Have you ever wondered how a joint family operates? Live together, eat together, sleep together? Is that how it goes? Or is there something more to it than meets the (naked) eye?
Joint family? I put a question mark here because even after having stayed in one for twenty five years, I am still not sure if I should be a proud product of it or should I be someone who detests its slyness to the core, so much so that there are times my blood boils at not being able to free my loved ones from its trap. What’s more ? We are carrying forth the regal torch of this corrupted system even to this day… One Big Happy Joint Family. Say Cheese. Oh please, don’t say !
How would you feel when you are lost amidst a crowd… when people come and go at their own will, each more loud and twisted in his own way… when there are no boundaries… when the people in the house just keep adding up … and you just keep giving the same yet different names to them… uncles (father’s brother, father’s sister’s husband, grandfather’s brother, father’s countless friends, so forth and so on)… aunts (father’s sister, father’s brother’s wife, father’s friends’ wives, the loud neighbourhood women who are like father’s sisters etc etc.)… brothers (father’s brother’s sons, father’s sister’s sons, unknown unmannered relative’s sons… I am so thankful to God I don’t have my own, otherwise my existence would have been declared null … sons, after all, are considered the undisputed kings in the Indian Family System)…
Now consider this… your cousin, one of your cousins that is, your so called dear brother wants to do a little experiment on you… he wants to test his manliness, his hormones… on you. He is growing up a bit too fast, and because he keeps lying around in the house, he is your BIG brother after all, you become his bait … you are small… you are still trying to make sure who all these people are… and bang, you are shut in a room when the women of the house are busy making endless chapattis and pakwans for the family-like-guests and all the father figures are away at work… You want to run away, you are afraid, you want to hide anywhere else but in THAT room, but he always takes you there, because he knows he can… because he knows he is a growing up to be a Young MAN … What about You? Me ? What about Me? Who cares about such small little things ? You grow up to be a young woman who’s had a “golden” childhood, you are good to look at, you are doing good in studies, all is well, who cares if you’re forever in a shell… and you have to look at that man’s face almost every day… and if Goddess Fortune decides to oblige you, then maybe on alternate days or even once or twice a week… Life Goes On, they say… It is actually just going on… everybody has to fight his/her own demons at the end of the day… That child “who wasn’t ready” is doing the same too. On oath, that’s the truth, nothing but the truth, if I may say.
That’s nothing… that’s just like a starter in a three-course meal… Now take the case of a young daughter-in-law… let me add some value to her lost cause… educated, beautiful, full of dreams, having a mind of her own, working daughter-in-law… she is brought into this zoo amidst cheers and applause… her parents are promised that she would be treated like a daughter and lo… she is ready for slaughter… she seldom finds her husband by her side, he is busy with his studies, and his multitudes of relatives, his friends, their families, their issues and his clutter and files. Do they sit together and talk ? Do they spend quality time together… does he ask her if she needs anything ? Does he take her out for a leisurely walk (without a sister or sister-in-law or any of the family kids in tow)… Does he ask her why she is wilting away… Do they plan their family… Do they sit and discuss if they can have a better life by taking up jobs in another city, both of them being really educated … Does he give her the time that a woman needs… Does he assure her that she can count on him come what may? Are these negligible things ? Am I making a big deal out of it ? What say ?
I am not saying that we are the saddest and the most hard done by lot in the world? But I am just curious, if, keeping the Karma Theory on the side for a minute, what kind of existence have these ignorant educated people set themselves up for? And why are we carrying forward the torch of this good-for-nothing system which, if you sit and think deeply, has ruined more lives than you can fathom… everytime I decide to undo my denials, be brave and look it in the eye, I feel like throwing up… sadistic and blasphemous as it may sound, I wish I could puke it out on the same bunch who stole our innocence away.