???

It's a little funny. Just this morning, I'd actually listed out the rather large number of things I want to blog about here, and it so happens that what I am writing about now has nothing to do with any of those. Which just shows how bad I am at predicting these things.

So, it isn't like I didn't already know that the family situation in relation to a particular branch was and is and probably will continue to be.. in a word, strained. But I'd always been rather hopeful and believed that since the whole problem didn't have anything to do with us directly, it really shouldn't affect my relations with any of them. So I would treat those cousins just as I did the rest of my brothers and sisters. And to tell the truth, until very very recently, I actually believed that such an approach was alright and would enable me to be in touch with them as 'normally' as was possible in the circs.

However, the feeling that I had been getting over the last few months turned out to be absolutely correct today. And it really made me so angry and so sad inside.

I think it'll be simplest to first tell the facts and then fill in details of what it made me feel and why.

There was a suggested proposal of marriage for me the other day. Being totally un-ready for anything of the sort for another three/four years, naturally we turned it down. The guy seems to be what could crudely be called a 'good catch'. Investment banker abroad, etc.

Now, the bro had gone to visit afore-mentioned branch of family today, and happened to mention this as a kind of joke(which is what it was for us, because of various reasons). And M apparently made stupid comments like.. oh, she shouldn't have turned him down, he's an investment banker, where'll she get another guy like him, what does she want to study for now, she'll end up marrying her books, etc etc. Mom was on the phone and asked her if she'd be visiting anytime soon, and she said, no, i have to study. So mom gently asked why it should be suggested that I should get married and not study. To which the pakabudo had the gumption to answer.. Oh, she's in college, aur kitna padhegi!!

Now, frankly, if some old grandma or aunt had said all this, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. The fact that it was a sister of mine, and just 14 at that... really made me want to shake some sense into her thick head. It was clearly the kind of thing her mother would say. It was clearly not the kind of thing she would have said six months back, and it definitely is not the kind of thing I would ever take from her unless it was a joke the two of us were sharing. Sadly, she wasn't joking about the investment banker being a good catch part of it.. it is precisely the kind of thing she has been brought up to say.

Of course opinion could be divided about whether or not I'm over reacting to something that could have been a joke, etc. However, I don't think what I'm feeling about this is limited to the specifics of this case. It is the way things in general have shaped up over the last few months, and it has combined to give me this awfully sad feeling that I'm losing my sister. It's the kind of thing where you grow up to barely be in touch, so that you might as well not be family, but mere acquaintances. And I hate the fact that such a thing could happen.