As You Get Married, Dear Sister, I Hope You Don’t Make My Mistakes

Dear sister,

Yes, I managed to get leaves and I just booked my tickets! I can make it for your wedding and I am as excited as you are! Dear little girl, I see that you are so much in love and can’t wait any longer to start your life with your love! As you disconnect the call to rush back to check on the preparations, I find myself engrossed in the memories of my wedding day.

It has been three years since that day. As I look back, I can’t help but laugh at myself for getting married at that young age. I was just 23, believed that I had found the one born for me, and wanted to escape from the boredom of a routine life. My fiancé offered me a life full of fun, lot of travelling and surprises. I found his philosophies and ideas profound and interesting. As the day drew closer, I found myself unsure about the whole affair but I chose to trust him above everyone. With excitement and joy, I handed over the reins of my life to a person who barely knew the real me.

We had a simple wedding with minimum splendor. We did not have a pre or post wedding photo shoot because ‘all that didn’t matter’. We did not go ‘honeymooning’ because it was too mainstream. In less than a week, we travelled to Mysore, where both of us worked. When we got the wedding pictures and albums, I wouldn’t take a second look at it because I hated my wedding gown and my cheap-looking sarees! Soon, I got (shamefully) obsessed with watching wedding videos and pics of others only to make myself feel more pathetic. Others had custom made gowns, sparkling diamonds, exquisite photo-shoots, and honeymoons in exotic places! Well, not everyone went by ‘simple weddings’! I knew it was wrong to compare my life with others’, but gradually, my unhappiness took over my rationale.

It seemed that everyone else were enjoying their lives. My single friends were making their solo trips to other countries, pursuing higher studies in foreign countries or quitting their boring jobs to find their dream jobs. And here I was, struggling in the kitchen with ingredients and recipes, spending weekends with more cooking and cleaning, taking morning walks all alone, or reading books to escape into the lives of other people. I wanted to do something for myself, and started taking dance lessons. To my horror, I found myself deeply obliged to him for letting me do it!

I never had any of those ‘promised’ surprise trips, adventures or fun. We rarely went out because we had to ‘save for future’. We spent weekends at home because weekends ‘were made to give you time to relax’. I never told him how unhappy and disappointed I was, because I was not trained to speak out. My only refuge was my diary, to which I poured out my heart and kept it locked in my office cupboard lest he read it! Slowly, it dawned on me that I was taking it all wrong.

My happiness and well-being was my responsibility. My first mistake was to entrust my life to someone else, hoping that he would bring sunshine to it. Dear sister, as much as your parents/partner/kids love you, your happiness should not depend on them. You must know how to take care of yourself, you should find time for yourself and you must know how to keep yourself happy. On better retrospection, I realized that when I remained gloomy and irritated, I was ruining my husband’s happiness too! You can give something only if you have it. Likewise, you can radiate happiness, only if you are happy. This is why only happy mothers can raise happy families.

My second mistake was that I kept everything to myself. I did not discuss my unhappiness with my husband. Like how ‘Percy wouldn't recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobby's tea cozy’, men don’t understand subtle signs. You should be able to speak out for yourself. This doesn’t imply that you should present unrealistic demands! I know you are a sensible girl.

Invest in your friendships. Most women cut themselves off from their family and friends after they get married. After the initial euphoria of married bliss wears off, you will miss your girls! Keep in touch with them; marriage shouldn’t change such equations. We always need a support system and there are some things like ‘girly talks’ and ‘girls’ night outs’ that make you feel like a little girl all over again.

Most of all, do not quit your job. In today’s world, women earn as much or more than men, and the age-old idea of ‘man being the provider’ has changed. You must earn to keep your dignity, to be able to buy gifts for your parents, yourself and fulfill your small dreams. Also, working mothers raise kids who are more responsible and successful.

Take care of each other’s souls. I hope you both pray together, surprise each other, and celebrate each other’s success! Marriage is like a small plant that requires constant nurturing and pruning. You cannot ignore it and expect it to give you flowers. I hope you remember your wedding day with a smile and a look back at your life with a sense of fulfilment.

I hope you don’t make my mistakes.

Can’t wait to meet you!

Best,

Your sister.

Ageing and Advertisements

I have always loved advertisements. They are so full of colors and peppy music and jingles that refuse to leave your brain for long. I can still recollect the famous jingle of Britannia biscuits that I watched during my school days. ‘ting-ting-ting-ting’. Many a times I have caught myself humming the tune of an ad that I happened to see just before leaving for office. Advertisements connect you to the happening world outside, show you warm exotic places and educate you about the stuff in-vogue. Yes, they can be weird and full of innuendoes too. What has a pretty woman’s painted, caressing fingers got to do with a men’s perfume? In real life, nothing. But in an ad, with the suggestive tunes and background, that opens a plethora of possibilities.

I think children have a knack to understand advertisements better than adults. They catch the phrases and the innuendoes better than the oldies. Have you noticed how easily children by heart and role play ads? My young cousins are experts in advertisements. Talk about a new product in the market, and they can immediately recount its advertisement!

Advertisements can ignite nostalgia too. One of my best friends used to sing ‘washing powder Nirma, detergent powder Nirma’ at the top of her voice to annoy her hostel mates. Recently at a reunion gathering, the hostel mates forced her to sing it again!

