In Folds Of Smile

Lately, I have been thinking about the mothers of unmarried daughters.

Not because I have something new to say about unmarried women. There is already plenty of conversation about when they should marry, what they should want and, inevitably, where they should adjust.

I’ve been thinking about the mothers standing beside them instead.

The women who walk into weddings, family gatherings, neighbourhood conversations or places of worship knowing that, sooner or later, a familiar question might find them – “Your daughter is still not married?”

Sometimes it comes as a concern: “Don’t worry. She’ll find someone.”

Sometimes as advice: “Tell her to adjust a little.”

Sometimes as the supposedly progressive version: “Arre, let her be. Being single is completely fine these days.”

All of it may be well-intentioned. But she may have already thought about it that day. Another biodata may have arrived that morning. Another conversation may have gone nowhere the week before. Or everyone may be perfectly fine and would simply like to discuss something else.

What we don’t always notice is what happens after the question.

For the person asking, it may be thirty seconds of conversation. For the mother answering, it can change the temperature of the room. She may have walked in laughing, talking about something completely unrelated, being herself—then suddenly she is back to explaining her daughter’s life.

Even when she dodges the question, it has already made her a little smaller.

The person asking may forget the exchange. The mother might carry it home.

I know one of these mothers very well. I have watched seemingly harmless questions accumulate.

Once, I heard a woman tell another mother whose daughter was twenty-five to get her married soon. Otherwise, she warned, the girl might “end up like” an older unmarried woman they knew.

The unmarried woman was standing close enough to hear it.

Apparently, a woman’s life can become a cautionary tale without her consent.

At that point, I feel there should at least be a presentation.

Matrimonial Journey: Key Learnings, Risks & Dependencies

Along with a status for good measure.

Marriage: Amber
Mother’s Patience: Red

Humour helps. Somewhere along the way, daughters learn how to wipe their tears, make a joke, open another conversation and carry on.

Mothers carry a different version of the experience. They don’t always build the same amour.

The daughter gets questioned about her choices. The mother gets questioned about how she raised her.

“Why don’t you convince her?”

“Why does she have so many conditions?”

“At this age, shouldn’t she compromise?”

As though motherhood came with an assignment called Get Your Daughter Married, with a deadline someone somehow failed to meet.

When the daughter remains unmarried for long enough, the conversation can simply move to the next child.

“Maybe concentrate on getting your son settled now.”

“Maybe the daughter-in-law who comes will bring some luck to the family.”

Think about that. The daughter already in the family can somehow be considered unlucky, while a woman who hasn’t even entered it yet is assigned the responsibility of bringing luck with her.

Different woman. Same burden.

Lives, though, are messier than timelines. Sometimes two perfectly good people simply don’t fit.

I am vegetarian, for example, and would prefer a partner whose lifestyle is compatible with mine. This has generated considerably more public policy discussion than I anticipated.

“He can eat outside.” | “Why can’t you adjust?”

If a man tells me something matters to the way he wants to live, I believe him. I don’t want to marry someone intending to change him. I would simply like the same courtesy.

Sometimes incompatibility is just incompatibility. Nobody needs to be wrong.

My mother understands this better than people give her credit for.

Years ago, there was someone I thought I might marry. My parents knew about him. There had been a proposal and, for a while, hope.

It didn’t happen. He eventually married someone else.

Much later, I was standing inside a FedEx store with my mother when I saw him outside in the parking lot. With his wife.

I wasn’t prepared for it.

It’s strange how the body can react to something the mind believes it has already packed away.

My mother looked at me. “What happened?”

All I could manage was: He’s here. With his wife.

There was only one door out of the store. Suddenly, I couldn’t walk through it. – I can’t go out.

My mother took my hand. It’s okay. I’m holding your hand.

I still couldn’t move.

She told me I wasn’t going to have a nervous breakdown there. I wasn’t that weak. Holding my hand, she walked me through the door.

I don’t remember whether he saw me. I don’t even remember what I had gone to FedEx for.

I only remember holding my mother’s hand.

People tell mothers to convince their daughters to adjust without knowing what those mothers may already have held their daughters’ hands through.

That doesn’t mean my mother and I don’t fight.

Oh, we fight.

Another “there’s this one boy…” at the wrong moment can test generations of maternal love. There may also have been enough emotional blackmail over the years that excessive interference is now understood to be hazardous to everyone’s health.

But when it has mattered, she has never asked me to make myself smaller simply so she could tell the world that her daughter was married.

Maybe love isn’t always pushing someone towards the milestone you desperately want for them. Sometimes it is holding their hand while they walk away from the wrong one.

Somewhere in all of this, I realised I had been doing something similar – between the biodatas, introductions and maybe this one, I forgot that my mother is a daughter too.

The eldest daughter, who recently lost her own mother.

While the world is busy asking when her daughter will gain a husband, she is learning how to live after losing her mum.

How easily we flatten people into the roles most convenient to us: mother, wife, unmarried daughter, future daughter-in-law. How rarely we stop to wonder what else that person might be carrying.

My mother has been saving for my marriage since I was twenty-one.

21 !

She could have put more into her clinic. Travelled. Bought herself something beautiful. Done something wonderfully unnecessary. Instead, somewhere in her mind, that money has always belonged to a future version of me dressed as a bride.

There is so much love inside that kind of saving. If I am being truthful, there is a little guilt in receiving it too.

Daughters notice their mothers’ sacrifices. Sometimes love received as sacrifice quietly turns into an obligation: maybe if I just make this happen, she’ll finally stop worrying.

I do want marriage. I want love, partnership, a family of my own. I would love to see my mother get the son-in-law she has imagined all these years.

But I don’t want my marriage to become an apology for taking too long to arrive. Nor do I want it to become the price of my mother’s peace.

Maybe there is something the rest of us can do instead.

The next time you meet the mother of an unmarried daughter, don’t ask her for an update. Don’t reassure her either.

Ask her something else.

Ask what she’s reading. Ask for a song recommendation. Ask what she’s watching on Netflix. Talk about yoga, work, food, politics, cities, travel, the weather.

Her backache.

Your knees.

Her knees.

At a certain age, everybody has a knee. Discuss it.

There is an entire woman sitting in front of you. Talk to her.

Maybe empathy isn’t always finding the perfect reassuring thing to say. Sometimes it is knowing which question you don’t need to ask at all.

To the particular mother who made me think about all of this—Maa, I know we fight. 

I know another “there’s this one boy…” can irritate me before you’ve even finished the sentence. Sometimes my exhaustion with this whole process lands on you because you are the safest place for it to land.

I also know I have spent a lot of time worrying about the person who hasn’t entered our family yet, when I should have spent more time sitting beside you while you grieved the person we just lost.

I’m sorry for that.

I hope someday I bring someone home who understands the daughter you raised rather than requiring her to become someone else.

Until then, spend some of that money on yourself.

Work on your clinic. Take your walks. Do your yoga. Read your books. Watch terrible Netflix movies and recommend them to me anyway. Listen to your songs.

When you walk into a room, I hope people ask you about all the things that make you you.

You don’t owe anyone a progress report on me.

You haven’t failed because your daughter’s life didn’t follow somebody else’s timeline.

Neither have I.

I love you, Maa.

We will probably fight tomorrow.

But years ago, when there was only one door and I was terrified to walk through it, you held my hand.

There will be other doors.

Hopefully no more biodatas.

Definitely more fights.

Whenever I am afraid to walk through one,

yours is still the hand I will look for.