Right Cultural Rights.

Recently I received an email from a 15 year old Australian Bengali girl who came across my website and wrote about her feelings to me. I wanted to thank her for being so brave and wish her all the best. After writing to her- and we have continued to correspond, I have come to think more about our culture and its implication on women.

A lot has changed since I last wrote... it's been a good few months. However, I hope my writing will still reflect the constant battle that most of us face when we have two very different cultures to contend with: family culture and national culture.

In a way to thank her for the inspiration, I dedicate this post to her.

Dear R,

I have to say that I was rather touched that you emailed me, although the fact it was because of my writings on lostroad.org is a little sad. I mean, I really vent on this website about the misgivings of being Bengali, and I've tried really hard to depict our culture in a positive form- although you wouldn't know it looking at the posts below!! I suppose it's mostly because the only time I really differentiate any given culture I come in contact with is when it involves my independence. As far as Bengali culture is concerned, this is a tricky thing to handle.

I want you to know that you're not the only Bengali girl who has received a rude awakening in her teenage years that made her realise her family was intending on arranging a marriage for her. It's something we all somehow seem to be vaguely aware of even as young children, but it isn't until one of our family members actually hints at it for real that we realise how trapped we feel. Years of silent initiation suddenly becomes as real and solid as an iron-barred prison. How ironic that all it takes is one word to escape.

Do women (what a feminist approach!) have true independence in Bengali culture? You know, recently I was headed back to my flat from the train station, and I came across a rather smart and young Asian couple. They were really snazzy, actually, looking incredibly fashionable and business-like. He was about 6 or 7 ft tall and she was the typical Indian 5 ft beauty. She was really pretty actually, the kind of pretty I've come to see now as a trade-mark of Western culture on Asian girls. Long sleek, black hair; perfectly toned make up; and those big brown eyes. Her male-counterpart- and I'm assuming husband, because they just had that newly-wed confidence about them, looked so young. Maybe they were both around about 22. He looked baby-faced, his skin even seemed far too soft and untouched to be normal for a British youth. I thought to myself, he must be some medical intern from India (slap my wrist for the stereotype). He really seems like he's never washed a dish in his life.

So anyway, what got my attention was firstly their physiques- so well-turned out, and secondly, the way they held hands and were so protectively in love with one another.

This was the sort of idyllic wedding-match I had dreamed of as a girl. I'd marry my Brown Prince Charming and we'd just get along with this perfect Western life-style; no thinking required. Why? Because it'd be the one way to be Western because I was married to a Bengali man- so long as he was the same as me; so long as he approved.

But then a part of me really hated looking at them. Suddenly I became aware of how seeing them made me angry and resentful- how somehow, they were feeding into a dream- a fake thing, that had ruined my life. "Ruined my life". It's almost laughable...

I look at my life now and there's so many contradictions. I'm happy and yet heart-breakingly unhappy at the same time. It doesn't really seem right that such a condition should exist.

But, R, I've been thinking a lot about the things you told me in your email. At 15 it seems like an alien concept for most Westerners to be thinking about marriage as a real future, just a few years beyond. But it seems in Bengali culture, girls and boys (mostly girls... how many 16 year old boys have you heard of being married off??) are preened and conditioned into the perfect partner mould from the age of 8 or 9. My own parents weren't actually thinking about marrying their daughter off until other fathers began approaching them as soon as my 16th birthday was hailed as coming closer. Even a few days before my wedding my dad was reluctant, but there seemed to be some sort of social pressure on him to do it anyway.

Today I still forgive my parents for what they'd done... and wish they'd understand that.

So... anyway, it seems like the age 16 is a terrible millstone in a Bengali girl's life. But I suppose that's where there is hope now....

See... my failures came about from my lack of education. Not in terms of schooling... but cultural education. I forgot... I didn't know, that I was British by birth-right. I am, inherently, Western. I have rights. As a British woman I'd always had rights to say "no". Or even to say "yes". But above all I have the right to do what I want.... and as scary as that was for me to realise- after years of being told what was good for me, that I simply didn't know what was best for me... realising that single right that so many Westerners take for granted, gave me the power and initiative I needed to do what finally gave me a shred of hope in my ideal future.

I became brutal. I did have to fight for a divorce, but I suppose the only thing that stops my parents from considering another arranged marriage today is the fact I threaten another divorce: the very thing arranged marriages are supposed to avoid.

Since my divorce? I applied for university- because I really wanted it. I chose to move to the city- because I really wanted it. And now, I'm living with my boyfriend- because we really wanted it.

Sure, there are still consequences ahead... God knows I know that. But... what does it mean to live your life if you've never really lived your life...?

.... That's a question I still ask myself today.

As for yourself, R, you're an incredibly smart young girl. You've already recognised something very important: that you have a life, and for that I admire you. :)

Although this response does seem incredibly self-centred, I want you to know that you've inspired me to continue writing my experiences on lostroad.org. So thank you.

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