The strange 'condition' of being 25 and unmarried

Gayatri Parameswaran, writes about the agony of trying to explain to her family just why she is happy being single.

My family and relatives are struggling to cope with my 'condition' of being 25 and unmarried.

When I tell them I'm not planning on getting married any time soon, they give me an are-you-OK look. First, I thought they would get used to my 'condition.' When that didn't work, I thought I would get used to theirs. That hasn't happened either – it's only given me stressful social encounters.

"Don't you want to be happy," someone asked me the other day. Of course I want to be happy. Everybody strives for happiness. But what does marriage have to do with happiness? That apart, I am happy with how my life is right now. Marriage, for all I know, might just spoil the party.

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Security

You don't get it, marriage gives you the kind of security that nothing else does. I don't want to see you being 60 and by yourself struggling without a partner," this well-wisher told me with nothing but goodness in her heart.
But, but, but...
What guarantee do I have that I wouldn't be pathetic at 60, just as she described, despite a marriage at 25? None. I could lose my husband to any quirk of fate and still end up a lonely, haggard, old woman. It's just a pseudo sense of security she's clinging on to, I explain to her.

Marriage market

Well-wisher #2 enters the conversation. "You wait some more years and there will be no more boys in the market willing to marry you. I know someone in Bangalore, US-returned. He's a software engineer. You should think about it," she tells me.
It was only a week ago that she'd notified me of another new entrant in the marriage market – a chartered accountant in Dubai. Every social gathering that I have been to since I returned to India has been a sort of groom window shopping session.
"You are foreign returned. You will find many good 'foreign returneds'," well-wisher #2 insists. I maintain my calm and say again that I am not looking to get married.

Children

But don't you want be a mother? Your eggs will dry out soon," both of them suggest. Then they give me an example of an acquaintance who had troubles conceiving at 28. I give them enough examples of women I know who conceived after they hit 35.

"OK, OK. So get married now and think of children later," one of them says. But why do I have to be married to think of children in the first place?

Western system

"Tch, tch. You have become too Western. Don't bring all your western ideas here. Be an Indian girl. Don't forget your roots," they warn me and leave for a recreational evening at the nearest mall. They apparently needed retail therapy after

I disappointed them.

Meanwhile I catch up with a European friend on Skype and recount the episode. "And they left for the mall?! Haha! Well shopping for western brands at western outlets and supporting capitalism -- a very western system -- that's not western to them?" he asks.