I Do, right?

Browsing through Orkut profiles the other day, i came across an old friend, whose album is full of pictures of the entire world, which she has been travelling with her husband. Who works for the merchant navy, so its no big random adventure. what IS a big adventure, although not random, is the fact that she got married when we were all in our second year of being English hons. students at Delhi University. She was all of 19 years.

Getting married at that age is not only shocking to most of us urban, city, career oriented girls, but also quite unimaginable.

This, in a nation, where the women have only very recently, by global standards, started claiming an identity for themselves, or having more to their lives than a household, a husband and children to take care of. In a place where its still a bit awesome for men in relatively smaller towns, to see women out in western clothes, walking by themselves, and which inevitably gives rise to some attempts at subversion.

The fact is that this woman was very happy, and quite prepared for this eventuality, not to mention quite excited. she, unlike a lot of us, was quite clear in her head as to what it was that she wanted, and that a career was certainly not one of them. i think i also need to mention that she was very intelligent, was once the sports captain in the student council of the boarding school that she went to and possessed every ounce of urbane sophistication that many of the rest of us can only pretend to have.

There were people who laughed at her, pitied her, voiced their ‘feminism’ in front of her and even despised her. paying no heed whatsoever, she still went ahead, head held high, smirking at the devil, down the altar.

If feminism is about equality, about having the will and the power to live by one’s own decisions, without having to look for permission from male counterparts, relatives, members of society at random, then she certainly was queen of this movement. If we women start hurling mud at such women, who have made their own choices, and blame them for not swearing allegiance to our religion, and try to force our opinions on them , then what is the entire purpose of feminism? where is the independence? where is the pretense at it? how, then, is feminism more noble than Communism, or Islam? what then is it fighting against, when it recreates the same force in essence?

She’s happy, ecstatic with her decisions today. She fell in love, and carried that indulgence through to its just conclusion. And the brat that she is, she does not care a hoot for what whispers follow her. There goes one embodiment of Feminism.

Hanging off a Pendulum!

its a new life. once a student, now an employee. a part of the purpose of my education solved. being independent comes at a cost. the cost of time, money and one’s own sweat n toil. is it worth it? time alone will tell.

when i was in school, i couldn’t wait to grow up. i used to look at all the adults around me and admire them for their…’adultness’ and composure, the way they carried themselves. the opinions and the self composure. and today, when i can be called an adult by my own definition, i don’t feel like it at all. its not chronological time that makes you feel old, its what you do with that time that makes a difference. they say that the experience accumlated over a period of time is what tells your age and the level of wisdom one has attained. seems to be true. in any case, amen. guess its important to be careful what you’re wishing for.

Then there is the office. a 100 faces glued to computer screens, in pursuit of the perfect broadsheet of morrow. a 100*10 fingers frantically flying over keyboards, punching out the symphony of ‘objectivity’. sometimes not. gossip, tension, electricity, humidity, complexes-superiority mostly, egoes all part of the atmosphere, causing a degree of claustrophobia. the stratosphere populated with fluorescent tubelights, which never let u know the time of the day. and the all-pervading air of absorption, of busy-ness, of importance. like we’re all there to save the world, since it is elemental to human survival. jeepers!

but then again, friendly faces, helpful attitudes, a sense of solidarity and a sense of humour more than make up for the initial overwhelming intimidation.

but this sense of constantly being suspended on a tangent, swaying between the grown up world and whats more familiar is, sometimes, unnerving. why is it so much harder to find a firm foothold in the minefield that is life than it ever can be trying to climb a mountain? and to think, we’re not goats, and we’re the ones that rule the earth! collectively, i guess, the human community can throw up a few huge successful names and feel generally proud of themselves, but when it comes to individual trajectories, we’re all staving away our disappointments to ruminate on in solitude. and feel a little less sure of ourselves than we like to show to the world.

its a new life , yes. lets see how we deal with it. and just how much wiser it all makes me!