Being the youngest amongst my first cousins on both paternal
and maternal side, I had seen a lot of marriages – new brides coming into our
family and my girl cousins going off as brides to new families. I had seen how
difficult a transition period that is for a girl – adjusting to a new family,
new culture, new place, new traditions and customs. To add to all this, the
whole set of expectations from the bride whereas the bridegroom is free of all
expectations!
With all this awareness and witness, I came as a new bride
to this village. But the whole village way of welcoming a new bride is so
different from the city ways. A bride is an article of intrigue, curiosity,
gossip and rebuke. And I have been experiencing all this the past 45 days. All
the elder ladies of the village casually walk into the house at any time of the
day asking to see the new bride or wife of Mr.M (my husband). Probably it does
not occur to them that maybe I am not in a state to entertain guests. At any
moment that they walk in I need to go parade myself in front of them for their
examination. While some question me on my cooking skills, some ask my
mother-in-law if I do the household chores and while some take the extra
liberty to reprimand me on my choice of clothes or on my not-wearing-bangles
habit or not putting ‘bindi’ on my forehead. To all this I just stand there,
smile and nod my head! I find this the best way to reply rather than start an
argument on my freedom of choice in clothes or my way of living.
Till date I have not mustered enough courage to walk alone
on the village roads. I always ask my husband to accompany me while walking to
the fields or just for a walk in the evening. Just once when I made up enough
courage to walk with my sister-in-law, I got reproached by some lady I do not
even recognise for not wearing bangles. As I was beginning to start an argument
with that lady thinking enough is enough, my sister-in-law, who is one sweet,
quiet lady, walked me away from the village.
For
all the restrictions we face in the cities, I have been a strong protestor and
demand either rational or logic behind certain traditional practises. Having
come from this background, every time someone here tells me how important it is
to wear the mangalsutra or toe rings, I lose my inner equanimity and rebel
against the custom of a girl having to wear all proof of marriage whereas the
man walks around with not a little change in his life – be it change in
clothes, habit of wearing / not wearing jewellery, change of house, change of
family – nothing whatsoever!
For a person who detests attention, this phase
of being the new bride in the village is tiring me out and testing all my
meditation capacity of remaining calm while my temper is touching newer heights
each time. Silently, I pray each day that a new bride arrives in the village
soon enough to take away all the attention and intrigue from me!
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