women everywhere

Over the last few weeks, Ive had the opportunity to travel extensively accross this vast country to places I would have never thought Id visit earlier, and met some very interesting people - especially women, along the way.

My first stop were three towns in the state of Gujarat for the wedding of a friend. Gujarat as a state is known for its loud and vibrant women and is fairly safe. At the wedding since my friend was busy with all his ceremonies, I was introduced to other young women my age. These girls, between 20-24 years of age, were all recently married, engaged or waiting to be engaged- and it seemed to be the most obvious thing to do. In a conversation with one of them, I learnt that one of them had never been out of the state of Gujarat!
The young women who were waiting to be engaged spent their time taking tuition classes for young children, embroidery, making pickles, and the like.
And it was the most obvious thing to do.

I then headed to Raipur,a small town in the state of Chattisgarh. On the flight I met an old friend of mine. She, along with a friend had decided to take printouts of the tourism page of the state of Orissa and do a lonely planet style holiday.She had recently finished an assignment with her company and decided to take off. All she had planned was her plane ticket back.A complete contrast from the earlier bunch I had met a week ago.

Then back in Mumbai, I made a call to an old friend N. N had gotten married in 2003 to her long time love and told me she was 5 months pregnant! I immediately rushed to meet her. I found her glowing and happy but completely isolated from our friends' circle.
Her life included caring for the new life growing inside her,dodging an irritating mother in law and being a doting wife to her hubby. Yet another contrast.

Another one I got in touch with was contemplating running away from home to be married only to escape a lifetime of predefined mate.

It really led me to think, the first bunch of women symbolized the average woman socialized into cooking, embroidery and the like. The second type was the urban woman who believed that the world was her oyster- totally oblivious to the contrasts of life around her. And the third and fourth had an extremely similar upbringing to me- urban, educated, exposed to different ideas, - but still chose to make the conventional life choices of beginning a family very early and submitting themselves to the will of another..

In school and college, I remember being at an equal footing (even one a step ahead) of the boys in my class. But out in real life, everything seems to change. Education does create aspirations, but then the "powers that be" in society seem to undo everything?

Not to say that I condescend these women, everyone has a choice to make and lives the conscequence of those choices. Its just that with more and more women I meet around me who have lives so completely different to mine, I get the sense of this world being very lonely for women who have an ambition...