Amidst the incomprehensible chant of the priest in Sankskrit and flashes of the cameras, he put sindoor in the parting of my hair, while my nanad (sister-in-law, or my husband's sister) covered my head with a red tant saree, known as lajjavastra in marriage parlance. The cameraman asked me to sport a smile- the coy smile that a newly wed bride was expected to sport. The smoke from the sacred fire was stinging my eyes and I ended up with rubbing my eyes, smudging the carefully applied kajal by the make-up woman earlier that evening, as I tried lamely to smile looking at the camera. Looking back to that fateful day after a couple of years since my divorce, I think that was a decisive moment - the moment of my transition from being Miss Tarafdar to being Mrs. Das. Now that I am no longer married and no longer part of the Das family (which I have grown to despise since my marriage), I often wonder how easily women are expected to blend in with their matrimonial family, how they are expected to leave behind their maiden surname effortlessly while they take in a new identity - the identity of being someone's wife, the identity of being the proud Mrs. X, Mrs. Y or Mrs. Z. Marriage for a woman entails a vast change in her life - from change in the place of residence to change in the family members to change in surname, while for a man it means simply a change in his relationship status.
Image source: pexels
This post titled "Why Won't You Change Your Surname? Even Priyanka Gandhi Changed It To Vadra!" has been published on Women's Web as a Featured Post. Featured Posts are a careful selection of highly relevant and interesting posts picked up by the editors of Women's Web each day. To read the full story, Click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment