Gold Standards

R,

Single TamBrahm girls are meant to always wear a gold chain, with a matching pair of bangles and earrings. Once they get married, the chain is replaced with a thali/mangalsutra and toe rings are added to the ‘must-wear’ list. Oddly enough, though a finger ring is presented at the marriage, this isn’t mandated daily wear… most practical when you consider the amount of food consumed by hand.

I’m sure these traditions are well-intentioned, and probably originated in a desire to give a girl a financial security net in the days before women had out-of-home careers (cue weepy movie sequences where women are seen selling away every last bit of gold).

Maybe there was a moral code of decency in the olden days, where stealing a woman’s marriage gold was equivalent to raping her in a temple. I doubt such qualms are felt any more. Which begs the questions - Aren’t you just asking to be robbed, going about in real gold? Is it feasible to be trotting about your body weight in gold in India’s blazing heat?

There’s nothing practical about our society’s attachment to the metal, especially to the sacred mangalsutra. Yes, it can hold safety pins very efficiently, but it’s a clunky huge chain that matches very few outfits worn in 2014. I started looking for it in pictures shared on social media and realized no one I know is photographed wearing one, other than at the wedding.

What are the new definitions of morality then? Is the decent thing  to wear it to religious and social functions, or to any occasion where you may run into a conservative relative, so that they can keep up their illusions about what married women should and should not wear? Or should you have the guts to disown it completely, and say so to those who enquire?

I don’t really have an answer, but I suspect we may be one of the last few Indian generations who’ll struggle with this. I can’t see us being too fussed if our children swear off gold altogether, and use the money saved on other things.

-A.

Me & you, but mostly me

R,

When we moved to Canada last summer, I was like a kid let loose in a candy store. There were festivals and fun events everywhere I looked! I didn’t have a job yet, which meant I’d all the free time in the world to check out plays and food markets. I used to play a game when I made the inevitable small talk with strangers (Canadians are so polite!) – how many sentences could I get out before bringing up the fact that I was married? 

“So, what do you do?”

“Nothing yet, I moved here last week.”

“Oh, fun! Why Canada?”

… One sentence was all I usually got before having to say, “Well, my husband’s job transferred him, so we moved here.”

I don’t mind saying I’m married, obviously, or I wouldn’t have tattooed a ring on my finger. I’m just not used to marriage being the thing that defines me. 

I had a pact with a colleague, back when we were trading witticisms about wedding photos taking over Facebook (it was like a plague!). We solemnly agreed to never inflict couple-love photos as our profile pictures, or put up lovey dovey status messages, or basically act like the world revolved around coupledom.

I stuck to that vow, because said status messages make me puke a little, and want to tell the perpetrators to get offline pronto. And because I’ve about four hundred unnecessarily tech-savvy relatives on Facebook, who are progressive enough to get how the world wide web works, but not yet modern enough to think a husband and wife should display affection on a public forum. (“She ‘likes’ everything he posts! Chee, no shame!” Direct quote.)

I also find myself rolling my eyes when strangers instantly bring up their spouse/partner and then pepper the conversation with references to them in every sentence – that was mandatory at 14, still cute at 18, but really needing you to grow-up-and-find-yourself-please at 25. So I think what I hated about my new-to-Canada intro was the fact that I could be mistaken for one of those people.

When I make small talk with strangers now, I have a glib “I’m the x-y-z at ABC company,” to the “What do you do?” question. That’s clearly my new identity elevator pitch, but it’s no closer to defining me than the line I used before. It’s an even toss-up whether I’d rather be defined by you or by my job. Nearly three years into our marriage, I may even feel affectionate enough to make one my profile picture (I noticed afore mentioned colleague has liberally sprinkled her feed with wedding photos, and I shudder to think of the year ahead). 

- A.