Randomness on a Friday afternoon

Here's a total random posting.

Today I sat watching a video on Youtube. It was a silly Indian soap which I try to keep up with when and if I have the time (which is often cause I'm sort of addicted to it) where the girl is about to get married. It's the morning of her wedding and she's surrounded by her family singing a Bhajan (a Hindu hymn of sorts) and as she's singing the words, her family begins to cry silently as does she. I found myself tearing up as well.

To my American friends who read this and may not fully comprehend why weddings are so bittersweet for Indians, let me explain. For the most part a Desi girl is protected, kept within the loving (and most certainly not so loving) embrace of her family however from birth f a daughter, most traditional Desi parents know that their girl is only "on loan" because once she is married and assumes the role of someones wife, she will also assume her rightful place, which is beside her husband taking up the responsibility of her own home. Does this sound antiquated? Probably to most because just because one gets married definitely shouldn't mean that they have been divorced from their parents/family right? Well, yeah, that is right, but not entirely.

I was like every other American kid growing up here, anxious to be on my own, live my life the way I wanted to but when my wedding came around and I gazed at the familiar faces of my parents and family who surrounded me constantly to lend moral support, I had a extremely saddening realization: I was no longer going to see these people.

I don't mean EVER, but just...as often.

I realized that I would no longer get up every morning to the soft music of my mothers humming as she cooked, the rustling of my fathers newspaper as he perused the "world" section, the phone ringing off the hook while someone scrambled to pick it up, cousins, aunts, uncles all stopping by just to say hello or even the guy who cut our lawn like clockwork every 2 weeks on Saturday morning. I hadn't truly understood until shortly before getting married that these things, the familiarity of my surroundings were soon going to slip away and I would have to create those all anew.

Somehow I haven't managed to create those things in my home though I've been married nearly 14 years. Even if P is reading the newspaper, it's usually online and the phone doesn't ring because we both have our individual cells and I don't hum when I cook cause it invokes such wonderfully...yes dare I be redundant, bittersweet...memories. P cuts the lawn and he's most certainly on no timetable regarding it and since we live in VA, our family can't simply drop by.

Again, I don't expect many of my American friends to understand this, or for that matter even some of my Desi friends, but I had to share because as I watched the characters on the show tear up with the knowledge that their daughter/granddaughter/sister/niece/cousin would soon become apart of another family, I found my own heart aching in response.