Alternative Lives: On coupling and decoupling

These are some of the responses aging adults, who have forsaken personal bindings for vocational life paths, both here and on shores beyond, trot out to their parents. This is the new breed of homo sapiens. Our progeny.

Fiercely independent, gender neutral, and cool as cucumbers. They tread new pathways, create where there are none, the world is their fairway, no lair they call their own. To be at ease in any place, have dudes that you hang out with in different longitudes, those you call when you do and when you can. And yet they work hard. Cruise harder. Choose partners who understand or refrain if they don’t.

I saw this in my own sons, I see it in my nephews and nieces. They walk away when they need to. Not that they do not care, but because they have to make their own way. They will be there when you need them, a “dozen” phone calls away. With apologies for not answering but making time when they can.

This is the new brand of go-getters. They have had pain and heartbreak, relationships and loneliness, friends, with or without benefits, their companions and support systems, who lend a hand when they need, let them be when it is so needed. Give space. Yet be there.

I am envious of this generation. They are our tomorrow, and they rule their today on their own terms. You will not hear about the goings on. They keep secrets in vaults inaccessible. No passwords that hack or keys at all. Mum’s the word for these keepers. They are rock solid and careful.

This generation is in no hurry to marry. The classified columns are full up, matchmaker fees have scaled seven digits and the hunt is across seven continents and islands as the Punjabi is everywhere, much like the potato and the onion.

The other day, watching a serial on Indian matchmaking, I was dumbstruck by this idea of aging unwedded adults on the threshold of midlife. Anxious that their productive life to raise babies is getting over and thus in a weird dilemma. Do I marry one of the biodatas that I am receiving from the auntyji, or do I keep looking within the drying pastures of Tinder and Bumble?

THE LATER, THE BETTER

The race for finding a match on foreign shores is definitely the first choice amongst most Ambarsari go-getters. This search for suitable partners also carries one further down the age spectrum beyond the late thirties. The consequence is the adoption of innovative technologies. The desperation of freezing sperm cells and eggs, even finding live-in partners, and the advent of surrogacy for those beyond child-bearing age. It’s a new age for sure and things beyond perception are happening. Ask Priyanka and Jonas.

We as a society are still prudish about these things. But change is on the anvil. Kids are definitely marrying way later these days, if at all they do. They want to enable themselves and ensure employability. This is true for both sexes and since they are independently enabled, the pressures of the family are distant, weak, and easily dismissible. In this quest lies the urge to ensure meeting of minds, the move-ins, and the keeping open of all options. They do not take a “Chance pe Dance.” They think things through perhaps in a more mature manner than we ever did as the passing generation.

My nephew dropped in on us lately along with his adorable live-in partner. I had an interesting conversation with them and found the level of honesty shared between the two refreshing even to my archaic mindset. Much as the thought of live-in relationships has been frowned upon for eons, this has been so on two diverse levels. The upper echelons of society have never really cared two hoots, and neither have the slum dwellers. The established norms of social etiquette are primarily framed for the median treaders. On the other level, the young have thought of it quite differently than the minus one generation of any contemporary era, and this is not a phenomenon new to society. Remember Amrita Pritam who was famed for her deep love and yet the twosome did not cement their bond.

However, in this quest also lies a worry. What if you want kids or have one by accident? I asked my nephew this question. He said that he and his partner have talked about it. In my prising further as to whether they were willing to raise an illegitimate child (by current societal standard and definition), the definitive answer was that we shall talk about that situation when the time comes. Fair enough, I guess.

Habits, preferences, our social milieu, even our tolerances are changing. In this era of gender-bending, gender neutrality, and gender fluidity, much is happening. An acknowledgment of tendencies one is born with is being accepted and not frowned upon. They may still be taboo though in open social display.

THE RAINBOW GENERATION

The other day a discussion amongst friends about the manner in which these relationships were handled with sensitivity in the movie Cobalt Blue brought to memory a child who converted to the other sex through extensive surgical action. Imagine being a woman in the body of a man. How claustrophobic it must be. Luckily in the case of this child of the city, the parents were understanding, and she is a woman now through and through. She is accepted by society, partying, and happy for once in her life.

LGBTQ is a reality of life. Like it or not, alternative lives have descended upon us and are likely to stay. When one makes an honest effort at understanding the present-day situation, more revelations begin to flow. That independent kids living on their own have no qualms about such relationships, which may tumble out as skeletons from cupboards with time, if at all the communion flows to the next level. But one finds that staggered choices are becoming the norm. Perhaps taking the dating route of the west, wherein one goes into a relationship with another a step at a time, leading on to a moving-in situation that may or may not sustain, then a proper live-in partnership of sorts open to parental interactivity. And finally, the thought of matrimony.

But this is one end of the spectrum. There is this other end of those business communities who start looking at matches for their pretty girls at puberty and ensure that they are married off between the age of 18 and 21. Their responsibility thus done and dusted, parents then sit back and await grandkids whilst still in their fifties. Power to them as well. Who are we to judge?

Nevertheless, in this slow-moving border town replete with heritage and culture, deep histories, and value systems, the old order changeth, edging slowly into the direction of the fast-paced world around us. But there is no hurry to catch up as the values of a balanced existence far outweigh the jarring lifestyle of the metropolis. But we are getting out of our closed mindsets, stepping out of closets, being way less judgemental, and accepting change. That’s quite enough for now. Perhaps even forever.

(The writer is an Amritsar-based historian, philanthropist and environmentalist who loves all things Amritsari)