Its difficult to be 25 and single in gujju land.

On my trip to my native town Godhra after two years. It was a welcome break and vacation from the daily routines of Mumbai. The cold weather added to the fun. The fun however soon turned into an irritating experience.

Since I was meeting my folks after almost two years, most of them didn’t knew what was happening in my life. Every person I met whether my close relative or my relative’s friend or a complete stranger, had only one question to ask me. Have I got married? The immediate next question that followed my answer was, What’s your Age? The expressions that followed on people’s faces after my second answer varied from shock to surprised to amusement to seriousness. Half of them, ended up giving me some serious uncle/aunty type advice to which I had no option but to nod my head and bear the trauma. If there is one thing we Indians like giving too much for free, its ‘Advice’

It was like as if, it was a ‘Social Stigma’ here for a guy to be 25 and not married or even engaged! But the show stealer was one of my Dad’s friend. The question he asked left me literally left me stunned. ‘Are you divorced?’ I was like What the eF! (And he didn’t even have a daughter of a marraigable age to ask me this question).

The concept of marriage is seriously over rated here. I thought only girls had to face this problem in our society but no, Kalyug is here. The heat is turning on the guys now. It’ll definitely be a long time before I come and meet my folks again.