Transition From Past To Present

By Pragati Saraf

I am a Marwari girl born and brought up in Kolkata. My family is originally from Parasrampura, Rajasthan. Traditional and cultural Marwari values have been drilled into me like any other girl from the same caste. A girl in a Marwari family is always brought up with the mindset of becoming a perfect bride. She is taught from childhood that education is important but in some parts of the society managing a house properly is given more importance. A girl is molded to become a well-groomed wife material as we say in Hindi “Sarvagun Sampan”, meaning perfect in all aspects. She is taught how to cook, clean, sew, etc. A girl’s mind is also set in the same way. A career is not as important as marriage. Even education is provided to the girls in order to find a well-educated husband for her. With these values the girls are taught many other things which are the set standards by the society for girls like sit properly, stay silent, speak softly, don’t talk to boys, don’t stay out late at night, etc. A fat girl is pushed to become thin or else it will be difficult to find a nice groom for her. A dusky skin girl is pushed to use different products to become fair. If a girl wants to work, then it comes with a list of conditions from the family. With all these restrictions, a girl starts feeling suppressed, caged, lost, unwanted, lack of confidence, facing body issues, etc. A girl is taught that her father’s identity is her identity before marriage and her husband’s identity after marriage, and after that her son’s. A girl starts questioning her existence in this world that “Who is she?” or “What is the purpose of her life, is it only to serve her husband and his family for as long as she lives?” or “Why a girl’s career is not as important as a boy’s?” A girl starts having a masked face or two faces in which for the world she wears a mask of happiness to show the world but, she is sad, broken, upset, lost from inside. It feels like she is a puppet, and the society is handling all her strings and making her dance on their tunes.

I too was brought up with same values by my parents. I used to feel the same way as mentioned above like the rest of the girls. At one point of my life, I had accepted my fate of becoming someone’s wife. Being fat, even I started having body issues and I was not confident in myself. I wanted to stay hidden away from the world. My family became my world. But then I started looking outside in the real world and I started looking for my own Identity. I came to know that I am not meant to be closed off in a house but to fly high in the sky. I realized that I am a career-oriented person, and I can’t stay without working. At this point many girls may have rebelled against society but I instead of that decided to mix the best of both worlds, my old cultural values along with my modern values. I took all the basic life skills along with the traditional fashion and imbibed it with my new and modern clothing as well as values. I became a girl who can properly manage both, my career as well as my house properly. I don’t have to leave one to be good at the other. I started believing in myself because of which I became confident and started loving my body as it is. I broke away from the chains and the set beauty standards of the society and created a standard of my own

By Pragati Saraf.