An Open Letter To My Parents Who Don't Want Their Only Child To Be Happy
( words)
*For representational purpose only.
My story is about parental pressure and how it can ruin your life. I am the only child born to a very traditional, conservative and religious set of parents. Perhaps that it is what drove me to take the actions that I did. All my life, I have felt that I was never quite up to the mark. From exam grades to university choices, I always felt that my best was never good enough for them. And now this has influenced my choice of life partner, too. We met at a family wedding, but months went by and I didn't think anything of it. He was good looking but as for me, the love of my life at the time was the best for me.
Good looking boys come and go but love is different.
After a harsh breakup, S returned to my life. We started talking and we ended up grabbing a coffee. As they say, the rest is history. A year later, I decided that he was the one for me and after a fairytale proposal, I told my parents about him. I told them that I wanted to marry him. This is where the fairy tale ends. I am supposed to be the child, their only child but they are the ones acting like children. In my mind, I have done nothing wrong but in their eyes apparently, their world has come crashing down. For the past 11 months, I have been living with snide comments, the cold shoulder treatment, the incessant threats of self-harm and the outright disregard.
But what they don't see is the more they push me away from them, the closer I get to him. This is what I want to tell them:
Dearest Mom and Dad,
I am your child and you should want for me, what is best for me and not what is best for you. At the forefront of your mind is what will other people say, because we do not belong to the same caste, he is not vegetarian like us, and he does not follow our way of living. Yet you forget that he is a human and a good human at that. You are making me doubt my faith and breaking my spirit because all I think every second is, Rabba when will it stop? I just want to be with him. Is love a sin? Piece by piece, you both are destroying your life and the relationship you have with me.
One day you will wake up and I won't be your daughter anymore because you will have hurt me so much that I will walk away and not look back.
