While we were in Gurgaon in the past days, an event took place which Ramona would have attended, had she been in Vrindavan: a girl who has learnt at our school got married. What makes me write about it now is not however this fact but Apra’s response to it when we met her yesterday!
The girl I am writing about has started her schooling already at a higher age than children usually do – that’s how her parents have decided to marry her now. After her wedding, she had gone to her husband’s home. Yesterday she came back and as she lives close-by, she stopped by at our restaurant on the way. She was accompanied by her sister and both of them talked for a while with Ramona. Obviously, Apra, in the meantime was standing next to them, watching and listening.
After they had gone, Apra asked Ramona: ‘Ma, has she married a man or a woman?’
For us, this was actually a question that made us happy and in a way satisfied: our definition of marriage, which we told Apra of course, is that two people love each other so much that they decide to live together forever. Please note: two people, not a man and a woman.
Obviously, as the majority of marriages in our surrounding consist of one man and a woman, we were not completely sure whether Apra had picked up that detail consciously or not. This question however confirmed: for Apra, it is just natural that two men or two women can love each other as much as her Ma and Pa do.
It is a natural thing to feel and believe – and I believe as long as you don’t actively teach children to think differently, boys and girls will grow into adults who accept homosexuality as something normal. Something that comes with whatever an individual feels.
When we talked about this incident, Ramona laughingly told me about another conversation she had with our daughter: Apra and she were inventing a story about two princesses. They were sisters and Apra decided that they would also get married but when Ramona objected that sisters don’t marry, Apra replied: ‘Okay, they can marry a prince. But they have to share!’
That, my dear daughter, is promiscuity and a topic we will discuss another time! 🙂
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