As much as I hate it I have decided to fight
Kat and Vicky’s wedding has been all the rage in the last week. The clandestine nature of the event has taken the media by surprise. They can’t fill pages with photos and gossip anymore. They probably are offended that the relationship itself was a secret. Kat and Vicky apparently have gone to great lengths to hide the relationship and the wedding. Just to make it clear I don’t feel the need for any ‘celebrity’ to make any part of their personal life public. I think it is unfortunate that media and people demand invasive details of the lives of famous people. This whole incident did get me thinking about secret romances though. While Kat and Vicky hopefully didn’t need to hide their relationship from their family I, like very many Indians, need to. It’s a matter of survival more than want.
As a child, I thought I’d never be ‘allowed’ to date anyone. I still am not technically. Not in the way I want to atleast and definitely not with the people I want. My family even in 2021 can not fathom romance without a marriage. They will not be patient while I date someone for a few years and then decide if marriage is right. I have cousins in my family who have given up their love stories because ‘papa nahi manenga’. A lot of us grow up suppressing our feelings and desires because we don’t know how to get around our parents’ rules. I got beaten once for teasing a friend that she likes some boy when we were 10. That was the only time my dad raised his voice or hit me. It was one time too many though. I’m 24 now. I have a boyfriend who I am very much in love with. He is the latest in a string of one-sided loves, crushes, and flings. They don’t know about him though and they will not unless we decide we’d like to get married. Even then telling them will require weeks of planning and forethought. It’ll need scripting, art direction and will need to be flawless in its execution. I am a grown adult on the outside now but I am still just as scared as that 10-year-old girl on the inside.
I’m scared I’ll get ‘caught’ for loving someone as amazing as S. I’m fearful that if I tell my parents they may not get on board for some trivial reason. I worry that some random person will whisper in my parents’ ear about height or weight or income or any other neanderthal era criteria to reject the love of my life. Not their life. Mine. Indian parents wonder why their children go abroad to study or leave their town or city to work. Well here’s the answer — we are tired AF. Exhausted of living a life on the edge. Worrying that we’ll slip up in keeping our secret. Stressed about not being there for our secret partners and friends. So we run far away to a place where we need to live in debilitating fear(ok maybe I’m exaggerating a little but it can feel this way sometimes) only for a few weeks of the year.
It’s a terrible feeling to have to hide so much happiness and sadness from the people who are supposed to be your all. Our parents do such a good job of interpreting our cries when we are infants. They can tell if we’re hungry or hot or sleepy. As adults though they fail to listen even when we tell them exactly what we want. They fail to accept our happiness or our ability to take our own decision. They expect us to be happy only in the way prescribed by them. They want us to be independent but only up to a certain limit. As per their convenience, we either know too little or too much.
Every time I come back home from meeting my boyfriend I really REALLY want to tell them everything. Especially about S. They want me to have someone just like him in my life. They’d probably love him if they meet him. Unfortunately, the cost of this risk is too high. I work too hard already right now to make quality time for the important hidden people in my life. Being honest could throw all that up in flames. It could lead me to lose all that I hold so dear. It baffles me as to how families put up this picture of how much they love and sacrifice for you but they never really fight for you. They never fight their internalized patriarchy or outdated beliefs. In the end, we pay the price for therapy to grow out of our misery.
Those of you who have loving and supportive families you can be comfortable with, I am jealous. I envy you to the core. I envy the peace you have in your environment and the lack of anxiety in your brains. You truly live in a fairytale land. One I can almost never have unless I decide to fight for the rest of my life. As much as I hate it I have decided to fight. I chose not to for most of my life and all that came out of it was a miserable life and society-influenced decisions. Wish me luck as I embark on a life full of fighting with those closest to me. Battles that if I lose will have me lose almost everything.
