My Lost Identity

I am in my early 30's and I paint my life in my own way almost every day shuffling colors every now and then to adapt seamlessly into my ambient surroundings. I was born in a middle class family where families love to stay close knit(a little too tight sometimes where relatives intruding your personal space is considered as care and concern), education is given utmost importance as that is the only weapon to become future engineers or doctors(Mind You - There is no other career option). And to let you know, I work in a MNC and financially independent to support my family on my own shoulders. This was one of the most important teachings from my parents, relatives since I was a school kid, to be successful, financially independent in life as this is indispensable for a girl child. I was constantly put to pressure on how crucial it is to score high marks, was compared strongly with my cousins & friends and faced humiliation(people ignore as kids those days were not subject to humiliation or rather people choose to ignore the shaming part), to stay away from extracurricular activities like painting, dancing which I loved the most as they wasted my precious math’s time(I was weak at it then and even now I am weak at it). As a kid, I was a mediocre at studies and never made my parents proud with my grades. Sometimes I used to surprise them with good grades and that grade used to become my baseline for future grades. The fear of getting married to a pan-wala or a rickshaw-wala for getting low grades constantly bothered me and at times I used to look at pan-wala's to see if they were good looking, and never found them attractive. A girl is expected to get good grades to apply for good husbands rather than good universities. Be it my school or my family, it was always a race for me as a kid - the race to stay ahead in school, the race to top in terms of behavior and constantly being compared to my girl cousins who were homely and sober in nature(expected behavior for a girl child), the race to lighten the melanin in my skin for a fairer complexion(the side effects of societal pressure when your mother is very fair skinned), the race to excel in every sphere and so on. All these race are driven by societal pressure and I was just a part of it.

 

Since childhood, it is fed into the minds of the females to remain submissive all her life. I have grew hearing this all my life,'Dont do this, you are a girl !', 'You are a girl, so you are not allowed to do this. ', 'You are a girl, not a boy so start behaving like a girl!'.

Parents always want to keep their girl child safe but they do in such a manner that girls tend to lose their self-confidence, feel inferior to boys and remain submissive all their lives. The society has laid norms about male and female tasks. And any change on those norms is never accepted.

 

After marrying the love of my life(Brahmin, Fair, Tall, MBA), I was considered as a lucky girl to own this wholesome package by some relatives. My husband seemed more like a lottery prize than a partner. Most of my sisters had love marriages as well and it is conjecture, based on old morals that girls have been lucky in trapping good guys. However, the same does not apply to my brothers who had love marriages as they were innocent and got into the trap. Whenever someone in my family gets pregnant, all the ladies in my family start praying for a baby boy and exclaim with pride that if the first baby is a boy, there is no need for a second child. They love the girl child after she is born and utmost care is being taken. But I comprehend the reason for not wanting a girl child in the first place. And they say, we consider girls as equal to boys. This is hypocrisy at its peak. I can recollect one such incident - My mother was pregnant with my brother and she was delivering at the same hospital, same dorm room as her elder sister who had given birth to a son as her first child. My mother was pushed into the same bed of the dorm room to increase her chances of having a baby boy. which is taken as a joke and everyone shares a hearty laugh whenever they discuss about it.

 

Working females have to toughest job in the world as they have to balance both work and home. It takes a lot for a female mentally and physically to balance both. The work pressure at office to please your boss, clients or customers drain me completely. By the time I reach home, it feels like dragging my own body to the kitchen to complete the daily chores. My husband might be home early watching his favorite show or just relaxing for having a tiring day at work but I am not allowed to relax as the next part to ‘balance my home job’ phase starts the moment I enter the door or might be from the nearby grocery store where I stopped by to pick up groceries while coming back from office for dinner. Whenever I fail to balance both, I am being judged. At work, a small miss on my end is never taken lightly and soon the superior category of colleagues turn sexist and pass comments about female work style. Men at work always consider women as eye candy and the females are not as capable as men workforce. Many initiatives are being taken to balance the workforce ratio. However, this huge margin can never be balanced unless we do not change the mind-set of the society.

 

I have a lot of plans in my career goals and put in a lot of efforts to shape my career the way I want to. Women around the world are making it big in every profession and are able to use their education in right direction. But the societal pressure against the working women is of a paramount concern at this stage. The pressure comes in various forms and they judge me in terms of my capability of handling a family, my cooking abilities, my ability to handle my maternal and in laws family. I am being weighed at every point of my life. I am not being appreciated for considering my career as a top priority over my so called 'Expected Indian Wife' activities. The constant pressure to bear a child is something very personal to me and my husband, it is not a public discussion which all my relatives take active participation and judge me, yet again. It is a personal choice and I would respect this topic to stay within the boundaries of my bedroom.

 

It gives me immense pain to understand that a Woman is against a woman's growth. I had grown up in an free independent environment with minimal restrictions, however I can see the real restrictions now - That is in their mindset. I had expected the ladies in my family to be more broad and independent but every time it comes to me as a surprise when they weigh the boys more than the girls. Every time I move away from the protocol of so called family values, culture which does not give you inner peace, my mom says it so casually that it’s the money, the job, the pride for such a behavior in women these days. It deeply saddens me. I am trying my best to keep everyone happy - My family, my in laws and everyone around. Sometimes, I feel like a machine which is put to use and valued for nothing.

 

I was a princess before marriage or at least I felt so. After marriage, things change drastically. My parents always had this typical 'I am a Girl's father/Mother' mentality which is a hard pill for me to digest. I am expected to stay in my in-laws place whenever I visit home. Firstly, getting leaves approved is a mountain climbing task with so many dependencies at my work place. And after getting a week's leave, I need to calculate the number of days I need to share in my maternal and in laws house. Every time I explain my plan to them, I can sense the nervousness in their tone if my in-laws would be ok with my stay. Am I not allowed to even plan my holidays? Am I not allowed to stay as per my choice? The place where I was born and brought up with so much of love and care does not belong to me anymore or rather the people are not ready to accept me/afraid to accept me as their part any more. Although they get worried whenever I am sick and my mother routinely checks on my health, my lunch, the number of rotis I had for dinner, weekend processes for oiling hair, homely beauty treatments but I really do not understand the purpose of self under estimation and happily bearing the brunt of being a married Girl's parent as this is being carried forward to us by our ancestors.

Why cannot you break this protocol? Why cannot you stand for your educated, qualified and financially independent daughter? Whenever I realize that my parents are undergoing some financial stress which they aren’t comfortable sharing with me post my marriage as I do not belong to their gotra anymore and it clearly indicates that any financial support from me is unacceptable. The other day, I was speaking to my mama and she said ' It’s different between you and your brother, we can accept any support from him but not from you..You are married.'. I felt a lump in my throat and was deeply hurt and conclude that I have lost all the rights on my parents. There was no point in arguing and I stopped conversing on that point.

I was thinking for long on how my life is being treated now. The only right I levied was on my parents where I use to vent out my frustration, share my woes, my pain, my happiness and now I feel as if I was a burden to them all these days and they have passed on me to another gotra happily. All they can do is sulk with me whenever I feel low. 

 

All I want now is to be free, independent and fly happily.

Is it a big thing to ask for? Is it a curse being a female? Is it wrong to be way I am? Is it necessary to change myself according to the society which is against my happiness?