Single, but happy!
So ended my conversation with a
few gal pals a few days ago and this statement of my friend got me thinking,
shouldn’t it be single ‘and’ happy? Why do people have to prove to their
families and friends that they can be happy ‘despite’ being single?
Here, I’m not going to talk about
the challenges a single woman faces in India – the biggest being the lack of
support from her family or the community she lives in or her struggle to keep
herself safe. We have enough feministic opinions doing the rounds, lashing at
the chauvinistic approach people (yes, men and women) adopt. But this is not
what this blog post is about.
Just to give you some statistics, single women constitute 21% of India’s population, that’s a whopping 73 million!
This proves, we aren’t as rare a breed, nor are we going extinct anytime soon! And am sure a sizeable proportion of this population is confronted by these challenges.
I want YOU to share your views
here. But here’s some background….
So, as I was mentioning, one of my
friends declared that she has decided to stay away from marriage as she is
tired of the whole process of groom hunting. Her exasperation (like those of
thousands of women) resulted from a long drawn process (spreading over years)
of coming across profiles of potential grooms, which immediately brought up the
excitement levels of her parents, only to crush them and push them into despair
each time the ‘alliance’ did not work out. Let’s not even get into the reasons.
How it works…
The profiles of grooms usually
come from relatives and friends who want to ‘help’ the family, and yes they
mean well, or from matrimonial sites. We have no dearth of the latter – they
are tailor made for your requirements, there are sites for various religions,
castes, communities. Am sure there are specific ones for potential brides /
grooms who are short, or much taller than ‘industry standards’, for people with
darker skin tones, divorced people, widows / widowers, single parents and I
guess also for people suffering from commitment phobia!
The Pitfalls
How can you ensure that whatever
has been mentioned on the profile is indeed true? We are a breed of intuitive
human beings, but I doubt we are adept at identifying seasoned liars who hide
behind innocent faces. Is there a way of seeing that smirk on a person’s face
before that perfect picture was clicked? Sadly, in our ‘Muggle’* world a
picture does not tell us much.
The Dilemma
So if we write off the whole
groom searching process that we Indians normally are accustomed to, what are the
options left?! To give you a little background, my single friends are career-oriented
girls (I can almost picture a stereotypical ‘saas’** cringe at the word), who
focused all their energies into getting good grades, stayed clear of
relationships and continue to slog it out at work too. Yes, they have some
great friends, but don’t party frequently or get an opportunity to meet a lot
of single guys!
What then are the options left
for people like my friend, who still hope to meet their Prince Charming (agreed
they don’t come riding a white horse, these days, so it’s hard to identify them)
so they get swept off their feet.
This brings me to the question I
have been mulling over:
· How can they meet someone they connect with and
decide on whether or not they want to spend the rest of their lives with them?
They also don’t want their parents getting involved in the process, till they
are sure.
As their friend, I am convinced that
my single gal pals are leading a complete life and enjoying their ‘single’
status. However, I’d love for them to meet that someone special, fall in love
and get to spend the rest of their lives with the one they love! I adore these
girls and really wish them the very best!
* A term from J. K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter, where this word denotes a person who does not possess magical skills
** Mother-in-law in Hindi
