Last Tuesday, I caught the 7:50am Brindavan Express train to Katpadi where I then got on a bus to Chittoor to meet up with Aruna.
We met up with her friends and I went with them to the college that they studied at. They went there to pick up their certificates. Aruna introduced me to a few of her old teachers and told me about the place. Afterwards, we got some lunch; we all had some Biriyani. As usual, I couldn't eat it all. In India, small and little are two words that I'm sure does not exist in their vocabulary. I'm a small guy and I have a small stomach so I can only eat small portions!
By this point, I am already starting to get fed up with rice. I'm not overly keen on the stuff. Sure, I can eat a little but as I said, small portions just seem alien to the people here so I always get large portions! And then more because everyone wants to make sure I'm well fed. The people here are just too hospitable sometimes. Anyway, I would hate to eat rice two or three times a day. How they do not get fed up with eating the same food all the time, I'll never know. Especially with something as bland as rice.
I digressed. Where was I? So we had lunch and I left half of it. Afterwards, Aruna's friends all went home and we went to a park. In England, parks (the swings and roundabouts type ones) are for kids. Here, you see more adults use the swings! It was a nostalgic feeling as I haven't "played" on a swing for many years so it felt great to feel like a kid once again! Same for when we sat on the roundabout.
But our conversation then got very adult; we started to talk about love and marriage and also our personal lives. Aruna is getting married on the 6th February. You may not be aware, but arranged marriages are very common in India which can be quite problematic as you could imagine; let's just say that such arrangements have caused many a suicide. I'll just go ahead and honestly say, as a liberal person, that I hate it. I can never agree with such a system that oppresses free will; in this case, the will to love and marry who you desire not whom you parents desire.
Aruna, as far as I know, is not being forced to marry this guy, but her father really wants her too, and she wants to respect her fathers wishes. Oh, and Suman (the friend she is marrying) is also guilting her in to marrying him by threatening suicide if she does not. What a man, eh. If you love someone and it is unrequited love, you just let that person go. For if you truly loved that person, then you would just wish for him/her to be happy. Suffice to say, I think this path will probably cause her misery in the future. Hell, it makes me feel sad just thinking about it.
I know it's easy coming from me - someone who was brought up in a country where we have the freedom to be in a consensual relationship with whom we desire, to tell her that she can be a free and independent person if she so wishes, but at the end of the day, as she also simply said to me, it's the way things are in India. I'm no great person who is going to cause a great social change in India, so I just have to tolerate the fact that this is the way things are here. As I said, you just got to let go...
We met up with her friends and I went with them to the college that they studied at. They went there to pick up their certificates. Aruna introduced me to a few of her old teachers and told me about the place. Afterwards, we got some lunch; we all had some Biriyani. As usual, I couldn't eat it all. In India, small and little are two words that I'm sure does not exist in their vocabulary. I'm a small guy and I have a small stomach so I can only eat small portions!
By this point, I am already starting to get fed up with rice. I'm not overly keen on the stuff. Sure, I can eat a little but as I said, small portions just seem alien to the people here so I always get large portions! And then more because everyone wants to make sure I'm well fed. The people here are just too hospitable sometimes. Anyway, I would hate to eat rice two or three times a day. How they do not get fed up with eating the same food all the time, I'll never know. Especially with something as bland as rice.
I digressed. Where was I? So we had lunch and I left half of it. Afterwards, Aruna's friends all went home and we went to a park. In England, parks (the swings and roundabouts type ones) are for kids. Here, you see more adults use the swings! It was a nostalgic feeling as I haven't "played" on a swing for many years so it felt great to feel like a kid once again! Same for when we sat on the roundabout.
But our conversation then got very adult; we started to talk about love and marriage and also our personal lives. Aruna is getting married on the 6th February. You may not be aware, but arranged marriages are very common in India which can be quite problematic as you could imagine; let's just say that such arrangements have caused many a suicide. I'll just go ahead and honestly say, as a liberal person, that I hate it. I can never agree with such a system that oppresses free will; in this case, the will to love and marry who you desire not whom you parents desire.
Aruna, as far as I know, is not being forced to marry this guy, but her father really wants her too, and she wants to respect her fathers wishes. Oh, and Suman (the friend she is marrying) is also guilting her in to marrying him by threatening suicide if she does not. What a man, eh. If you love someone and it is unrequited love, you just let that person go. For if you truly loved that person, then you would just wish for him/her to be happy. Suffice to say, I think this path will probably cause her misery in the future. Hell, it makes me feel sad just thinking about it.
I know it's easy coming from me - someone who was brought up in a country where we have the freedom to be in a consensual relationship with whom we desire, to tell her that she can be a free and independent person if she so wishes, but at the end of the day, as she also simply said to me, it's the way things are in India. I'm no great person who is going to cause a great social change in India, so I just have to tolerate the fact that this is the way things are here. As I said, you just got to let go...
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