There was a time when people were forced to watch the ads, when you had only DD National and was left optionless! Later, when cable network sunk its roots, you could always flick the channels, rather than watch the ads. Siblings would adjust timings of the shows like this; “Haan, so when the advertisements begin, I’ll watch WWF and when that channel has advertisements, you can watch your stupid movie.” Soon, with the advent of advertising agencies, that field has witnessed a massive change and became a huge space of creativity and turnovers in millions

As a child I was an expert at deciphering advertisements. My grandparents would miss half the things in the ads, thanks to the speedy delivery, the loud music and the short dialogues, and I would gladly explain the ad to them. Maybe, as kids, you knew the trends and the common verbiage and that made the task easier. As you grow up, you lose touch and slowly you start failing at understanding ads. You begin by missing a few terms. Then you realize that you can’t make sense out of a few dialogues. Further, an ad begins and ends and you feel blank! You just haven’t understood what just happened on screen! That’s when you should seek help of your younger siblings or cousins! They would look at you incredulously ‘Cant you understand such simple things in life???’

Well, hence proved that ageing is inversely proportional to your advertisement grasping abilities.

 

An 'Approved' Life

“Jumi! How could you do that? What would others think of you?” During my childhood I was often reprimanded like this. “What would others think?” “What would others say?” Most of my childhood and teenage pranks and errors were caught and curbed so. In a traditional and conservative village in Kerala, it was most important for a girl to ensure a good ‘image’ in the society. I was taught to fear public opinion. By fearing public opinion, it was mandated that I earned their approval too. And thus, I ended up going to church every day, and entered the good books of old aunties and grannies. “See, such a pious girl”. I fasted and followed all Lents mandated in the Catholic calendar and made my grandmother proud amongst her friends. “Oh! Such a devout young girl. Even my daughter in law doesn’t observe Lent.” I studied well enough and was usually amongst the top ten students in the class. “See, Jumi always scores above eighty.” Worse, I was reasonably good at extra-curricular activities and that made another entry in the good books!

By being in the good books of the elders, I also ensured that I was disliked, if not hated, by my peers. For them, my existence was a torture. They were constantly compared and contrasted against me and that irked them. I fairly doubt that my cousins too dreaded me.

But, the person behind all this was my Chechy, my mom’s youngest sister, who brought me up. She made sure that I topped each exam, bagged most prices, and was brought up as an ardent Christian. She would spend her study holidays to drill Mathematics into my dull head. She got me lots of books from her college library and made sure I was well-read. She wouldn’t mind staying up all night to stitch something for me for a competition or a dance performance. And, the night before an exam, she would even ask questions in my sleep to check if I have by-hearted everything. That was Chechy, my love. Always worried and concerned about me!

So, it was she who nurtured this idea of being approved by everyone. I had to be miss righteous and miss perfect. My uncle was well-connected and though I studied at a far-away school, each actions of mine were reported at home by his most diligent informers. I was encouraged to maintain a daily journal and my uncle and aunt used to go through the entries and it made the task of ‘bringing up Jumi’ easier. I never realized that they read my entries; instead I wondered how they came to know about my schemes to ‘stray’. I was caned, advised and sometimes blackmailed that I toed the line. Public opinion mattered so much to our family.

A terrible sense of guilt grew along with me and by the time I was a teenager, I was always worried about others’ opinion about me. I acted nice with people even while I hoped I could scream at them. I learned to tolerate people though all I wanted was to run away from them. I could fake laughs, smiles and worse, happiness. Slowly that became my habit. I am eternally worried about my actions and keep hoping to make the right remarks and perfect conversations so that I please others and not hurt anybody. I lost touch with the real me and these days, I truly wonder what my real self would be like. And when I think of myself, the image that comes to my mind is that of a caged pathetic bird with two stubby tufts of feathers in place of wings.

On Anonymous Profiles

Two years ago, I wrote a post in Facebook on the burden of being a newly married girl. It was not based on my experiences alone; I had adapted the tales shared by a few of my friends and what I saw in the lives of my aunts. However, for a reader, it looked like I was rambling and complaining about my new ‘status’.

My husband did not bother much. In fact, he did not care. (Maybe he just ignored the subtle signs or simply believed what I said “No, this is not about us, love”). The post got a good number of likes, and a reasonable number of comments, ranging from ‘well, said’ to ‘are you okay?’. My husband got phone calls from a few of his friends who felt his life was in shambles. My married friends probably rejoiced, (‘haha…welcome to the club), a few unmarried ones texted (“really, Jumi? Is this what marriage is about?”) 

I got a phone call from my mother in law, who tried to educate me about the different phases in life and the adjustments every human being has to go through. She did make sense. But I had too much of unhappiness nestled in my chest. I had hoped them, my new family and new set of friends, to acknowledge my wish to write and publish.

Slowly, I learned to confine my thoughts to my diary. I religiously penned down my feelings, opinions on movies and political incidents, things I longed to do, my frustrations and unforgettable moments. It gave me a sense of accomplishment. I went for morning walks and came back to the silence of my kitchen, my mind full of fresh air, lot of ideas and good lexes that I longed to write down and show to the world. But I had earned too many constraints. I would hurt many people and their sentiments.

 I was learning why women were forced to opt for fake names or profiles when they write.