recount the highlights.....

Of course the best part was the major revision in my job offer.....my offer now really and truly rocks!! And now i have absolutely no qualms about not sitting for other companies....

Most of my friends got placed today and that too in profiles they wanted.....

A friend got married today...Imagine getting married on a day earmarked for love.....good masala for the romanticists, i must say!...(and the couple save on one extra gift!)....But i am very happy on this great news and it brightened a sunny day! The only regret is that i had to miss yet another wedding....

I leave MDI day after tomorrow...not sad as such but i ll surely miss the gang i had here....esp the fachcha gang! End of another phase of my life.....but i am looking forward to moving on!! Change has now become an important antidote to the things going around in my head and disturbing me.....and i love it now!

I plan to write about single women and marriage as soon as i get the time.....so much has been written on the topic...still i feel that enuf justice has not been given! it is another matter whether my views will hold credibility since i have been accused of being biased, feminist etc.....

My take on V day before i sign off:
Love is a privilege which two people confer upon one another, whereby they may mutually cause one another much sorrow over absolutely nothing......HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

Ramblings

If somebody had promised you that he/she would "always" be there for you then how do u know if they really mean it through all the changing phases of life......and if they do mean it then why r they not there when u do need them......maybe one waits for the other to "be there" while the other keeps waiting for "i need you".......
maybe this is the way things should be. ideally love should be unconditional but in reality it never is.....so that person might not choose to support me in a situation where my behavior does not confirm to the accepted/advised standard......in that case the pain of shattered belief in a person is much more than the actual matter which perpetrated the action.
if that person is not there, the belief in the promise holds fast.....i can delude myself that the absence during a crisis in my life is only because i refused to call......i would not have been let down if i had only asked.......and maybe the belief and hope in the promise will support me better than the actual conditional presence of the person.....

P.S. My apologies to my friends who could not get the hang of this rambling.....and yes, i reiterate that at least abhi tak main pagal nahi huyi hoon......