Having passed through a traumatic phase as a suffering daughter-in-law, Ravi's mother has ironically set about repeating the motions of her past in her new role. To avoid any conflicts with Ravi's wife, she simply wants someone in her own image
My mother is straight out of Inception," said a frustrated Ravi, my flatmate. "Once an idea takes residence in her mind, it grows until it consumes her. Only in her case, the idea is planted by her friends."
He met a girl on TamilMatrimony.com and they chatted. First on the phone, then Skype. All night, and through the day on weekends. Within a fortnight they were sure they wanted to spend their lives together.
Ravi asked his parents to take the matter forward. His mother spoke to the girl's mother and called back: "It won't happen. Stop speaking to this girl."
Ravi is 26 but still felt chided. The reasons cited were specious. One, the girl's mother asked too many questions. "What does your husband do?" "Does your son have his own place in Bombay?" "When are you getting your daughter married?"
Two, they were not that well-off. "I don't want you marrying into a family that will give their daughter no more than 25 sovereigns." (One sovereign is eight gm of gold.)
Three, the girl was merely an MA (HR) from the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS). Not BE, not MBA. (Ravi, on the other hand, is an MBA from SP Jain.)
Ravi responded to his mother pointwise. First, he was going to marry the girl, not her mother, so it didn't matter what the mother said and how she said it. In any case, it was only natural for her to make enquiries.
The second was a complaint that was plain egregious. Ravi had a hard time swallowing his parents' blatant demand for 40 sovereigns and a pair of diamond earrings but decided to bring this up some other time.
Finally, an MA(HR) from MIDS, he told his mother, is any day better than a correspondence MBA from Pune University, which is what one girl his mother was keen on had done.
Ravi and his mother went back and forth over the phone several times. Now Ravi is steeped in Tam Brahm genteelness. He doesn't drink or smoke. Never had a girlfriend. He likes to say that he doesn't feel like those things, but the truth is his parents have drilled their values in him so deep he would have to drain his blood to go against their wishes. Now that he faces the toughest battle of his life, he is not up to the challenge.
The tragedy is not so one-sided though. Ravi's mother married his father in the seventies. The day she stepped into her new house, she saw she had a formidable enemy waiting in the wings. "No more sleeveless tops for you," intoned her mother-in-law, "and no stepping out of the house without Mani [Ravi's father]."
Her new life was unbearable for Ravi's mother. She had grown up in an environment of freedom. Her father had been a government servant and she was an only child. She tried seeking the support of her husband, but they had scarcely met before the wedding, and shared no real connection. Ravi's mother realised that Mani was hardly the person she had imagined a husband to be. He thought the world of his mother, and whenever the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had a tiff, he always sided with the former, so much so that he refused to speak to his wife until she apologised.
In the second year of her marriage, Ravi's mother had a miscarriage. That was a hellish time. Stuck with a husband who blindly followed his mother and grieving over the death of her unborn child, she contemplated divorce. Her parents dissuaded her. They asked her to make amends, to "try settling in". She saw she had little choice. She made an effort. She went against her grain and gave up her freedom. She only wore saris with the blouse tucked into the wraparound. She became a wife in terms that were expected of her. She forced herself to find happiness until she grew accustomed to it.
With time, things improved. Her husband saw how she had suffered. He was sorry. They grew close.
"And so, now he would not listen to me, even though he is otherwise more reasonable than my mother," said Ravi. "But I will stick to my guns. I have always done what my mother asked of me, but this is my life we are talking about."
Ravi and his mother might seem to come from different worlds, but at heart the generational gap is no more than the mother's insecurity at losing control over her son. Having passed through a traumatic phase as a suffering daughter-in-law, Ravi's mother has ironically set about repeating the motions of her past in her new role. To avoid any conflicts with Ravi's wife, she simply wants someone in her own image.
For now, Ravi is going ahead with plan. He is seeing his parents soon to take the matter forward. He is hoping a truce might be reached. I am not so sure. I just know things will give, and Ravi will lose this battle.
The author has switched too many jobs in the past and hopes he can hold down this one
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
