5 Things I Wish I Had Answers For, Instead of Anger
1. (Un)conditional love
Why is love conditional in South Asian families, especially South Asian parents? When you smile, seem happy with life, get good grades, get a job, get married, have children, you’re loved and accepted. You are upset, you’re discontent, your grades are okay, you’re unmarried or not married to someone they approve, and the love disappears. “What do you have to be upset for?” “Why are you lazy?” “What do you not have?” “Do you know what people would say?” “Look at that child, why can’t you be like her?” You’re loved when you do things accepted, better yet, respected by society, and unloved when you do otherwise.
2. (Arranged) marriages
Why is it that marriage is always presented as something men detest and women unable to live without when it only appears to benefit men? All I’ve seen married men on screens and in real life do is lament about their nagging wives, their lost peace, happiness and independence and how marriage is nothing but torture. “Why do it then?” I wonder. Why would you even do something you so clearly don’t want to; so clearly hate? You know it causes you misery, yet you so badly want a wife? Why? You want the feel of a woman but not her words. The comfort of a loving home but not the presence of a wife who’s your equal. You want your needs so basic they border on activities of daily living catered to, by a woman of course, YET. It’s that very woman who makes your life so very miserable. Why do we continue to perpetuate this myth, and create men who only respect their daughters but not their wives and/or most women in their life?
Follow-up question? Why do so many men or families of boys look for girls who are barely 20 or in their early twenties at best? They cite fertility, but I wonder if it’s because she’s easier to groom? To lock her in a marriage before she knows herself? So that she never could and doesn’t ask questions?
3. Mental health
Why is it when you try to open up and tell someone you have thoughts about death, it's often returned with “Oh, I’m sure it will pass!” or “Oh, you need to do *this* and *this* and just get up and get moving, you know!” Or worse yet, "If it's of any comfort, I think about death from time to time too." And that shuts you up because you don't know how to share that you think about death every single day. That some days it's a fleeting thought and you can distract yourself with wonder, beauty and love and some days it's so crippling you can't concentrate on anything. Some days it sneaks up on an insomniac night, triggering a panic attack that leaves you disconcerted, short of breath, and incredibly uncomfortable to sleep more than you already had. The decision that it's normal has been made for you and you don't know how to fight normalcy. Because it bewilders that you people think of death from time to time and you see it almost as a privilege. Because a day you don't think about death is a truly remarkable and special day.
It probably comes from a well-meaning place. Hopefully. But why are we so quick to fix or normalise something someone brings to us a problem? Perhaps if they knew their words they assume to be of comfort or positivity simply does not match the depth of my hurt/ grief they would stop? We are all flawed, so why is it difficult for people to accept people as they are? Rather than the idealised versions they envision for the other in their own minds?
4. Culture, clothes, and chastity
Why does the responsibility of keeping a culture alive, always rest on a woman’s shoulders and never a man’s? I see men on the marriage scene mention how they’re looking for a “cultured” woman again and again, and yet again. Saying, she needs to be for an extended family and should not seek a nuclear family. That she needs to know how to use an ammi for the sake of culture. That a girl on a matrimony site should have a picture of herself in a saree with flowers and jewellery but no one bats an eye about guys not having to be in veshti. No one bats an eye for a guy’s bathroom selfie on a matrimony site. But how else do you show a girl is “cultured”?
More than marriages, I see this contrast heavily in the dress codes for temples. Women need to wear Punjabi suits or sarees. To be “appropriate.” To show our respect for God. So why is it then that men are allowed to show up in Bermudas? Never mind shirts and pants because I guess a veshti is too much of a “hassle” but why are shorts okay? Why is a man who wears Western clothes, still considered to be appropriate enough to be presented in front of a Hindu god but not a woman? It’s clear it’s so as not to tempt the male gaze. Why are men even thinking about this when they should be praying? Yet women not tying their hair and leaving it down is considered “thalaiviri kolam” (inauspicious)
5. Asserting myself
Why is it so easy for me to default to people-pleasing or just clamming up when someone disagrees with what I say? Why is it so easy for me to abandon myself, forsake myself for others? I’m the one to apologise, I’m the one to back down, I’m the one to try and restore peace. Even when I feel otherwise. Yes, I was told to do that as the eldest daughter. Do it for your parents, your sister, that uncle, this aunty. Get used to putting others first because one day you’re going to have to put your husband, your in-laws, your child above yourself. I know this. Yet, standing up for myself feels like I’m speaking a foreign language. I stutter, I stammer, I try, and then I just give up in frustration. Lost in translating my emotions. Why?
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