Choices For A young Woman

A Plucky Young Woman

Anyma was on a bus stop connecting trains and trolleys to buses when I saw her first. The bus stop was newly finished underground sheltered place and that was a welcome change in the normally cold town at that time of the year, what with temperatures that could dip below zero - Fahrenheit, of course - and the biting wind chill that kept everything fresh and faces pink. She was very beautiful in a very Indian way, perfect and sharp cut features well placed in her face and a dusky golden colour, and she would be seen as beautiful by anyone who was without cultural prejudices as blinders. 

 It was not the first time I had met a fellow Indian, while in transit at bus stop - even at the same one. Just a few months ago I had met a middle aged couple that turned out to be in-laws of an ex-classmate of a sister, and they insisted I get off with them to visit their son's home, but the daughter in law - the said classmate - was not happy to see me even after the introduction and I was in a quandary about when is it to leave with good grace, not seem a boor, and catch another bus without having to wait a long time at the bus stop. 

 But it is not a good idea to allow travails of one encounter to discourage oneself from another, and besides she seemed interested. We began talking. She seemed puzzling, because she did not look like a student, or an independent woman, and yet she did not have the look of a new bride either. I let it be after a couple of normal civil questions and let her proceed at her own pace if she wished to talk. She had quite a story and told it slowly. 

 She had married a man whom her father had found for her, though it was her own decision to follow his choice, and was not forced on her in any way by him. She was very clear headed and quite frank about herself - she had chosen to do a degree in fine arts because she did not wish to study and fine arts was not hard work for her, she explained. Her mother had died when she was young, the stepmother was not bad in any way - just distant, and she did not trust the boyfriend she had in college to make anything of himself soon enough to marry him, and she had married this man who had been proposed through the normal channels and seemed to be attractive in every way. He had a nice family, a job in U.S. as a professional in an unusual profession and set-up, and she was all set to have the life she had been waiting for. 

 Only, they did not know about his life before marriage, which had not quite ended when he married. 

 Most people who go to the distant shores as students face a life that is far more lonely than anything they have ever expected or faced living in India, where you might never be left alone and be desperate for a little privacy. One usually fails to realise how much one relies on the emotional support of the ambient society, and one has no clue as to how lonely the whole social fabric is in U.S. - Europe is different, each nation from another and the whole continent from U.S., in this. Anyhow, some men get by with their male coterie of colleagues and the extended NRI circle - eligible men being a much prized catch for any girl back home, and everyone has a few relatives and so forth, the NRI net rarely allows a single Indian male to escape socially - and some have a few liaisons on the side, which are disapproved of, overlooked and quietly forgiven as long as they return to the fold - or even otherwise. 

 Quite a few are more innocent and when they have a girlfriend they risk their social standing and family harmony and marry her, and some have long lasting reasonably happy marriages. There is the other side of the story of course - local men are less and less likely to commit to a relationship and it has been more and more stressful for young women who would rather marry soon and settle, and they are likely to take their chances with these attractive foreigners who are more likely to be attached, less likely to be violent (the men being foreigners and with less confidence, perhaps; perhaps it is a general characteristic of those who do marry cross culturally, with need to bind and not tear the fabric of relationship), and quite likely to have permanent, long lasting happy marriages. 

 And then, of course, there is the thrill of a new culture to meet and learn and so forth - and this nation (U.S.) was formed on a multicultural base, though some have forgotten it or behave like the earlier crowd in a packed - actually not packed but still quite empty - train, discouraging and unpleasant to those who wish to get in. 

 Her bridegroom in this case had found someone perhaps not so much out of loneliness as from an attraction that had much to do with the character and lifestyles of the two, they were well matched. The girlfriend had a mind of her own, a career of her own, and they had lived together. It is unclear if he had been peeved for a moment and agreed to his parents' proposal for a bride, or if he was a bit dishonest and wished to have both, or if he had been calculative and ended the affair formally without quite realising that love is not so easy to kill and it had his heart in a firm grip. At any rate the marriage was troubled from the beginning and ended within less than a year. He was not honest about that either, and had sent her to visit her parents and then called to say - don't come back. In fact he had threatened her if she did try to return. But this was no ordinary girl, she was very plucky and quite level headed. 

 She returned and stayed for a while with a cousin who was a student, and this is when she met me - and also another man who fell in love with her promptly. She found a job in shipping, involving manual labour she was never used to; was tenacious enough to carry on with it until she found another one, in a bank this time with more money and better facilities and rapid advancement. All this within the few months I knew her - this was my last year in town, though I did not know it then. 

Anyma debated over her choice of a future while she went through her divorce and got herself an apartment and debated over her choices - since she was courted seriously by the very eligible man she had met in a bus. He happened to be someone who spoke her language too, and this was a comfortable friendship. Meanwhile her college boyfriend had emigrated too and was getting ready to make himself eligible to court her seriously this time, and she was uncertain - the new guy was less good looking but she respected him more, and he was far better educated (than the boyfriend who had left his education to get ready for her). 

 But on the other hand he also tried to educate her - he wanted a meeting of minds as well, but wanted to mould a wife according to his guidance, rather than meeting one and having to change his points of view - after all it is not so easy to meet an intellectual and make her attractive, so he chose the time tested other route; she might never get educated but he would have a very good time through a life of trying - and she resisted all his attempts with feisty spirit, all the while admiring him. He was frustrated, as often men are when they face a less educated, lesser in career woman who nevertheless can tell them to go jump in a lake, and come back with a clear head. 

I remember getting very frustrated with her when we met at a bus stop sometime in spring and I saw with surprise and dismay that she was wearing a beautiful blue shade of eye-liner - inside of her eyelids! I really shouted at her for taking chances with something so important as her eyes and she told me I had no sense of style! No surprise she could hold her own with someone who was crazy about her. 

Anyma was uncertain, and while I could see her dilemma and agree that the more educated guy was perhaps a superior choice that might lift her to more education, I asked her to conduct a simple test - which I had read of long ago in one of the books of Pearl S. Buck.; I told her to find any object he normally used, a coat being the simplest choice, and see if she felt like embracing it, felt happy holding it close. Surprisingly she immediately came back in less than a week - perhaps the very next day - and was all lit up, relieved, to find the answer. She couldn't marry this guy, she found it unpleasant to do try to do what I had suggested when it came to it. 

 She left to join her boyfriend and marry him and settle with him in his chosen country within a year. Her wedding photographs were lovely.

………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………....