After a while, it becomes easier to have the google search page as your home page. It is easier not to be assaulted with the, "three minor girls raped, and dumped in a well", "minor raped by police constables", "No arrests in rape case", it becomes much easier to indulge in Highheel Confidential or Fashion Scandal. Who wants to read about News when everyday all I read about is how awful it is to be unlucky enough to be born a girl in India. I skyped with one of my very good friends yesterday and she asked me if I could see myself making a permanent home for myself here. I find myself conflicted despite the perks that my husband's job affords us. The richness of history and language and family that we are afforded in India all are no match for the freedom that women are afforded in the States. I want my daughter to be able to make the same rotten choices that my son will be allowed to make. And for that reason I don't know if I can continue living here; I don't want my daughter being limited at every turn. My cousins tell me, India is different now, but it's not, not in ways that matter to me.
I know that my friends living in the States, who have grown up in India won't ever understand what that means, because they haven't done their growing up in the States. But the idea of limitlessness is something that doesn't exist for women, really any young person here. I don't want my daughter to worry about duty, or worrying about whether her in-laws will accept her, I don't want her to come 2nd to her mother-in-law, EVER. To that end, beyond a longish engagement, there's not much I require from either of my kids as far as marriage and beyond are concerned.
So then, what's left to do? Live the best you can while you can, we aim to soak everything up, see as much as we can, be with as many relatives as we can. Enjoy the hell out of India because there is sure a hell of a lot to enjoy. We've already got a trip to Kerala in the works, though at the end of sweltering March (I don't know what I was thinking)! And of course when this school year ends we will have our granddaddy of trips, the trip home! Our trip to the States! In the next few years here hopefully we will get to travel further East, something entirely impossible when India was our final destination.
So, I sit in my Bombay pad in the Eastern suburbs, sipping my morning tea, wondering what the day will bring. I did not bypass the front page today, and did read the rapey news. It's disheartening to see that nothing is changing, people are calling for the resignation of officials...like that will quell the rapes..*sigh* shakes it off
Haji Ali today!
I know that my friends living in the States, who have grown up in India won't ever understand what that means, because they haven't done their growing up in the States. But the idea of limitlessness is something that doesn't exist for women, really any young person here. I don't want my daughter to worry about duty, or worrying about whether her in-laws will accept her, I don't want her to come 2nd to her mother-in-law, EVER. To that end, beyond a longish engagement, there's not much I require from either of my kids as far as marriage and beyond are concerned.
So then, what's left to do? Live the best you can while you can, we aim to soak everything up, see as much as we can, be with as many relatives as we can. Enjoy the hell out of India because there is sure a hell of a lot to enjoy. We've already got a trip to Kerala in the works, though at the end of sweltering March (I don't know what I was thinking)! And of course when this school year ends we will have our granddaddy of trips, the trip home! Our trip to the States! In the next few years here hopefully we will get to travel further East, something entirely impossible when India was our final destination.
So, I sit in my Bombay pad in the Eastern suburbs, sipping my morning tea, wondering what the day will bring. I did not bypass the front page today, and did read the rapey news. It's disheartening to see that nothing is changing, people are calling for the resignation of officials...like that will quell the rapes..*sigh* shakes it off
Haji Ali today!
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