The Weight of Expectations

Okay… what is with Indian families wanting a slim, sexy, and long-haired daughter-in-law? It’s because of these few families that girls from other families, which they have no clue about, suffer throughout their teenage and twenties years until they get married off. The mothers, who have overweight daughters, keep pestering the poor girl to lose weight, or else no one will marry her.

I mean, honestly, how many girls actually want to get married in today’s era? Leave those who are in that pathetic thing called love. They might want to get married, but what about others? I don’t get the point. Are we girls trophies that need to be shown off? What’s with the obsession over looks anyway? She will eventually put on weight after marriage, or at least after she has her first kid. Then what will those families do? Throw her out of the house and say, “We’re sorry, but we can’t show you off anymore”?

Why can’t people be a little more practical and realize that whatever we girls have, it’s all God-given. Isn’t it enough that a girl loves herself, despite her weight? I know a lot of girls who wanted to die because they were fat and thought they were ugly… All because their families and people around them made fun of them. I was one of them too. But then, I changed the way I look at myself. I don’t need to look beautiful or lose weight just so that some jerk and his family can accept me. I wasn’t put on this planet to please them.

For all those girls who go through the same trauma at home, here’s an advice: Don’t ever change yourself for someone who won’t accept you the way you are. We girls compromise our entire lives—at least once, others should compromise for us.

And for all those moms who want slim girls: Your son is not Brad Pitt or Salman Khan, so why do you expect Angelina Jolie or Katrina Kaif as your daughter-in-law? We girls and our families don’t have demands, so neither should you. Because if we start showing our demands, trust me, your son will never get married. He’ll convert into a gay, which I’m sure you wouldn’t want.

“Accept me for who I am, and what I am. Not for what I show or how I look.”