Alas I made my bed, I must now lie in it. I much rather tuck myself away close to the ceiling than hear the rustling of the midnight passenger making their way to the hole and hoping not to fall in. I would be lying if I said I had a good night’s rest. But I was semi-sleeping until I heard the raucous in the seats behind me: the elder couple had awoken. The rest lay fast asleep.
The seat behind me was, once again, filled with another incoming fleet of passengers, this time it was early early morning, the sun had yet to wake up but you could hear her wrestling. The elderly gentlemen had made himself comfortable in the incoming passenger’s seats. His old lady, found an empty inch on the bottom berth near me and sat on it as if it was the last remaining piece of seat in the world. Her chin buried deep in her palm and she gazed out in utter despair. Though I monitored the situation with great intrigue. I happily played asleep in my semi-comfortable train bed.
It wasn’t long before the conductor was called to rectify the newly embarked passenger’s frustrations.
“Listen, I need you to return to your assigned seat,” the conductor firmy said.
“What am I supposed to do? Everyone is sleeping, I don’t have anywhere to sit!” the elder gentlemen barked.
Very quickly the distinguished gentlemen who tipped the khooli generously melted into a taunted toddler. Yet the conductor continued to rationalize with him: “These are their seats, not yours.”
“If you remove this old blankets, WE’LL ALL HAVE ROOM! Pick them up.” Said the elderly not-so-gentle man.
The conductor, too, lost his cool and explained in a dauting volume and intonation that these are not his seats. And so a choir of maddened yelping and hawing began: “These are our seats, you belong in the seats down from us!” griped a passenger.
And now we were all up, tucked away in our seat-con-beds, pretending to sleep and ignore the tussling voices invading our space. His wife still balanced her bum on the end of the seat one of the passengers slept on. We really were within arms distance of each other. I cautiously kept my eyes closed catching intermittent glimpses of her head still sorrowfully hung on her hand.
The elderly gentlemen finally left the other seat and returned to where his wife sat, now charged up from not getting his way. He rustled the two passengers sleeping on the bottom berth awake: “Get up! Get up! There is no space for us to sit!”
The other couple naturally looked at him in disdain. “Why are you causing such a commotion?” You bothered them and now you are bothering us. Just calm down.”
The elderly gentlemen remarked:
“I cannot sit there.
I cannot sit here.
I cannot sit anywhere.
(said the cat in the hat).”
“It is morning time anyhow, this is the time to get up anyway,” he said.
I looked at my watch: 5:15am.
To my surprise, once again, the couple appeased him. They got up, undid their bed and made room for him to sit.
“Chai, coffee, chai, coffee?” our server chanted. The sun was just opening her eyes and us with her. We all sipped quietly, still feeling the aftershock of the man’s morning tantrum. However next to me sat the elder man and his wife contently sipping their chai. At some point, I believe I saw him literally feed her her biscuit; I mean actually place the biscuit into her mouth. She willingly accepted it.
This equal partnership of a man and wife upholding their roles in marriage and participating as productive members of society dissolved in front of me. I found myself wondering how one lives a life where a man dictates the environment you sit in, the food you eat, when you eat it, when you sleep, when you get up and everything beyond.
As I travel through India from my modern family in Delhi to my conservative family in Punjab to the very traditional villagers of Gujarat I see much of this shared value. Marriage is a position one is assigned in their lifetime. It is a greater part of the intricate workings of the fine machinery that is Indian society. To resist the role is to jam up the turning wheels under which everyone functions. It is not something you do because you want to or because you hope to one day. It is what you do. The power of this is system is demonstrated in the durability of Indian culture and the strong sense of family and social security I feel when I am there.
As I extract myself from my world in America I can look at our system more objectively. We hope to get married because we want to. We hope to find a person that we want to marry. The hope is that from that union rises greater personal happiness. As in America us, as individuals, are always of great priority. Marriage is one other way of attaining happiness. If marriage is not a means of attaining happiness we elect to not marry; if marriage is no longer a means of attaining happiness we may elect to end that marriage. With or without our marriage our family will still survive, our children may still see both their parents, we will continue to work at our job, we may even marry again.
I spent so much of my life trying to justify one system as better than the other. But just like mangos and papayas (I really don’t like apples or oranges that much) Indian and American culture and marriage just remain different.
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