Looking Ambition In the Eye

My parents' was an 'arranged' marriage. The two families were of similar social and economic status, followed the same traditions and lived in similar neighbourhoods. The prospective bride and groom were introduced to each other in 1959, I think. Then - in what was considered very modern in that era - they dated for six months before they got officially engaged. They got married on Feb 4, 1961. The ceremony took eight hours and was witnessed by hundreds of invitees. More invitees appeared at the reception, including the Governor of the state. My parents had a brief honeymoon in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and then returned to Mumbai to live in the joint-family.

The family comprised Dad's parents, his six older brothers and their wives, two younger brothers and five children - the kids of the married brothers. There were a few live-in servants and a part-time cook.

Mom, the latest daughter-in-law, was expected to be modest and coy and toe the line.

Expected to be. But wasn't, oh no.

Mom was a strong, ambitious woman and wasn't going to let tradition dictate her path. She had her dream. So, one day, she looked her new father-in-law straight in the face and told him she wanted to study for her Master's Degree in Biology.

Dad's Dad had glimmerings of great wisdom sometimes, and one came to him now. He overlooked the effrontery - a daughter-in-law, a younger woman, looking him in the eyes! - and simply advised her not to talk so loudly, did she want her mother-in-law to hear and burst a blood vessel?

He then took her to his study and, in whispers, understood from her the studies she wanted to pursue, the lectures she needed to attend, the practical examinations she would have to face and the time she would need to be out of the house for all this.

At the end of their conversation, he shook his head, digesting the magnitude of the thing. No woman in the community had ever got this far in her studies. His third-eldest daughter-in-law had scraped a pass mark int her Grade 10 examinations, and then been content to cook and clean and bear kids.

"You have my support. But whatever you do, please don't, don't let you mother-in-law find out what practical examinations entail."

Mom promised.

The next two years were hard.

Dad's mother was livid when she heard that this snippet of a girl had gone behind her back and got the permission of the head of the family to attend college. College, in which male and female students from goodness-knows-what families sat on the same benches and heard lectures about how life begins.

But the head of the family was on the side of education, and the mother-in-law could not openly rebel.

So she found ways.

Tiny little ways to make the snippet of a girl uncomfortable. Like sending the servant to sweep her room, out-of-turn, just when she had to change her clothes in readiness for college. Like making sure everything the snippet of a girl hated eating most was on the menu. Tiny pinpricks, too small to complain about, but hard to bear.

Then there was the subtle verbal battle, with the six daughters-in-law participating. The hints, the insinuations, the remarks, innocuous words uttered in potent tones ...

Mom grit her teeth. She would not complain to her new husband or her new father-in-law. But she would do it. Somehow, she attended classes, practicals and examinations. She found time to study through everything she was expected to do as the youngest adult female in a joint family. She got a reputation in her college as being a formidable student.

A month after her final examination, she awoke early one morning and grabbed the newspaper as it came in under the door. Heart fluttering, she opened the middle-page.

Carrying the newspaper triumphantly, she went to her in-laws' room first. Her father-in-law had to know before even her husband or parents.

She knocked at her in-laws' bedroom door. Instead of being summoned in, her father-in-law opened the door from the inside. She was holding up the paper. His eyes, before they fell on her face, fell on the page.

"First Rank in the whole University! Gold Medal!"

He moved the paper aside and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm proud of you," he said simply.