To be or not to be - single…that is the question

I insert the key to my front door while trying to balance my laptop with a jhola full of vegetables. My neighbour’s four year old son zooms past on his tricycle, “You are lucky,” his mother says enviously, “no worries, no children, no husband. I can’t work because of - Roshen! leave Goodlu alone!! (that’s to her hyperactive son!)…I’m bored.”

She’s not like the other lady who lives opposite my flat – married, with a year old child left to the care of an aaya while she’s at the office all day and the husband is working in the gulf.

Three women. Different choices. Mine is a little uncommon in the Indian scenario - a woman deciding to stay single. Someone who could have married well, led a safe, socially acceptable, economically stable life. But didn’t. At my age, it’s not a case of delay, arriving late at the station – it’s giving the marital bandwagon a bypass. It’s a statement.

For my neighbour who’s chosen to be a housewife, I’m an object of envy. For a friend who’s going through a rocky marriage, I’m a source of strength. For a colleague who doesn’t find me depressed or seeking attention even when I was sick (and alone in a new city), I’m an enigma. To my parents I’m a heartache. For a lot of men I’m an object of curiosity – and more…

The reasons why being single is regarded as strange and unusual has to do with the business of being human. While modernization, affordable cell phones, ATMs, dial-a-whatever-you-want, has led to an opportunity for the individual (even women!) to live more as an individual than a social stereotype, there are yet formidable questions that crave for answers. Of them, are the practical issues like what happens when you are sick or have an accident. But more important are the age old questions of emotional bonding, of love, of loneliness…

People, often ask me why I’ve not married. The answer is really simple though not always understood. I haven’t married because I’m happier staying single. I actually ENJOY solitude, it’s not a burden or a self imposed discipline. I can spend days together in my flat listening to music, doing yoga, reading, writing, playing flute or just sitting watching the clouds, the noisy traffic, the labourers constructing another tall building…I don’t need to have a man designated to me as ‘husband’ with a set of rights and duties towards me to feel complete or safe. Besides, I’m addicted to the freedom of not having to answer or explain to someone. Even though I don’t party or plunge in any wild pleasures, I like the idea of not having to live up to a role or mould myself to someone else’s expectations. Selfish? Perhaps.

A friend sizzling with sceptism is quick to retort, “What happens when you open the door to an empty house - tired, worn out, worried and there’s nobody to give you a cup of tea or listen to you…don’t you wish you were married?” I do come back tired sometimes and since I’m working far away from my home town and my parents, I have to make that coveted cup of tea myself, but this or similar needs have never made me turn to marriage as an answer.

It would of course, be naïve to assume that every single person will commit an entire life to isolation and celibacy. One may have intimate friends and family to share matters of the heart with, even at long distance. Besides, romantic relationships do happen sometimes, but they don’t always culminate in marriage. However, to assume as some people do (especially landlords!) that a single’s life is characterized with indiscipline, wild parties, one night stands or casual sex is ridiculous and irrational.

I respect marriage as an institution (for others!) and regard G.B Shaw’s view of calling it “legalized prostitution” as extreme. Marriage makes it obligatory for your spouse to take care of you in times of need, which may be a major problem if you are single and staying alone without friends or relatives nearby. A traditional marriage is perhaps the best system for bringing up physically and emotionally healthy children, however, it doesn’t always guarantee an intimate bond with one’s spouse, emotional understanding, inner growth or even sexual satisfaction. If one is emotionally and financially independent, a single life is a privilege and luxury. The freedom to choose one’s actions and life style, the privilege of organizing one’s own time, the joy of physical and mental space, come easy if you are single. But if one is not emotionally strong and needs to have company or a legally secured partner then it’s better to climb onto the marital bandwagon than to venture the road less traveled. Everything comes at a price. People pay for being married, I pay for being single and with a hand on my heart I can say it’s well worth it. Being single, one is singularly happy.

- Harvinder Kaur