December 31, 2018. The morning was cool and fresh. I woke up to see my mother sitting with her steaming cup of sugarless tea. Barely awake, I could still sense her apprehension as she tried to act calm and composed. Her silence was unusual. There was no “Uth gayi, madam (Have you finally woken up)?” taunt this morning. It did not take me more than a millisecond to crack the riddle. It was easy. It was the last day of 2018, and I , her daughter, a woman in her prime, at the ‘phalo phoolo‘ age of 27, was still there next to her, single AF.
And then it happened. The words rolled out like pearls from an oyster when she vocalised her apprehension and said “Iss saal bhi tumko koi nai pasand aya (You haven’t taken a liking to anyone this year too).”
My ears were on the verge of bleeding thanks to the indirect and cutting assertion that she had made.
So, there I was, December, 31, 2018. Me, by myself, all day long, with no heart shaped emoticons on my phone. Just the family WhatsApp groups flooding me with spiritual “Jai Mata Di” messages, as well as all my ‘happily married’ counterparts posting ‘huggables’ with their newborns!
No. I am not frustrated at all! I’m only wondering why I am constantly being made to feel guilty about not having found ‘The One’!
Barely awake, that morning, the tone was set. My mom had kick-started my day with brilliant energy levels of sarcasm. Rolling my eyes up at the ceiling, I prayed that my mom would eventually understand my need to be free—to be free of mushy-mushy love messages which come as part of relationships; free of coochy-coochy pet names that fade away within a year; and basically free of this guilt of being voluntarily single at 27!