What does it take to be a woman (Indian)? I don’t know because words fail to comprehend the feeling of not being able to feel like a woman enough for the society to give its worth validation. My personal experience tells me that a woman is supposed to be a predetermined person of certain obligatory behavior and norms that are so regressive it never tends to cease away. My mother constantly worries that I will end up not getting married and be one of those women who stays alone and probably smokes a lot and would certainly end up living a worthless life. Well it bothers me certainly, but you can’t help it, neither can I.
The very idea of culture and adherence to it is the existing norm of homogeneous behavior expected out of an individual. No matter how liberal one acts or the tries to portray a certain image of modernity prevailing in their particular culture, the very fact is that obscures the individual’s identity in the name of its expected behavior.
At 21 today, I question my importance and the incoherence of my Indian “roots”. I’m not proud of it for obvious reasons it continues to add weights to the already heavily loaded baggage that I am made carry. My brother who is dating a girl from the same caste is not an issue but me even talking to a man from other caste is not acceptable. One must think that this is the story of every Indian woman and the regressive politics of the households all over the country, but the point I wish to raise is that once you have learned certain things how does one unlearn it. How do you go back to your old self? When I talk to the people in my family they claim that I have become too radical in the way of thinking or I have certainly lost my way after studying in Delhi. The very point is that once you realize that things are wrong on so many levels, how do you just ignore it.
The last conversation I had with my mother, she tells me to behave normally. The issue is that how does one define normalcy? But now the issue revolves around me and all the other women, whose culture continues to dominate, oppress and pressurize them to be something they never want to be. And lastly what if we don’t wish to unlearn, what if we desire to be the new “radical” being we have become.
Whatever, my dad’s calling me so now I have to pretend to be all normal and sound like the young naive girl he trusts and would like to believe in.