27 and not Married! Will the Society accept me . . .

This is what it finally comes down to. The rebellious ones get away with almost everything and the slightly sincere ones become victims of emotional distress caused by your very own people. Your family, to be precise your parents. You need to be a rebel, strong minded and clear about what you want and what you don't, because if you are not, they will lay down an entire plan for you that sounds absolutely perfect when they hear themselves.

A small price that we pay for being their children, their life-long project. The constant nagging, the pressure to do things that seem perfect to them, because you are not an individual who has the capability of learning from life on your own. You need directions, which are not optional, they are mandatory to have a perfect life because there is something like a 'perfect life' which in fact is 'perfect lies'. If you follow the step by step instructions given to you, you will have a smooth life ahead and nothing can hamper that, not even you. ( You better not )

No matter how old, you are still a child for them which is great if it means the love is unconditional, there are no prerequisites attached, they are your solid support system whether you trip, fall or go underground they let you make your own decisions. But if being a child to your parents means the relationship is a one sided flow of instructions, expectations, their unfulfilled dreams, it becomes a liability. Your biggest support system becomes this burden that you either suffer living with or take radical steps to cut off from. This is where it hurts, it's an extreme relationship, there is either too much of it or nothing at all. It's difficult to find one person to blame, it's the way they have been brought up by their parents who saw the same things in life.

If you look at life from your parent's point of view, that's their little world. That's all they have seen, there is nothing beyond it. If you have greater experiences and exposure in life you can give that space to your child to develop into the person that he's meant to be. But I have seen many cool parents of my friends, mine were cool and relaxed too until I grew up, as it was now time for me to stop everything else and do things that were socially acceptable. You know things like getting married in the first place. Isn't this a hard time in every girl's life?

I am 27 well technically not, but who cares if I am 26 or 27. My life is going to end if I don't get married. I can't start anything new, can't think of new career options, a new business idea, can't travel because I should do that with my husband...there are no second thoughts on that. If I don't get married now I will become very strong minded I won't be able to adjust with anyone and my whole life from here will be a disaster. So now I start wondering, what if all this is true? Will my life go down the drain if I don't get married? Is that the escape I need, to get away from the constant drama? Maybe ! maybe not...

So how does it work? You follow one instruction after the other because it's absolutely never ending. The entire Indian society is so repressed and so accepting of almost everything that we don't see wrong in anything. Once the marriage mission is over the family gears up to indulge in the domestic problems because well that's a part of marital life. Whether you live happily ever after or not, but if your marriage takes care of your socio-economic needs other smaller issues can be dealt with. The other smaller issues? You mean the most critical of all? Like you getting along well with your partner and his family!

It's not an easy task to deal with any of this on a day to day basis, it spoils your relationships with people at many different levels... It destroys you and you start questioning your worth and your place in the family because you are never asked or never heard... You are told! And no one wants to be told what to do. If I had to get married I would have, and if I have to, I will. Till then if you accept me as your daughter and an equal member of the family then great if not, I will not surrender and be a part of this sort of getaway. Thanks but no thanks!

In the end, a small note to all the women out there who are living a life of uncertainty of whether to get married to get over the whole fiasco once and for all. Do yourselves a favour, build a career. Put your heart into it because no one can take that away from you, and once you start seeing marriage beyond the social and economic fulfillments think about it when you are looking for your physiological and psychological needs to be fulfilled. As Sadguru says, marriage is not a social prescription. Not all of us have to do it and not all of us have to live without it. Choose what time is best for you. The clock is not ticking for this. You marry when YOU are ready !!