Monday, June 05, 2006

Bride and Prejudice???

I personally don't like putting up forwards here, as blogs, but when she sent it, I couldn't but resist putting it up.

Ah, lady, this is for you. And for you too, my dearest.

Here is a girl,
who is as much educated as you are;
who is earning almost as much as you do;
one, who has dreams and aspirations just as you have because she is as human as you are;

one, who has never entered the kitchen in her life just like you or your sister haven't, as she was busy in studies and competing in a system that gives no special concession to girls for their culinary achievements;
one, who has lived with and loved her parents and brothers and sisters, almost as much as you do for 20-25 years of her life;
one, who has bravely agreed to leave behind all that, her home, people who love her, to adopt your home, your family, your ways and even your family name;

one, who is somehow expected to be a master-chef from day #1, while you sleep oblivious to her predicament in her new circumstances, environment and that kitchen;
one, who is expected to make the tea, first thing in the morning and cook food at the end of the day, even if she is as tired as you are, maybe more, and yet never ever expected to complain;
to be a naukraani, a cook, a mother, a wife, even if she doesn't want to; and is learning just like you are as to what you want from her, and is clumsy and sloppy at times and knows that you won't like it if she is too demanding or if she learns faster than you;

one, who has her own set of friends, and that includes boys and even men at her workplace, too, those, who she knows from school days and yet is willing to put all that on the back-burners to avoid your irrational jealousy, unnecessary competition and your inherent insecurities;

yes, she can drink and dance just as well as you can, but won't, simply because you won't like it, even though you say otherwise;
one, who can be late from work once in a while when deadlines, just like yours, are to be met;

one, who is doing her level best and wants to make this most important relationship in her entire life a grand success, if you just help her some and trust her;

one, who just wants one thing from you - your unstinted support, your sensitivities and most importantly - your understanding and love.

Are you man enough to give it to her?

I, for one, am.

12 comments:

the-think said...

wow!
the 'she' this is written to must be one happy thing now :)

Shikha said...

great..cant wait to send this to someone

Khushi said...

WOW!!!
AWESOME!!!

Khushi said...

ooops, forgot...
^:)^
:d

Viky said...

@the-think: Hmm. I hope so too. :)

@Shikha: Send it. Send it to all you know. We men need things like these, to awaken us.

It is not everyone who has a sister at home, who balances her academics and culinary skills, and yet comes up better than her brother.

@Khushi: Forward it to the guy's id, if you have.

Anonymous said...

hmmm.. no comments! U know my favourite part! :)

Viky said...

@Lee: I do. I do. Thanks for the article. ;)

Chitra said...

Sakkath post Viky! Loved the simplicity of it a lot...and the meaning...

Khushi said...

Er.... sent it to all my friends, viky ;-)

Anonymous said...

how about this one??? A very old forward which i had...

