Under The Pretext Of A Progressive Indian Family

I never believe a word will ever become cliche with my belief in Karma. But, then the word “Progressive” does annoy me much with its super saver status on many matrimonial platforms. “The boy belongs to a progressive family!”. Now, does this mean financially progressive ? or mentality progressive? Progressing towards what? The alarming rate at which this word has been brewing over a decade now makes it for a rustic topic to write on. And so here I am giving “Progressive” a deep cut from it’s routine of just being there to lure the nuptial ties.  

The truth is that I am one of those never doubting naive souls who got overtaken by the power of the word “Progressive” (from a mentality perspective of being an open-minded family) when I tied knots. And it did cost me much turbulences to understand very early on in my journey as a married woman that the word “Progressive” actually means the “Big Unsatisfying Ego” of the family of the mentioned “Cultured and Clean Boy” who want their respective stake in every move that this wedded couple will take in their life long journey together.

During my twenties, I used to turn my judgmental knob to the loudest, mostly when I knew of a person who has hurt me or my loved ones. Though by the time I got married which was on the verge of me entering my thirties, I had slowly come to practice, the way of life where I do not get into conversations which belittle people. I was quite mature in understanding my needs in life and my craving for where I want to go.

But, “Under the pretext of a progressive Indian family” it became real tough not to wear the bitching cape and dance to the tunes of deliberate procrastination which my mother-in-law threw on me because she could not see the ideal daughter-in-law in place. The deal she wanted to strike with her son was remake her and let her suit our needs. Well the “our needs” was actually “her need” to show to the world that she will forever be the ruling queen and I, just a subdued and submissive puppet like what our age old trusted culture expects of daughter-in-laws.

My realization on to not to give her what she wants and that “ignorance is not bliss” in my case, took a long time. I accepted that the dynamics of life rolls it's dices to show us its different sides. People behave so different in changing surroundings and time boxes. Here, I had to be the change. I cannot be simply me but, someone who will stand up to confront the undeserving attitude. I did face it and behaved different from what the society expects of any daughter-in-law who is supposed to enter the family as a daughter. But, when I was never taken in as a daughter why will I need to express my gratitude?

Today, I was reading this write-up by Sadhguru “Mother-in-law demystified”. Read it here -http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/relationships/mother-in-law-demystified/

So true, many a mother-in-laws and even sister-in-laws seem to suffer from a crab mentality. Under the overdose of their patriarchal state of mind, neither do they want to fly away and neither they want women who walk into their households to get ahead of them. This is akin to the mentality of crabs. When you put many crabs together in a bucket, none of them will be able to crawl out, because while one crab tries to get out, the other pulls it down and in the process no crab manages to get out since they all impede each others progress.

For many Indian Families, the word “progressive” is like a defense mechanism to protect their ego like a consolation prize, a fantasy that they repeatedly play out in their heads to make themselves believe that the competitor family or their daughter isn't that successful after all. Relationships fall out very badly when sometimes these mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws thrive on others failures and derive sadistic pleasure from their pain without realizing that doing this does NOT take them ahead. You cannot become taller by cutting of someone's legs.

The truth in life is that no amount of competition or jealousy is going to stop us from realizing that as social beings we all want to co-exist happily ever after. And words like “progressive” need to be taken down.

The recent advertisement by “All out India”, questions this very hidden essence of Indian families under the pretext of being progressive. We the women are the change who can bring up the gender equality index. 

#StandByToughMoms