This essay by Shobhita Thakur is a reflective work—part musing, part memoir—written from a feminist perspective, engaging with personal experience and larger social questions.
I don’t know why I love Fran Lebowitz so much; she hasn’t written anything consequential in decades. She literally almost always repeats herself on every show, yet I find her so damn entertaining. She is the polar opposite of Kim Kardashian, and yet oddly similar in the way she causes an addictive consumption of herself among her ardent viewers. A year ago, on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, in her classic poker-face style, she said, “I am good for the environment because I have no children, which are, by the way, very bad for the environment…” This I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude just won’t fly in India, not now, not ever, I guess. When the national capital has already turned into a gas chamber, stating this fact aloud might land you in trouble with the far right.
Well, national politics isn’t what led me to reflect on my long-standing decision to remain child-free; the national, unofficial council of aunties did. As a struggling filmmaker, I practically divide my time among three major cities known for their highly skilled and educated demographic. I never expected that the sheer act of choosing to get married would hand out a free licence to nosy aunties, buas, didis, and chachis from the extended family to start dropping probing, judgmental missiles at me during every family gathering.