I read a novel by Anita Nair – Ladies Coupe; which is all about a single question - Can a woman stay single and be happy, or does a woman need a man to feel complete? It is an interesting novel, the story of a woman's search for strength and independence, Ladies Coupe focuses on the inner strength every girl possesses. It has tried to show all the phases of a woman’s life with 5 ladies sharing their lifes stories:
• Fourteen-year-old girl, with her ability to perceive what others cannot.
• Another about pampered wife and confused mother.
• Then about a chemistry teacher married to the poetry of elements and an insensitive tyrant too self-absorbed to recognize her needs.
• About the perfect daughter and wife, transformed for life by a glimpse of a swimming pool;
• And about a girl whose innocence was destroyed by one night of lust.
• And the forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life - always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider.
Well I believe that secretly every girl wants her own independence and crave to be known by her own name. She wants to break the barriers to be known as somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother or somebody’s grandmother and longing for her own true identity. I agree that sometimes it feels great and fantastic when we overhear that she is their daughter or she is her/his sister or there she goes that man’s wife.
From the day a girl is born, she is taught to sacrifies her own desires for the sake of her family first to be a good daughter/ sister and then a good wife and a homemaker... But at certain age a girl may long to hear by her own name and long to hear that – there SHE goes – nobody’s daughter , wife or mother just simple her name. Even if she wants to remain single – Indian society won’t allow that. People often come to young girls and start suggesting its time you search for better man for yourself and their unlimited advices. May be Indian society has made a woman so weak that she has to be depended on other even for a name; or May be Indian society is so jealous of single Indian woman that it won’t allow a single woman to breathe in Indian society. May be at certain a woman might forget her own name as she is known as her daughter, mother, sister or whatever.
I strongly believe that a single woman can live all alone and be extremely happy. It’s not woman that needs man to live life completely. If a working woman can manage very well her work and her house, she can undeniably take a good care for herself. I guess a single man cannot manage all alone; he is depended on a woman to take care of his food, clothes and shelter… It’s a man who is weak and not woman. Vivdly, it's not easy for woman in modern society; we still have to go the extra mile to prove ourself and work twice as hard as man.
Personally I, Megha Bhatia, want a good husband and my own family; not because that I am not strong enough to live alone and not because to be accepted by Indian society; But because it’s my desire and dream and not at all a need.
So girls - be strong and independent; you don’t need to afraid of anything and fear nothing. A novel is a true inspiration to be sovereign and strong… Must read for every Lady. Though the question still remains unanswered will Indian society ever accept a single woman??
