Wednesday, March 16, 2005

What, no baby?

It’s one of the fascinating paradoxes of Indian society that on the one hand people are so prudish about sex but on the other, after a girl is married, elderly relatives she barely knows have absolutely no compunctions about coming up to her, gleam in eye, and asking when “baby is coming”. This line of questioning, if not immediately discouraged with a sharp glance or retort, will be accompanied by advice on seduction and the like. Female friends have told me stories about 60-year-old aunties propagating the virtues of badaam-milk and sensuous massages. One of them actually had to hear “don’t let your husband go anywhere, keep him tied to the bed until you get pregnant”. (Naturally, there is the unspoken assumption that the girl is a virgin, and so must be given explicit instructions. I’m glad to report that at least one of my friends managed to clear the air on that point, nearly causing heart attacks by announcing that she already knew many more tricks than the old fogeys would have learnt over their several years of mundane procreative sex.)

This subject’s been close to my heart for a long time - mainly because it crops up so wearisomely often in discussions with friends, and I never cease to be surprised by some of the anecdotes I hear - and that’s probably one reason I haven’t blogged about it. It just seems so obvious, so ubiquitous. The reason I’m talking about it now is because a very close friend just called up and she was quivering, literally shaking with rage, because she had just returned from a wedding function where complete strangers (or maybe people she had met once or twice before, at other like functions) came up to her and said things like, “So when are you going to wrap up that PhD of yours so you can start a family?” This is an enormously intelligent, ambitious woman who has other priorities in life (and she and her husband are in agreement on that point) and who doesn’t subscribe to that timeworn view that an Indian woman can be considered “successful” only when she’s started a family.

One tends to think of all this as just another irritating element of the Indian societal framework. Some of us might even subconsciously think of it as “sweet” because of the association with babies - especially when the couple on the receiving end are planning to start a family anyway, and there’s no conflict involved. But the offensiveness and intrusiveness came into clearest focus for me a few weeks ago when a friend, Ajitha, cut right to the heart of the matter in her measured, soft-spoken way: “What these people are really asking you,” she said sweetly, “is, when are you and your husband going to start having unprotected sex.” It appears the all-important matter of perpetuating the family line gives even the most conservative people full sanction to inveigle their way into the most private affairs of a couple.

14 comments:

  1. You wrote:

    One tends to think of all this as just another irritating element of the Indian societal framework.


    No. it isn't. The same thing happens here, in the US. The "auntyji" syndrome is everywhere. [Heck, You must've heard those Jewish mom jokes!]. Btw, on a related note, see Forget Paris - Billy Crystal and Debra Winger.

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  2. Inveigle!!! Wow, Jabs; wittingly or otherwise, you might have hit the solar plexus there. You know, INVEIGLE sounds like all these relatives want to have sex with the couple in question. And therefore, what these old folks are trying to figure out is whether the guy and the girl are good or not. And what they do and so on.

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  3. Jai Arjun Singh? Were you once in Britannica?

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  4. Its the highest level of hypocrisy. its almost like for a girl.. marriage equals sex and babies. Not so sure about the guy point of view..

    Its always assumed she will be a virgin and god forbid if u say otherwise... No guy is ever asked this..as far as I know...

    At one level, getting married too is a like permission to have sex and pretend to procreate. Societal pressure and approval syndrome..

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  5. ...considering that the rigmarole (or shoud that be 'grandmarole'?) begins with, "what, no shaadi?", this is but the natural progression (straight) curve... :)

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  6. Nice article Jai.

    In reponse to J: Marriage equals sex and babies is also applicable to men. Also, I have been asked by a girl about my virginity. Apparantly she wanted a Virgin...lucky I'm a guy. Somehow, I am of the opinion that sex is something you should have after marriage.

    Response to Straight Curves: "What, no Shaadi?" then "What, no Babies?" then "What, no extramarital affair?". It all depends on which curve of life you want to belong to. Some are straight, most aren't:)

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  7. Men have to tolerate these inquiries too. If you're married and haven't faced it yet, you're in the fortunate and miniscule minority.

    On a different note, you might like these links .. Jabberwocky in Latin and (oh, frabjous day!) in Polish.

    http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/iabervocius.html

    http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/iabervocius.html

    Thanks for posting, my coffee tastes better reading your blog.

    J.A.P.

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  8. Thank you. You don't know how much. I felt like Offred from Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale.'A woman who is supposed to get f***d by the Commander, get pregnant, or else die for being an Unwoman.

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  9. Just chanced upon your blog. The baby thing is so true. A very unhealthy and disgusting curiosity about things which hardly concern them... I guess it's a very Indian thing... I don't know when will we (as a society) ever grow out of such things?

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  13. LOl i dont think it is only an indian thing...i am not indian ..and i got marrried in may.
    My husband and I just laff and laff at relatives. They dont care that 'hey we dont have a house' and 'we have big debts from college etc etc' they just automatically want baby baby even if you can support yourselves yet!!!!!!!

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  14. Jai, give the poor tabbies some credit -- it is, I am reliably informed, called "concern for your well-being".

    I discovered this the day I also discovered that my mother-in-law, who among other things has a bit of a "sugar complaint" [always makes me wonder, what, the brand you use isn't sweet enough?], had been fasting for 41 days so she could finally see a grandchild [It didn't even matter, she told me magnanimously, whether said infant was boy or girl].

    This was after I had been married to her daughter 15 years, and even the neighbor of our maid knew we had no intention of having kids.

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