Here is one of the most interesting mail on the thoughts of the Indian bride. Read on (both brides and bride grooms) to have a peep into the minds of the Indian bride before marriage..................
Letter from an Indian bride-to-be to all prospective bridegrooms
________________________________________________________________
Best wishes on embarking on a new voyage in life! So far you have realized your academic and some of your professional ambitions and that of your parents as well. You have been the cynosure of the eyes of your parents. They now have a special treat for the special person in their lives - of finding life-mates for their sons. You begin to daydream too. You deserve it after years of slogging. You open your eyes to see a line-up of girls,
all there for your parents and for you to screen, scrutinize, select or spurn. Wow! But I would like to place before you what goes on in the minds of these girls before you meet them, at the time of meeting, and after. Since dating is not common in our community, the dependence on parents for finding life-mates becomes inevitable. Most of you are lucky - you will
'meet' the girls at one go and take your pick. For some girls, the exercise from 'screening' through 'rejection' gets repeated over and over again, for months, even years! The girls feel like cows put on sale. (Some girls might have shown you the door, but this number is statistically insignificant compared to the number of girls who get rejected.)
Imagine the professional girl who is busy like you, at work, and gets a call from her mother saying that one of you will be coming to 'meet' her the following day. The mother's phone call is to warn her that somehow she must squeeze time to visit the beauty parlor. At home there are further instructions on what to wear, how much jewellery to put on. To keep the peace the girl tries to do a balancing act, trying to please her parents, yours, you, and herself, in that order.
You however, can arrive in casual clothes, wearing the same kind of attire you wear to the office. The girl envies you; if she too could wear her usual salwar-kameez, she would feel more herself.How can you get to know her real self when she is not at ease? Some of you search for a Sushmita Sen or Aishwarya Rai in the girl. But not all girls have these beauty queens as their role models. Working girls do not also have the time to spend on 'pruning' their bodies, or the money to pay for physical alterations of the kind that beauty queens get done. Think of the girl who feels elated over her professional achievement just before you come to meet her, only to be 'rejected' by you. It is traumatic to be flung on an emotional roller-coaster of this kind.
Some of you (especially NRIs) want to discuss, during your conversation with the girl, questions about raising a family. A rejection after such intimate talk leaves her devastated and humiliated. Girls in India do not appreciate talking about raising a family with their suitors, certainly not before they are even engaged.
Supposing you went through a lengthy job interview, with probing questions, and were then turned down, how would you feel? That is how upsetting it is, for a girl to be 'tested' and found 'wanting' or 'not good enough'.
I remember a friend whose younger sister was to be 'seen' by one of you NRIs. She was rejected, because the boy said yes to the girl who received him at the airport. 'Next time', this friend told her sister, 'you too must scurry to the airport...'
The NRI groom wants it all - the advantages of his exposure to western culture and way of life, plus the right to 'look at' and examine prospective brides in the conventional way. The right to 'test' her for her ideas on how many children she plans to have, and when, but not concede to her the right to be herself, on equal terms with him as an individual. He would like her to be demure and dolled up, but at the same time 'forward' enough to grab him at the airport.
Physically, a beauty queen but also a qualified computer engineer so that she will fit in nicely with the plans he has, for a lifestyle of comfort, with two salaries to help that down payment on a house in California. But not so capable and outgoing that other men find her attractive and desirable. That won't do. Even her height is to be according to specifications ("minimum 160 cm", as the ads say). Tall and slim. And an electronics engineer to boot. Others need not apply. Sure, they don't, but their parents nonetheless have them lined up, hopefully to 'pass'.
If ever there was a situation of cultural confusion, this is it." Confusion for whom? Not so much for the kind of educated, professionally qualified, urban middle class girl that this letter writer portrays, as for the thousands of young, eligible bachelors who fly down from abroad to pick up a bride from among the likely girls lined up and shortlisted by their parents in advance.
The grooms-to-be can mouth their philosophies and beliefs and ideologies, with impunity. The brides-to-be cannot. Either because, as this girl points out, her parents have to be obeyed (and it makes them nervous to have the daughter articulating her ideas, just in case she says the 'wrong' things) and peace in the family has to be maintained, or because, again as this letter observes, she is genuinely unsure about the whole exercise.

Yes, there are, indeed, some young men who too find this kind of 'arrangement' and shortlisting distasteful, but their numbers are statistically far less significant than the numbers of girls who find the process traumatic and demeaning. The male has the upper hand, to reject, prevaricate, take his own time, change his mind, whatever. Girls do not go round, to assess a short list of eligible men. Even when the girl is also herself an NRI, on the same kind of job and earnings and
qualifications as a male, it is she who is on display when she comes (or is brought) home with matrimony in view.
We change food habits, dress and diversions when we become NRIs, but certain things do not change, even beyond the seven seas...
___________________________________________________________
A reply to the letter from some "Indian middle class prospective bridegroom"
___________________________________________________________
Dear Brides-to-be,
I can understand the thoughts in the letter. But think of the number of times you have rejected when you had five guys running behind you, prepared to go to any extent to win your love during your Collage days and later. The trouble is, you were too smart. When the adolescent boys were mad after you, you were weighing their personality, their purse and possible future. Would you have accepted the smart, charming and caring BCom. Graduate from a village?
What was the scene during those days? Even the worst looking girl will have some one to go out with. The average looking girl will have minimum three guys to take them out, to do assignments, to stand in the queue to reserve tickets. But even the best looking guy will have to do "Shahrukh
Khan circus" to win a smile! That was your day! "Make hay while sun shines"
All of you brides-to-be want NRIs, software professionals and teetotalers! Would you even think of the soft, gentle, sensible middle class sales representative who is moving in his old scooter in the scorching sun? *You* want the NRIs, the half boiled confused citizens, who have devoted heir entire life to GREs, TOEFLs, universities and Main frames, who have no idea about how the female species would look like. Here the price you have to pay is heavy. But that is life, the more we want the more we pay.
What do you think??

Anonymous said...

Samajh sako to samaj Lo :-
Aaj ki naari … “ Bhagwaan hai Bechhari “

Anonymous said...

excellent one....its always the same with all gals..........thanks for posting it .. :)