Saas, bahu aur saazish – what has been your perception of the word sasural? Over the past few years, the definition of sasural and in-laws has undergone a complete evolution in urban Indian society. Being recently married myself, the first year of marriage was all about unlearning the assumptions that mainstream media, our families and friends have drilled into our heads over the years. Growing up, I had seen a great relationship between my mother and my paternal grandmother and I did not carry any baggage or negative connotations towards the whole concept of sasural or even living under the same roof with my in-laws.
This may not be true for everyone as every individual, every family and every community is different and has a different set of expectations from the newly wed bride. However, with increasing focus on equal education for women and their financial empowerment has given them a newfound respect in Indian society. Even after all this progress on multiple fronts, parents of an Indian girl still try to inculcate bahu-readiness in her along with career readiness and overall life readiness. While this is well intentioned, it does end up being counterintuitive most of the time.
“You need to learn how to cook, what will you do once you get married?”
Cooking is pushed onto Indian girls not as a life skill but as a skill to please your husband and in-laws. Such positioning of this skill, albeit however important it is, gives rise to the rebel in me and many others like me who choose not to cook so as not to endorse this thought.
As a teenager, I loved baking but I somehow never felt proficient in the kitchen because my father expected me to make a full Indian meal and only then would he validate me as someone who could cook. According to him I had to be able to feed my family in the future and provide the necessary nourishment to my children. As a married woman, I have not yet taken on the reins of the kitchen and I am fortunate to have a great set of in-laws.
But cooking for me now is a romantic Sunday activity that I indulge in along with my husband as we whip up some lip smacking Italian food along with a focus on plating it well in some fancy crockery. For a lot of my friends, the new age husbands are also sensitive to the fact that their mothers may have this expectation from their wives, who are also pursuing a lucrative career, to cook at least one meal a day. In such cases, the husbands of today do push for having a cook to help with all the meals so that there is harmony both in the bedroom and the living room.
“This outfit is too short, I don’t think you will be allowed to wear such clothes after marriage”
Back in the day, I did love expressing myself through fashion but I was made to feel extremely uncomfortable if I wore something short or even off shoulder. It was never a blatant restriction and I come from a fairly liberal and open minded family but there were constant comments that would simply kill the joy of wearing what I wanted to. This has made me so conscious of skin show that even now when my husband and in-laws encourage me to wear whatever I wish to, I am unable to carry off certain clothes.
Parents often impose all of these restrictions on their little girls as they know what society would accept them for and what they would be berated for and these restrictions may still be valid in a lot of Indian families. However, constricting your girl’s personality, power of expression and confidence would also not do her much good in the grander scheme of things.
“You can’t go alone, the world is not a safe place for girls and I doubt you will be able to manage things all by yourself”
I always wanted to travel and see the world but the focus on how bad the world is and how unsafe it can be for women instilled a deep sense of fear in me. I was also made to feel that I have thrived in a protected environment being the only child in the family, and I may not be able to manage if I were to be on my own.
This feeling of insufficiency and never being good enough is so deeply ingrained in me that even after living by myself for two years on campus to pursue my Masters, living abroad by myself for 2 months to purse a summer course and now being married and living away from my family I still feel I may not be able to manage on my own.
More than the in-laws, it is our own family that sometimes runs us down. Instead of being proud of the women that we may have become today they dismiss our accomplishments by simply referring to us as “fortunate”. Again, what we are told is to be grateful that our husbands and in-laws are instrumental in giving us a good life, like we have no role to play in it.
A newly wed bride’s reaction after she is constantly cautioned about life in her sasural: “I want to move out with my husband”
A lot of the newly married couples today simply do not want to live with their in-laws and they do not particularly dislike them, in fact a lot of them even look forward to their visits. However, they are of the opinion that a little distance helps create better bonds and they want to lead their lives without any judgment or intrusion.
We cannot blame them as a lot of in-laws do have restrictions on dietary choices, consumption of alcohol and a strong opinion on how the house should be run. But in most cases, brides-to-be or newly wed women carry the baggage of their past experiences with their own parents and all the haunting statements they have been hearing about what kind of a place sasural would be.
There is indeed a generational gap and an expectation gap as most of our mothers in law are homemakers as compared to a large section of urban Indian women today who choose to work full time or part time.
Married women of today already have a lot on their plates as they strive to work towards their own goals, manage a home in partnership with their husbands and also maintain a social life. They do not want to go through the additional exhaustion of dealing with the apparent expectations of their in-laws.
They already had to deal with their own parents who for most girls can be a handful to deal with and the best way forward is to simply maintain a physical and emotional distance from their in-laws shielding themselves from a feeling of guilt and insufficiency. Unfortunately the seeds of insufficiency are often sowed by the families of Indian girls and irrespective of how their sasural turns out to be, she is always on the guard. I think it’s time for us to change this narrative now.
How should the ‘Sasural’ of today be like:
Sasural today for the independent woman in urban India should not be about waking up early and serving hot breakfast to the family to earn praises or to memorise the lyrics of an aarti or to constantly be at the service of her husband and mother-in-law. We are way past the Ekta Kapoor daily soap era!
Sasural today is about breaking free from the voices and expectations of your past that are so deeply ingrained in your head but haven’t served you throughout these years.
Sasural today is about looking at your in-laws as a new set of people that are different and you celebrate the difference instead of comparing them to your parents and constantly trying to look for familiarity.
Sasural today is about gradually learning to be comfortable in your own skin in your new home, setting certain base expectations right with your new family and also learning where to draw the line.
Sasural today is more about managing people and their expectations in alignment with your own life’s purpose and goals.
Sasural today is what you make of it and help yourself and others around you unlearn and relearn its definition.