PaReNtS and PaRaNoiA

I have successfully reached the age at which general paranoia is attributed to lack of matrimonial commitment. At 25, I am exhausted, aimless and getting borderline schiznophrenic, more like the female version of all the antsy characters played by Woody Allen. Solitude makes more sense than company now. Believe me, this is new. In school and college, I was always with a big entourage of friends or fr-enemies or acquaintances. Lately, I seem to quiet despise company and have begun doing most of the things alone by myself. Things I always required a friend for company. Being an introvert who hates change, I assumed this sort of behaviour is beyond logical and normal human nature. But now, I am venturing to places I have feared to go alone. Why? I ask myself and others.

My parents have a theory to explain this. All of this "madness" can be explained by the fact that I am not married. Yes, a co dependent relationship with a bossy, lazy, controlling, narrow minded man is the answer to my paranoia. This is not a generalization about men. The men in my life are pretty okay, but as husbands they tend to be examples for one or more of  the above mentioned traits, to their wives.

I fail to comprehend as to why all problems in an unmarried woman's life immediately points to the lack of a husband. Marriage, according to me, is the the day I boast to the world that I have found love, who would stand BESIDE me and not ABOVE. Such love is very rare to find in a place where mothers breed their sons with extra dosages of "MALE EGO", assuming the general consensus of heterosexuality in my case.

My parent's love choke me and I think I would feel like an ungrateful parasite feeding off of them if in finality, I end up exercising my free will without considering their feelings. As a child with a submissive disposition, I , like many women fall into the snare of arranged marriage and are given the ultimate parental advice. Not about having a joyous and loving life, but to adjust to any difficulties posed at the In-laws place. Yes, that is exactly what marriage is all about.

The most unsettling aspect of this arrangement is that I am uncertain if I would have anything remotely close to love in the marriage that is fixed.

I am a good human being, a good daughter but I may be a terrible wife. This is something my parents fail to see as they perceive all  creatures of the female trait are hard coded to be perfect wives, hetero or otherwise.

The thing is, I am a lazy bum and I am proud about it. Its not exactly an ideal life, but what exactly qualifies for an ideal life. It is pretty objective and my vision is to live the way that makes me happy.There is a catch here as a free female mind is always looked at as an arrogant aka bitchy one, while the same traits in a man make them either despicable hipsters or impeccable gentlemen.

Take a 180 degree spin....

On the other hand,
I hope I am just over thinking things.
I hope everything goes well.
I hope life is not as  screwed up as it appears.
I hope I can mend it if it does screw up.

Hoping for the best.
Amazing part of being a human is you get to hope that things are not always as bad as it seems and to figure out that single ray of extraordinary prospects that you may end up having, in spite of all the pessimism that mounts up around you. In spite of all the things that could go wrong, all the things that could turn bad, the thought that there is a possibility of things could go your way, always pulls you to that extra mile and that extra mile may be the the life changing one.

ThE DeScEnT Of ThE DeCeAsEd

DISCLAIMER : THE FOLLOWING POST MAY BE INSENSITIVE SO WHATEVER.

Death. Something that used to be dark and gloomy. I believed it brought about great deal of misery, for the loss of a loved one could be unimaginable and loss of loved one being the key word. What happens at the death of a not so good person? Some one who was rotten to the very core but pretended to be sweet. Even though everybody saw what kind of a person he/she was, yet never made an  attempt to confront them about their wrong doings merely because they were older, richer and had a tad more power than the confrontee. This is about such a person. Her death neither stirred a great deal of grief or joy among her near and not so dear.

I happened to be there, at her funeral. Well I am technically her relative but our relationship was never cherished. Well she was supposed to be a big part of my childhood, but she simply didn't care. Before I go ahead explaining about the funeral, I would like to recount my previous funeral experience because I do not want to seem insensitive or inexperienced when it came to funerals. I had been to two. My mother's brother and father and they were full on funerals of the countryside. The traditional women-in-huddle "opari", sounds of waterworks all around, men discussing how the departed will be missed, family trying to get a hold of the things happening around. One could easily cut a slice through the grief that lingered around the place. After such grim experiences, this was a.. how can I say it.... weird  experience.

 I was walking towards the house were funeral was held. A few houses away, I could see my destination quiet clearly and there started the weirdness. I heard no "Tharai/thappatai" and I assumed it was too early. I heard no crying and I thought people were tired of crying for a very long time, but it had just been a few hours since she passed.  Mind you, this is not a woman with very few relatives. She had 5 step children, 4 sons of her own and a brigade of grand and great-grand children. All I heard was the noise of conversation. Men having men talk and women sharing women thoughts.

I retreated to the wall on the opposite house to observe the proceeding. Suddenly, the people stirred and looked down the street. A family of four were walking towards the house. A respectfully dressed elderly man, an elderly woman, clearly the man's wife and two other women who were most likely their daughters. I knew the gentleman was the dead woman's step son, to whom she had successfully cliched the role of a step mother. As soon as he appeared at the threshold of the funeral house, his two sisters started their lament almost instantaneously. The timing was so accurate that even trained actors cannot start crying on cue like they did. They scooped their brother in a huge hug and led him in. He was not sad or for that matter he reflected no emotion. This death did not affect him, for he made sure her life didn't affect him in any way.

This routine continued for a while . As new mourners turned up, the sobbing sisters engulfed them in their lament and after a threshold period of 2 minutes, they went about their business. The dead lady's own daughter in law, looked thoroughly annoyed, not at nature for depriving her of a mother in law but the number of people who turned up to pay their respects to the dead, adding to one more fake pleasantry that she had to deliver.

The proceedings were dull, not in a grim or nature of death, but people looked extremely bored. Nagging kids all around urging parents for something more fun than a funeral and that's when the most curious event of my observations of the funeral began.

An elderly woman, whom I learned  to be the cousin of the weeping sisters, came rushing in, crying a high pitched lament which was further encouraged by the sisters in distress. The three got together and started crying and the tricky part was when the sisters reached their threshold 2 minutes but the cousin still continued "oparying". They sat there for another 10 minutes not to seem rude , but the cousin was unstoppable. After a about 15 minutes past their threshold period, they left the cousin to grieve alone, and resumed their usual funeral talk. After another 10 minutes, the cousin  came out, finishing all the verses of the lament and joined the sisters to complain about the frequent power cuts.


     What amazed me the most that day was that a human life had ended. Any form of physical existence of the woman ceased that day but the impact she had was so little that it was near miserable. The state of events of her funeral made me feel sad for the life she had more than her death itself.