Thursday, February 07, 2008

Baby Talk!

On the day of the my marriage I figured out that once you decide to tie the knot, your life suddenly becomes sorta public property. Everyone one from the stranger lady at the temple to the old lady who I didn't know was my dad's maternal aunt till that day, everyone tells you what to do! They had on opinion on everything on my wedding day. They thought I didn't wear enough jewelery. The flowers on my head were too little for a bride. Why didn't I do something about my tan before the wedding? "However modern one is, on the wedding day you should look traditional" one aunt told me. If I wasn't too busy being happy about getting married to V I would've probably yelled and screamed at everyone that day. I should tell you that I did get married in a "traditional" way in a super grand Kanchivaram saree (which I probably will never wear again.) The problem was that it wasn't enough!

Why am I rambling about all that happened soooo many moons ago? Well because I am into the second phase that is "you should have a baby" phase. I am not kidding when I say that I get this from practically everyone around me.

Scene 1: I am walking down the street with Amma. An acquaintance of Amma who's seeing me for the first time says "You've had enough fun in life now. Time to have some babies"

Scene 2: An old man sitting next to me on a train journey "It's ok to put off babies for first 2 years but you should have babies after that."

Scene 3: An old watchman in Madurai who's giving me company till my vehicle comes to pick me up is extremely worried about my not having babies. He gives me the address of this doctor in Vadapalani, Chennai who can help me and the address of this special temple somewhere in Madurai who's god is sure to bless me.

Scene 4: V calls a friend and tells him we are coming over to his place to give some good news. We get there and the friend is absolutely flabbergasted that the "good news" was purely professional!

Scene 5: The second question after "how are you?" is "when are you giving us a good news? we need company" from all my married friends who've had babies. And get absolutely hysterical when the answer is "we are not in a hurry"

Now in all this I am lucky that the family is yet to go crazy over this. Although Amma does try her hand at emotional blackmail. But she's always been bad at it so it doesn't matter. However Dad who's spending a lot of time these days with extended family does lose it once in while. "Everyone's asking me! You are 30 what are you waiting for?" he shouts on the phone. He gets the same answer.

And the reasons why I should be having babies (not singular mind you) RIGHT NOW is a fantastic list

1) Why did you get married if you didn't want babies?
2) You owe it your parents
3) What else are you gonna leave behind?
4) We need company
5) What will your mom do after retiring?

But seriously what's with the world? We get sooo hung up about doing everything at right time. Schooling, college, job, marriage, babies! Give me a break. I read I love lucy's post on the same subject some time back. Turns out everyone's being put under the microscope for this one!

Everyone has her own pace and will do things when they are ready! Till then STAY AWAY.

PS: When people discuss why so and so doesn't have a baby, do they realise they are actually discussing so and so's sex life? Or do they think that these two are not connected? Beats me!



7 comments:

I love Lucy said...

:-)
On to some good news,I seem to be able to browse through Just Femme at work without any issues now!
And may I add,Good job!

Samba said...

Girl!!!!! You stole my thoughts. The hate toward allowing my life to be public property is what has truned me a misogamist (hater of marriage). Any religious event I attend, people start reminding me that I can't keep having my cake (freedom) and eat it too for long. Most of them are so stubborn that they don't stop until I offer to recommend them for a job at Bharat Matrimony. Recently, one of my family members assumed that my sex life is boring and has given me a short temper and that I should get married soon. My fault? Being a decent enough Indian guy who keeps his sex life private and not a family affair.

And frankly I feel the imminent need of the people to be spanked who make comments like "What else r u gonna leave behind", "How will ur mom keep herself busy" and "You owe it to your parents".

If your parents hjave made a sacrifice giving birth to you and raising you, you ought to give them love and take good care of them.

But yeah, I do tend to agree that without kids formal marriage has very limited relevance. The only thing it changes, assuming you are in love, is it let's you have kids without being called names. If you are not in love, marriage alone brings such unpredictability that kids....devarige preethi.

Finally I agree that it's perfectly ok if you don't wanna have kids coz you hate to spend three fourths of your life wiping their bums, feeding them enroilling them in school, college, infosys, getting them married, pestering them to have unprotected sex in the interest of grand kids........ These become duties only after having kids.

La vida Loca said...

Hmmm very nice.
What I sometimes get is you will be too old to run around .

Abhipraya said...

Thanks ILL :) What say you write for JustFemme too? It is an open forum you know.

Samba, I didn't know guys had to put up with this too! Just too bad how this system works eh!

La vida, I've got that too. I have friends who've drawn up a chart showing I'd be still supporting my children when I am 56!

Anonymous said...

You've not ruled out having kids..so that's a good thing (I say this as the proud father of two).

While I dont ask my childless friends these kind of intrusive questions, my argument for the defence is...be happy that people are being open about these questions, and so many are comfortable enough with you to be open about these things

For, I feel we are fast becoming 'Western' in terms of putting up polite facades while hiding our true feelings and questions.

A left field response I know..but hey that's me!

jo said...

hey ...u said it!!

i never understud the logic behind the "we know better " attitude of the so called "eldars " ... i feel that our freedom is the most precious thing in life..if we cant decide for ourselves,then wat are we worth ?

Abhipraya said...

jyothi, freedom is something that we celebrate on August 15th only. Rest of the year you have to fight for it:)