I had every intention of doing what my parents said, generally speaking. Okay, some of the time. For instance, I wore heavy, blingy outfits to church even though I would’ve rather worn jeans and a t-shirt. Yet, I didn’t protest too much. And speaking of that particular church, I was never too excited about going there either. Don’t get me wrong, I love God. I’ve always prayed even about stupid little things, things that were questionable to pray about probably, but I did it anyway. It was just that there were so many customs attached to culture and religion and all. Despite all of the regulations however, I had big dreams of being a good little godly Indian girl, at least when I was younger.

Stop it. Stop humming REM. It’s not like that. I didn’t lose my religion or anything but let’s just say I modified a few things, especially relating to the traditional Indian rules thing.

For instance, one high priority rule Mom and Dad made crystal clear from a very early age was that there would absolutely never ever be any dating, shmating. By the way, the more insistent or agitated they were about something, the more they rhymed. I don’t know. So anyway, that was the first broken rule.

There was also that rule about going out with friends. I just simply couldn’t. I could only go out with Indian friends. No, actually, I could only go out with cousins. Luckily, they were Indian.

And of course, I couldn’t go to the movies, bovies. All movies were bad, well, except for Indian ones. They were  3 hour-long musical masterpieces filled with secret lovers rolling down hills and spinning a lot (while trying to pretend they didn’t have vertigo).

Which reminds me, this one time when I was about 12, my parents decided to take us kids to an American movie. We went, we stared at the board of movie titles for about 22 minutes, and because the movie, Jungle Fever must’ve had some type of ring to it, my parents chose that. I don’t reckon they were expecting that type of opening scene, with the moaning and the brown on white skin gyrating. But we stayed for the whole entire thing, eyes and ears covered for much of it, peeking through chubby adolescent fingers when able. I think my parents thought it would eventually get better. Didn’t happen.

There were other, more minor infractions like, “Don’t do the drugs.” And “Don’t drink the whiskey (why whiskey specifically? And does this mean beer, wine, gin, etcetera etcetera, are acceptable?).” And most frequently, “Don’t be a whore (also known as, don’t have the sex. Ever). But most importantly, “Don’t go to the parties,” which they thought were guaranteed to  include all of the above in one big hedonistic wave.

So I stuck to some, not to others. The details aren’t important. But then, there was one of the longest running rules, which I was introduced to as a 4-year-old: Arranged marriage. This was one concept I couldn’t understand, not at 4, not at 12. And especially not at 18, because that’s when you came along.

Rules, bules.