As we walked up the four flights of marble stairs to our hostel room, we hoped our two other roomies would be two things: female and awake. This would mean that we could get ready for bed in normal fashion; noisily, 1/2 naked and with talking of our day's adventure intermingled. Bindiya, roomie #1, was awake and ready to chat it up. What a sweet and hopeful soul. She is from Bombay, India and lives in London to work for an investment banking company. She is 26 years old, and "still not married." She wants so badly to come to the states and attend Harvard for her MBA. After high school she was told by her older brother that if she wanted to further study, he would allow her to do so. This is apparently Indian custom, the oldest brother is sorta in charge. Her high school teacher had to persuade her brother to allow this kind of craziness as most Indian girls are to be looking for a husband at that point. She studied further and is now preparing to apply to Harvard. She says the university she attended isn't one of the top in India and it's very competitive to get into a US school, especially Harvard. If she follows her dreams (which she wisely says we cannot live without having)she won't be ready to be married until well into her 30's. This is a major problem for her family and community. She describes them as "conservative and traditional, simple." They support her but are worried. She says it's only because they love her so much. Her bother is constantly giving out her phone number so that she will meet some prospects. She meets these men for dinner, lunch or an evening coffee and it just doesn't click. Bindiya wants fireworks and a soul-mate...her words not mine, alhtough I am no longer synical, I still would never use the word soul mate...I get it though. I can't help but think that there are people in my life attempting to get my head out of the sky by telling me (in a relatively subtle way) that my expectations are perhaps too high. Are they? Since I've never first hand observed marriage, do I have an idea that they're "just like the movies" and in fact, they're not!? Hmmm, Dunno. I do know however, that I want to wait it out and see ;) Maybe my hope is similar to Bindiya's. She describes the man she wants as "having more ambition and passion" than she. She met a smart and fun british man upon arriving to London and found out after dating for two months that he was married. He tried to keep her around by telling her it should be his guilt, not her's. Nice. She couldn't do that...especially to another woman. Bindiya is a wonderful person and I'm so blessed that she speaks incredible English, making it possible to share her story with me. She learned our language within three months and now has been speaking it for four years. She is hillarious and has lots of questions for us American gals. I started out our convo with the two typical roomate hostel questions: Where are you from and how long have you been in (fill in the city)? It got so much deeper so quickly and I'm so glad. Lord knows I can't stand small talk. Bindiya from India was so inspirational and discussing only Rome, the city we were in, would've been such a shame. Not only did I love the fact that I could call her "Bindiya from India" but I also can totally relate to her positive outlook on life and love...
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