La Vie En Bleu a.k.a The Conjugality Crisis

A dear friend of mine was gracious enough to ruin my last birthday with the enthusiastic comment, “Wow! You’re a leap year away from being 30!”

After an appropriate reply, the details of which I do not wish to taint my blog space with, I proceeded to contemplate the statement. It was indeed true, and a grave issue. Being in your late 20s gives you the air of someone who is young enough to be adventurous and old enough to know what you’re doing, but 4 years down the line I will cross the threshold over to Spinster territory as per the Indian definition. And since I don’t exactly see myself getting married or having kids (for the greater good of humanity), I must brace myself for deep fecal matter.

You see, single women are a dangerous species in India, running wild and threatening mankind with their utter helplessness to take care of themselves and are hunted down in holy matrimony before they can hope to corrupt the society. They can be independent and self sufficient but that is irrelevant of course. How can a woman be deemed to be respectable when she has not known the sign of maturity that is marriage and when she *collective gasp* does not want kids??

So, in order to sustain my singular status I need something stronger than my phobia of commitment to root for me. (Interestingly there is not even an equivalent of ‘commitment issues’ in my mother tongue. It would seem that such a disease does not exist in this hemisphere and I probably caught the infection binge watching Friends and Romedy Now). Hence I have opted for an even better method to ward off potential grooms and hopefully make sure they remain single too, in case I change my mind later on – Tales Of Matrimonial Disasters And Monster Kids, The Extended Version.

I have hordes of stories to dip into of course and it helps that I see the marital world with deep seated psychological issues and the blue tinted glasses that I purchased as a kid, and those obviously got darker with the help of certain innocent romantic endeavours. Childhood and love – the two most celebrated aspects of our existence that inevitably manage to screw us up for life. Father issues, mother issues, sibling rivalry, peer pressure, Nazi affiliated schools, stupid romcoms and implausible fairy tales – is it any wonder that Freud had a heyday analysing this stuff? All he needed to do what write down the obvious to win accolades.

I digress. The matter remains that I must strive to keep my head above water by dragging my wedded counterparts deep below it. It helps if they have procreated. Nothing instils horror like the possible demolition of inner peace. Kids are lovely, fair and meek but they’re destroying the living room as we speak, and we have years to go before we sleep. Something along those lines should do it.

Of course, I have a mind so fickle it borders on multiple personalities, so there is every chance that my next post may be a wedding invitation. But as of now, this is how things stand. 

Ooh, the sweet smell of burnt milk and possible discord is wafting in from my neighbour’s kitchen and we all know what a delightful discourse that can lead to. Now if you’d excuse me, I need to find a pencil. This is promising stuff.