All Grown Up

As a desi gal growing up in America and living in India for a while, I saw most of my gal friends go from being under the jurisdiction of their parents to then being "handed over," on a silver platter no less, to their future husband. I'm not against marriage but this simply perpetuates the idea that women are delicate flowers to be protected throughout their lives. Blah to that. Was there ever a sense that maybe a woman, especially when desi parents bend over backwards with a woman's education, that perhaps she has her own mind, her own ideas, her own sense of agency?
Sometimes I feel like I'm a Desi-American anomaly: 26, unmarried, living away from home, and pursuing a major no desi-in-their-right-mind has ever contemplated. However, at the same time, none of this would have been possible if I was not in college. My parents would not let me live on my own had it not been for the fact that I needed to finish my degree. In fact, I chose the university that I did because it was far from home and it would be a nightmare to commute (or so I told my parents). After being away in India for 3 years, I couldn't fathom living under my parents' jurisdiction again. Not that I hated them or anything. In fact, I think I got along with them better.
Now, years later, I think they realize my need for independence. Mom told me that after I get a job I should get an apartment near work. Imagine my shock. Mom tells me that she knows I can survive on my own if need be but, at the same time, she laments that I haven't met the right man to "take care of me." It's got to the point that she's happy with any news of any guy I tell her when I come home. Whereas 5 years ago she would have killed me if I mentioned a non-Malayalee or a non-Christian guy to her, nowadays, she's like "well, we don't know his culture, but I'm not going to say no....it's up to you. We just want you to be with someone who will make you happy and protect you." YEA! She actually said that! She told me this last week! Imagine my double shock. Not only can I now marry WHOEVER THE HELL I WANT but its MY decision. I attribute this whole change in their attitude to the fact that they are just happy if I marry ANYONE, at this age. Not that 26 is ancient but I'm sure my child-bearing years are ticking away.
Interesting, right? Moral of the story (tongue in cheek): Ladies, if you wait long enough, you can marry whoever you want, live wherever you want, and study whatever you want. Umm, I guess it helps if your parents are slightly more toward the liberal side. I guess I was luckier than most. BUT, at the same, you have to be able to put your foot down too. Maybe I'm also lucky that I'm here and not in India. I bet gals in India would have a harder time in establishing a choice.

Vicks

You know, I haven't always been addicted to fennel. At various points in my life I have been addicted to various things from gum to Bournvita. The weirdest addiction, though, has to be Vicks Vapor Rub. Back in Bangalore I was introduced to the stuff when I was suffering from a very bad cold. A.T, my best friend and roomate at the time, told me that I should put it on my forehead and nose to clear up the congestion. One girl, I don't remember at who at this point (Vicks kills brain cells!), told me that she sometimes puts it on her eyelids so that it will induce tears and basically force you to cry the cold out of your system. Hmm, so I was like, "That makes sense," being the health professions high school graduate that I was.
So I did the Vicks thing for about a week and the cold gradually disappeared. I suddenly realized that the Vicks-all-over-my-face was an unbelievable high. The tingling, the pain, the simultaneous sensations of heat and cold, and the eerie feeling that my brain was melting. Wow. That did it for me. Soon I couldn't go to sleep without it. I think more than a physical addiction, it was a psychological one. For a few minutes in the day, I could totally escape from my thoughts. My mind was focussed only on this Vicks-induced heightened sensory overload.
Since I no longer had a cold, I no longer really needed Vicks. I started sneaking out to the Sudhe Gunde marketplace in between classes to get the stuff. I started putting the stuff on only after B.A went to sleep, V.M went to the study room, and A.T went to take a shower. A couple of weeks later, I started going "to sleep" earlier and earlier. At one point, I went to my room directly after dinner. My roomates wondered what was wrong: thwarted love, some sort of illness, problems with school, etc. Of course, it was none of those things, though some people would argue that maybe it was a combination of all of those things. People thought I was weird but I didn't care: Vicksie, as I came to refer to my jar, became my best friend.
All was going well until the night I made a Vicks-muddled blunder. I had come home kind of late from college and missed dinner. So I went straight upstairs. When A.T. didn't hear from me she got worried and came upstairs to look for me. I must have been a sight. There was no light in the room save a lonely zero-watt bulb dangling from the ceiling. I was crouched in my nightgown on my bed inside the mosquito net staring at the little jar of Vicks. I looked like a desi Gollum: "My preciooosssss."
Of course A.T. looked shocked and asked me what I was doing. "Nothing,"said I as I slowly put Vicksie behind me on the bed. "Ninde kayala enna?" "Umm, nothings in my hand." She walked closer, "Show me." I showed her my empty palm. She glared at me with such a look that I actually showed her Vicksie. "You are still using Vicks? Why?!?" I told her that I didn't know but that it made me feel good. She made me give her the jar and I was like, "Nooooooo! Wait! Maybe I'll just finish this jar and it won't be wasted." She ignored me, turned on her heel, said something to the affect of "Podee kazhathay" and walked out of the room.
Alas, I couldn't sleep that night. Later A.T and the others came and did a sort of Vicks intervention. They told me about another girl in the hostel who had been addicted to the Vicks Mentholated Cough Drops. They told me that there was something about Vicks that was not good. B.A. said, "We'd hate for you to have to return to America addicted to Vicks" I mean, seriously, all around me people were doing pot and other sort of bad-kid things and here, this ABCD, of all people, was addicted to Vicks, of all things. How utterly shameful.
I agreed with them that this would be too embarrassing a thing to be addicted to. No longer allowed to buy Vicks (A.T. wouldn't let me out of her sight when we went shopping), I gradually got over the withdrawal symptoms (sleeplessness, restlessness, being distracted) and became Vicksie-free! I, one of the fortunate few, had been saved.
Of course, I needed a new addiction at that point and good old Bournvita heeded my call. But that, my friends, is a whole 'nother entry.