Single in the City

NY Times website has this interesting section called Schotts Vocab. This page captures interesting new words/ phrases from cross the world like

Stealth Wealth : Shopping discreetly (“stealth spending”) or buying unbranded products (“hidden luxury”) in an attempt to make one’s consumption less conspicuous during a recession.

Twitchhiking : Traveling using transport and accommodation provided (solely) by fellow Twitterers. (Twitter + hitchhiking.) - Read about the project here.

Today, I came across a something interesting.

Guyological Clock - “The phenomenon of single career men in their late thirties who suddenly experience social pressure to get married.”

Well, in the American context it would be late thirties, but in the India context for guys it is late 20s, and girls would be mid 20s? Also social pressure in India is more of family pressure, I guess.

Well, my case is different, I must say. My poor parents are facing an unrelenting barrage of questions on why I am not hitched yet or in the process of being hitched up yet. So much so that they are dreading family and social functions. None of those questions reach me and I am quite well shielded from my relatives. My parents, under tremendous pressure, looking for an outlet decided to confront me one fine day in the recent past. The trigger for this conversation was that a family friend of ours (for 30+ years) had just announced that both their sons (my age and two years younger respectively) had girl friends. (I knew that through Facebook hah!) And no, it does not end there. The mother ( S Aunty) had spent a weekend each with the two girls shopping, cooking, bonding and had given strong thumbs-up to their sons' choices. Of course there were some small adjustment issues but overall it was a clear yes.

Now my mom, I think, was facing intense peer pressure. So she calls me up and in highly agitated state says that I am not doing anything to help her situation. She demanded to know why I was only adding to her problems in her old age. (Wildly exaggerated for effect - she is only 51). I was confused. She demanded an explanation from me on why I did not have a girl friend and now she was under added pressure of finding me a 'good girl', a responsibility she thought she would be absolved of.

I was flummoxed here. This was a completely new situation for me. Projecting past experiences of Indian society, it was only natural to assume that finding the right girl or guy for their kids, would bring ultimate joy to Indian parents. Clearly, there had been a tectonic shift in societal thinking and I had been unaware of it. Added to the suddenness of the conversation, there was much embarrassment for me. My mother was asking me direct questions like why I don't have a girl friend.

Readers would realize that in era B.D (Before Dostana), these were innocuous questions often asked by uncles and aunts (prodded by parents of course) at family get-togethers to ostensibly embarrass the kids. Those questions meant nothing then. However, we live in circa 2 AD (After Dostana) and such questions are not simple any more. They are layered and nuanced. It is not just the answers that you give, but the manner (and mannerisms) with which you deliver it are all captured for post -processing. Suddenly, I started regretting an earlier conversation with my mother where I had raved about Dostana. It my defense it was only because I found Priyanka Chopra smoking-hot in the movie. Of course I carefully censored the smoking hot part and spoke only about the movie, which could well have been the trigger.

Luckily for me, my mom was under no such delusions (phew!) and the topic quickly moved on. She started recollecting her conversation with S aunty, where S aunty had described in vivid detail how nervous she had been, probably, more than the girls, on meet-the-parents day. By the end of the conversation, I realised that I was no longer in touch with reality around me. Potential mom-in-laws being nervous during meet-the-parents day was clearly not the norm according to all the popular TV serials with high TRP numbers.

I have heard and passed through the days in college when there used to be an underlying peer pressure to have girlfriend/ boy friend. I am even living through and surviving these much disturbing days where most of my friends are married. But clearly, I am caught in new territory faced with this unique parental pressure of having a girlfriend. Sigh! Being single just got tougher.