III"How old are you now?""Old enough to get married, right?""Now that she's married, is it you next?""When's your wedding?""Have you started looking for suitable grooms yet?""Do you already have anyone in mind?""Are you finishing uni soon so you can get married?""Start taking notes from *insert name's* wedding, the decor is nice! Any ideas for yours?""Her dress is lovely, do you want to wear something like that at your wedding?"Too many questions.
Too little time to evade them.
Too many fake smiles.
Too little immaturity to scowl.
Don't get me wrong - the wedding today was a beautiful event. My friend (the bride) looked
absolutely stunning in a plum/white lehenga with a heavily-embellished train that followed her petite figure everywhere. The colour coordination of everything was just flawless. But aesthetics aside, it was an emotional
rOlLeRcOaStEr. My mum was bawling her eyes out and clutching onto the bride like it was her own daughter she was giving away.
Maybe she
did picture me in her place because here's the scary part:
I AM NEXT. (I am not affiliated with Next PLC but wouldn't that make for an empowering ad campaign for a new clothing range? No? Okay.
)
The Bengali community where I live isn't big. All the eligible girls are now happily married. The younger girls have a good few years before they get pestered about this stuff. It's as annoying as it is scary because I'm so conflicted.
1) On the one hand, I'm not ready: a) It's so comfortable being in the bubble of education just to evade this whole marriage business - masters/PhD gives me more time to think about what I want.
b) My issues with religion is something I haven't yet discussed with my parents.
2) On the other hand, I am ready because: a) I'm sick of studying/essays/exams/lectures/seminars. I've hated university for a while now.
b) If I had the right guy in my life now (who also wanted to get married), I could see myself settling down and having children. I'm very mumsy.
Hey, I don't get motherzoned constantly for nothin'.I know what you'll say...
"Do what makes you happy!",
"it's your life!" bla bla bla, but both options have positive and negative outcomes.
Those questions up there were more suffocating than the horrendously tight collar on my sari blouse I wore on the henna night two nights earlier.
No, seriously, it was so tight, I grew a triple chin instantly. I should really make a .gif to show you guys the transformation. It's like those annoying weight loss ads you see on the side of webpages.
Note: if you're sat there reading this like
"omg, I see those ads all the time!", it's time to edumacate yourself about browsers and download Adblocker.
tl;dr; what was supposed to be an enjoyable, carefree day of focusing on someone else's holy matrimony ended up being a ticking time bomb of me counting down the seconds until I went home.
*cue Ben Howard's 'The Fear' for a bit of dramatic flair because the lyrics are supposed to be encouraging and resolve my inner turmoil...and also because it's a great song.*