Word of the Week #151:
Imagine you are a child.
Done? Good.
Now, imagine your parents telling you the following things at the following ages.
At 8: Kid, stay away from aeroplanes.
At 12: Kid, stay away from aeroplanes. They are not safe.
At 15: Kid, you are staying away from aeroplanes, right? You better… It is for your own good.
At 18: Kid! I have told you a thousand times, stay away from aeroplanes! No talking about them, no looking at them, no thinking about them. Nothing. This is not how we raised you.
At 21: Kid, if you do not stay away from aeroplanes, I swear to God, I will shoot you both out of the sky!
At 25: Kid, you have been good all your life, and as a reward, I am getting you a plane! So what if you have never been in, or even around, a plane… So what if you have no idea how to fly it, how to land, how to maintain it, how to make sure you won’t kill yourself in a fiery crash within the next year… Oh, I’m just so happy! You know what we should do? We should celebrate this news with thousands of people we barely know and will never meet for many, many years!
Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, that is how marriage works in India.
No wonder it is such a bumpy ride.
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