Single.
No more the cranky old Bua in Hindi movies who bugs everyone just because she couldn’t get married. Or that vicious star plus Aunty who grudged all her married sisters and sister in laws.
Single woman today is the graceful young / middle aged/ elderly person who lives next door. U will find in may be every floor of your high rise condo or every second house in ur neighborhood.
She is a regular person who choose to not get married. Yes just like that or didn’t find anyone worth spending her life with. Or she had a bad experience. May be she is a widow or has divorced her husband . She doesn’t look or behave differently nor does she wear her marital status up her sleeves .
Unless u don’t poke ur nose into her affairs, u will not know.
While the woman is happy being single. Is the society ready to do so.
A few months earlier a friend and a younger colleague went to Srinagar-it’s her home.
On reaching airport, she was required to fill up form for COVID testing. The person at the testing counter while filling details asked her the husbands name. She was like excuse me how did u presume I have a husband. The man cheekily replied because of your age. If u were less than 25 years we would have asked you fathers name” he replied - seriously?
If a woman is pass her thirties she has to have a husband. I don’t know how God saved that man from her wrath, what she did to him was not enough by her standards .
Not just in Kashmir, in heart of modern India that is Delhi people have so many times frowned over the fact that my husband and I live in different cities because of work. When is he joining you? How often does he come? Why would u leave such a beautiful place to work in Delhi? Really people get a life. Would u ask the same questions to a man who has come out to work. Well No.