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05:57

The girl I met in office

05:02

"Tring Tring, my phone rang... Hello?

Hello? I call off my marriage.... She said

What? It's only ten days left for your marriage. What went wrong? Did they ask for dowry? I asked her in a panic voice

"I will tell you once I join the office"

She is my colleague, Amrita Ghosh, a 30-year old jovial lady and I know her for two years, after I joined the company. In one word, she is the “apple of company’s eyes”. When she broke the news of her marriage, I was very happy and excited at the same time. I met her would-be-groom too. I heard all the shopping stories for her marriage. She was very excited about her wedding dress, makeup and collections of jewelry. She always wanted the best for her marriage.

When a girl calls off her marriage, then don’t you think there is something really serious? Wedding is a special day for all girls and they plan this day to make it the memorable one. It is a day when “a daddy’s little princess also turn into a loving and responsible partner for the man of her life.”

Amrita is an independent, 30-year old girl who loves her friends, family and loves to talk a lot. The family decided the groom for her and eventually, both the girl and boy liked each other. Everything was fine for two to three months (as you know it happened in every arrange marriage.) The groom was in a white collar profession, but she slowly she found a man with a black heart. She is very practical in her thoughts yet emotional at the same time. Her independence is in her thoughts and not in her appearance, or the way she dress up or hang out with her friends.

In her words, “the man was a “social gentleman” who wanted a wife with good education, “sati savitri appearance” and who will consider his family at the top most. He is a social gentleman so he never says “NO” on my face on the decisions that I take. But, he will make you understand with his clever words that he is not in favor of my decision.”

I was completely taken aback with her words. She is a girl of today where she works in an office, take care of her mother and balance both personal and professional life. Is it wrong to have her mind? Is there any division of work between men or women? Well, our society thinks so, but she does not think like that. That’s the main problem of so-called “social gentleman”. It seems that a girl is only born to get name and recognition from this marriage material man. For an independent girl, who love to enjoy life, travel, these social norms are just claustrophobic.

She showed patience for 5 to 6 months for the sake of her Mother and family because her relatives will repeat the same old question again “Kobe korbi biye?” (When will you marry?”). She never wanted this experience from marriage or from her partner and finally, she made up her mind and called off her marriage to live her life with independent thoughts.

Will you marry again? I asked her

She replied- Yes, of course, why not, marriage is such a beautiful thing, but not till I find someone eligible to my thoughts and not my appearance.

In India, women are basically judged on their looks, and whether they can look after the family after marriage and carry on with all household chores. As per statistics-

69% of men agree that their judgement of women is based on their looks.
64% of women agree that the judgments passed on them have affected their ability to reach their true potential.
70%of women agree that majority of judgments on women are from family members or friends rather than strangers.
72% of women agree that working women face more judgments on their looks or their clothes than housewives.

Every girl is special in her own ways. We must find her uniqueness to let her fly in her thoughts. A girl’s independent thoughts should be the real definition of beauty and not her looks.

I’m breaking stereotypes based on appearance by sharing my experience for the#IAmCapable activity at BlogAdda in association with Nihar Naturals.