Daughters

Love has come full circle since our Mother’s were born. In India -- and in my family's case, Uganda -- "love" was so simple for a woman to find, because it wasn’t really an option. It was a different kind of love; the kind that develops as a result of preconceived circumstance. It worked backward for us since the beginning: you love the person you marry, not marry the person you love. After migrating to western countries like America and England, second generation daughters have come to realize that you can find a best friend, a partner, and a lover all in one person, and that you don’t have to love anyone you don’t choose to. So, daughters began choosing whomever they wanted, and the prospects widened and varied with time. Now, it wasn’t just a lover, a partner and a friend; he had to be a Hindu or a Christian, vote Democratic, go to the gym 3 days a week, laugh at our jokes, make six figures, share the same tastes in art and music, want to settle in Virginia and agree to weekly dinners with friends. The choices ever-expanded, which in turn made it impossible to find the "perfect" mate. And this is our curse. Us, twenty-to-thirty-something, confused, American born, Indian women. We don’t marry for the same reasons our Mother’s did, we look to wholly satisfy ourselves, and to the point that we remain dissatisfied. Dating brown men, white men, black men…what is most important, religion, family, skin tone, status? Is good sex more desirable than a common culture? Do we win the man over or does the man win us over? It is a constant revolution with our sex, there is always something to prove and we certainly have no problems keeping up. But it seems to come with a sacrifice. As we progress as individuals, we digress as partners. We become less willing to conform to another person and it seems to only get more difficult with age. I’ve been told more and more lately, (to my dismay) that love should no longer be a priority, because “romance fades". I keep hearing that it is more fruitful to find a decent man who shares the same values and cultural beliefs, rather than seeking out someone you're merely attracted to or intrigued by. So, really, are we not running in the same race our Mother’s ran? To first, find a caring partner we can build a sustainable future with and then, if there happens to be true love mixed in, well, that's just peachy.

As second generation, Indian women, we've been given the grand opportunity to advance in the world alongside any man, something our Grandmothers never dreamed possible. At the same time, we are expected to maintain and pass on our heritage. So, as we continue to weigh our plethora of options we must take into consideration the legacy we want to leave behind and the path we tread for those to come. But what most of us want, and rarely announce, is "Everything." That's right men, we want it All, A-L-L. And though we might deserve it, is it what we really need? In the wise words of the emaciated, yet stylish Mick Jagger, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need."