Did your Indian society ever give us a chance?

In the ninth series of this post, I frame a response on behalf of many single Indian men of my kind to the public in general. This response will serve a befitting reply to people who ask us why we are still  single?

A few weeks ago, a colleague at my workplace gave me a short lecture on the importance of marriage and told me that if I wanted to get married,I must bring down my expectations from a spouse.Wow!What a suggestion. People feel that I am single and unmarried because I have sky high standards. I believe many single men of my kind would have faced a similar situation. Indian society has a dubious distinction of making assumptions on anyone who does not follow its norms.

There many men like me, men who are orphans, men who come from dysfunctional families and men who don't want to represent their families.Two years ago I gave up any hope that I has on getting married.I have described reason for doing so in my blog posts written before.The single tag does not bother me anymore. However I do get irritated when people blame me for not getting married.

So here I make a statement "Did your Indian society ever give us a chance"?I don't think anyone has an answer to this question.Men like me are never considered as eligible bachelors.No one wants us, no one considers us. We are at best considered as Hobson's choice or the devil's alternative.

Being an HR professional, I very well understand in order to qualify for a job, one needs to meet that mandatory job specification.The same applies to a marriage (at least in India). Not having a family makes you an automatic reject. No one will even consider you for a meeting. In-spite of all this, I still tried, only to be ridiculed, cross examined, insulted and humiliated.Some families did consider me because their daughters were equally unwanted by the society (fat, ugly, anorexic, leftover, over aged and divorcee). Now I am modest person having normal expectations, I was certainly not one of those desperate persons willing to settle down with just anyone as a spouse.When you make an extreme compromise in a marriage:you end up shaking your hands with the devil himself. I stoically accepted that I was better off being single.

Today I live peacefully living a happy single life. I don't have any problems.But the people of the society don't like it. They can't stand the sight of a single man living a nice life.I would clearly like to state that before making unwanted statements on me and men of my category, people should know about our backgrounds and put themselves in our shoes.

Indian society does not give any chance to orphans. Even if we are able to move above on the professional level, we are still treated as unwanted and made to feel like outcasts.

An Indian society that boasts on values, traditions, morality and all that philosophy on culture  has no place for orphans.

I hope I have made my point clear in this post.

This is Bhaveen Sheth signing off and will be back with a lot more.

BHAVEEN SHETH