Bangalore Diaries #7: The Day When Naming Relationships & Desperation Stuck

Continuing from Bangalore Diaries #6, I am at the apartment I was shifting into at Ulsoor, after B dropped me here, told me not to sign an agreement and find a place in areas like Koramangala, HSR Layout, Marathalli etc. I take the lift and there one of the two girls, who are my flatmates,  welcomed me into the apartment.

The room isn’t furnished really. There is just a double mattress in there. The good thing is I can bring in anything that I like, you know have a personalised interior design; the bad thing is it will be tough to manage till I do that. I just have a stroller to call a luggage so I put it in the room and settle down to have a chat with my flatmate.

I sit down to tell her that they should not close their advertisement looking for a flatmate on Facebook (that is how I found this place). I told her about the apprehensions raised by my fiancé and that I’ll be staying there only till I find a new place. Yes, I called B my Fiancé – Not my friend, not my boyfriend but Fiancé. There is a certain power exerted by a relationship which has social approval and that was the moment when I realised that. Saying that my friend or boyfriend has suggested that I should be staying elsewhere does not seem even justified. But when you say Fiancé, there are no questions asked. It is as if when there is a social approval, the person has a right to say what he said.

If I say, the boyfriend is apprehensive about me staying here. I would be asked, “How can he decide where you would like to stay?” But if I say, the fiancé is apprehensive about me staying here, it somehow becomes legit for the guy to say that and for me to accept that.

I realised how deeply seated are the notions that we grew up with. Naming a relationship is as important as the truth of the emotions in it, if not more. Irrespective of all our casual relationship talks and modern thinking influenced by the world at large especially the ones on the western side of the planet, an Indian woman still wants a name to all the important roles she plays in her life. I realised though within the confines of our relationship it never bothered me to get a name for it, to the world at large we needed to say what we are – to each other. More than anything the name is a justification for all those overflowing emotions and silly behaviour around each other.

I was dabbling in these thoughts as my stomach rumbled. I had only eaten that Idli from B’s lunch box since morning; it was going to be 2:00 in the afternoon and I was really hungry. My flatmate was sweet enough to make some poha from flattened rice and offer it to me. The two girls are sisters and were from Bihar. While the younger one was preparing for CAT, the elder one was an IT professional. She told me they were happy to find me – a Hindi speaking flatmate in Bangalore