The year was 1997. I was studying in the Government College for Girls, Patiala (as my father, then a Brigadier, was posted there). I had just received my first-year results. I had not got ‘good marks’. I, of course, had an inkling about this (it’s ideally a pretty straightforward equation between effort put in and result received). What made matters worse, was that I was the proverbial “good student”, doing exceedingly well in my studies.
My father was understandably livid given that he’d been pushing me and chasing me all along to do well in my studies so that I may become an “independent and successful individual”. He would joke that if I didn’t “do well and stand on my feet”, I would meet the same fate so many of my sisters across the country had and would meet – ‘be married off’.