This year, I made a blasphemous move by not waiting for the ideal husband to fulfil my dreams and grasping them by the balls by myself. I’m proud of what I did.
I belong to the East Indian state of Odisha. I grew up in a society where women are taught to be independent, but always with a backup plan — and that backup is supposed to be their husband (in the most heteronormative sense).
Kumar Purnima is celebrated by young girls in the pursuit of a hypothetical husband who is somewhere out there in a world of nearly eight billion people. ‘Purnima’ means full moon night, which occurs on a different day every year in the Hindu lunar calendar’s month of Kartik. During this time, young girls pray for a partner who is brave and as attractive as Lord Kartikeya, the son of Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati.
As a child, until the age of 13 or so, the traditions of Kumar Purnima — worshipping the moon and Lord Kartikeya, eating holy food and receiving money as blessings — were the only things about the festival that mattered to me. I never questioned why I was told to pray for a husband. Nearly seven years later, praying for a husband with qualities that I actually wanted in and for myself stopped making sense. Call me selfish, but I would always rather become a better person myself than improve vicariously.
To someone who has grown up with the privilege of autonomy of choice in social settings and in building relationships and character, the reason for my change of mind might be obvious. But to the millions who come from middle-class India, the society where I grew up, it may be ambiguous.
While looking at the moon on Kumar Purnima this year, my call for agency in the life choices I made was louder than my younger self’s calling for a husband.
My outlook on Kumar Purnima changed because I could no longer bear the thought of finding my state of flow through anyone else but me. I wouldn’t accept second-hand courage and conditional wealth. Finding one’s state of flow entails discovering that which they could spend countless days doing without getting bored — in Japanese, this concept is referred to as Ikigai, which means “the happiness of always being busy”.
As women conditioned to ask for what will grant us respect in Indian society (ideally, being the wife of a Jeff Bezos with hair), we are taught to rely on that which is out of our power but culturally guaranteed. That thing is a hypothetical marriage, unreliable and without guarantee if not for the inevitable cultural stamp of being born and living life as a woman.
We are not taught to create our own standards or to branch away from convention. Rather, everything that we desire must manifest in the form of a husband instead of our own dreams and goals. At least, that’s what Kumar Purnima implies.
Looking at Kumar Purnima through the lens of one’s state of flow creates an inevitable alienation from the self and instead encourages finding a vicarious Ikigai through the ideal husband. Letting go of what makes us enter the state of flow can be equated to letting go of one’s power to live a fulfilling life. This doesn’t sit well with me because not only does it diminish a girl’s autonomy and minimize her aspirations, it also bolsters the patriarchal undertones of female-centric festivals in Hinduism.
Another example of such a festival would be Raksha Bandhan — a celebrated bond between brothers and sisters wherein girls tie a Rakhi, or cloth band, on the wrist of their brothers. The significance of the festival as it is today is to make sure that brothers always protect their sisters. At face value, it seems like an endearing festival but upon a deeper look, it is evident that it reinforces the misogynistic stereotype of Indian women requiring a male saviour or protector to navigate their lives. This minimizes the autonomy of girls from a very young age, much like Kumar Purnima, and conditions them to be subservient.
The implications of this conditioning in my life have been significant, especially in situations of sexual assault and harassment. The only thing I recall from most instances of being harassed is being transported to a world where there was nothing but a deafening silence, an absence of all movement, and later, pain that pierced through every cell of my body. It seemed that I would be waiting endlessly for my brother, or any man, to step up and protect me.
I’d been told before that men are scared of men, so they would never be afraid of me and thus wouldn’t refrain from hurting me. It was enough to make me bathe my consciousness in blood-red rage, but that wasn’t before my self-esteem was littered with wounds that oozed shame and helplessness.
When they healed, it dawned on me that there was no male saviour waiting to protect me, so there was no reward in praying for one.
A few months ago, the silence didn’t take the ground from under my feet when a man followed me down an alley. Instead, all the words that were swimming in my head joined together into a loathing for this manifestation of patriarchal strength and the dormancy of my autonomy, something that turned out to be stronger than even Jeff Cavaliere’s bicep. That day and on this year’s Kumar Purnima, I snatched my agency from all the male saviours and kept it for myself.
In reclaiming my state of flow, I’m moving out of the uncertainty that comes from Kumar Purnima’s potential to passively fulfil my greatest desires. I’m becoming active in the pursuit of my happiness and separating it from someone I don’t know exists, or will ever exist.
Thus, I’m parting ways with the archaic meaning of Kumar Purnima to give way to a sense of agency and pride in being a woman who lives for herself. The feeling is so profound that I can only hope the millions of girls still relying on festivals to vicariously achieve their dreams and goals have a chance to feel it.