i hate all men…
And there’s no ‘but’
I grew up in an orthodox Indian family. If you don’t know what it means, let me brief you.
- You need to prioritize what society will think, always.
- You cannot make your own decisions. (Yes, you and 499 others)
- Taking a stand is taken as disrespect.
Having said that, I grew up as a rebel. So, you can imagine. If not, let me give you an idea.
‘In a family of thieves, those who don’t steal are guilty.’
I listened to this somewhere in a room on Clubhouse and never have I found a few words that relatable.
Coming back to the title, I always thought that I was the black sheep. Perhaps I needed to be more accommodating of my family’s ideas, one of them being ‘the house that you live in is not yours; one day, you will marry and ‘belong’ to a man, and his family’ (and another 499 maybe).
Now, don’t get me wrong, but people don’t belong to people, unless it’s a trade, or slavery. In the latter, it’s a one-way, forced decision. To people and my family, however, it is a responsibility to show the children ‘the right path’.
Nobody knows what the wrong one is, maybe the one I have been taking. The seed of ‘belonging’ to a man was implanted very young in my mind, and I am embarrassed to say, but I did not find any wrong in it. I mean, this is what happens, right? You grow up, your family finds you a partner, even if he is an addict, you adjust in the hope of he will change.
But he will never change.
You will.
You will wake up one morning, trying to find the door knob half asleep, carefully so as to not wake your husband. You will take steady steps to the kitchen where ‘you belong’, as they said. While preparing lunch for your children, you will think about how you could have had so much with what you have wanted to do. You will think about escaping to somewhere, but the only place you will think of is the grocery store, or to get errands done, or to the terrace perhaps where you will get 5 minutes of peace before you have to make tea for your husband. You will wonder if you have ever ‘belonged’ to yourself, you will feel like ‘belonging’ to yourself first. You will hope that your family will understand what it is like to live a life like that.
But they won’t.
Nor will the 499 others.
Nor will he, because he won’t change.
