Sologamy: Gujarat woman to marry herself on June 11

Kshama Bindu said she is dedicating her life to self-love and opting for self-marriage, which does not involve any legal process

Updated on: Jun 3, 2022, 09:30:38 IST

By Maulik Pathak

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Ahmedabad: Kshama Bindu, 24, is preparing for her wedding on June 11 like any other bride but the invitation for it has just one name -- her own. A recruiter with a Pune-based company, Bindu said she is dedicating her life to self-love and opting for self-marriage or sologamy inspired by the Canadian web series “Anne with an E”.

“Self-marriage is a commitment to being there for yourself, to choosing the livelihood and lifestyle that will help you grow and blossom into the most alive, beautiful, and deeply happy person you can be,” said Bindu.

Bindu, who is from Gujarat’s Vadodara, said one dialogue from the web series particularly interested her: “Every woman wants to be a bride but not a wife.” She added marrying herself is to recognise her adulthood.

Bindu said her sologamy would not involve a legal process. “...you would not get any tax breaks for marrying yourself. It is more a rebuke of tradition,” she said quoting Rebecca Traister, the author of “All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.”

She said she used to say affirmation and wedding vow to herself in a mirror. “... the idea stayed with me but I never had the courage to actually do it in reality until now.”

Bindu said sologamy is symbolic and her family and friends have been supportive. “I think women marrying themselves might seem incredibly threatening because it looks like we are saying men are irrelevant, but we are actually just saying that we matter.”

She said the stigma for single women remains. “In this modern era of same-sex marriages...it is no longer necessary to conform to societal norms of what a marriage or a wedding should be. We are not some kind of en masse movement of weird, narcissistic women or cult,” said Bidu.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maulik Pathak
He is an Ahmedabad-based journalist with more than two decades of experience. His career spans business journalism and general news, with reporting across politics, crime, governance, public policy, business, industry, infrastructure, energy, ports, aviation, the environment, wildlife and social issues. He began his career in feature writing before moving into business journalism, reporting on companies and sectors including energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and real estate. Over the years, his work expanded to politics, courts, crime, public policy, civic affairs, the environment and wildlife. His reporting has taken him from government offices and courtrooms to factory floors, ports, forests and remote villages, covering stories that range from industrial investments and financial markets to elections, conservation and issues affecting everyday life. While many assignments demand the pace of the daily news cycle, others require sustained reporting over months and years to follow developments beyond the headlines. He started his journalism career with the Asian Age in Ahmedabad in 2002 as a feature writer and sub-editor. Since 2022, he has been working with Hindustan Times. Earlier, he worked with Business Standard, DNA, The Economic Times, Mint and The Times of India. His longest stint was with Mint, where he spent more than eight years reporting across multiple beats. During his career, he has worked in both reporting and editing roles, contributing to page planning, local editions and special editorial projects as newsrooms evolved from print-first operations to digital publishing. Early in his career, he also worked on media and documentary projects with an NGO and as a copywriter at a communications agency before returning to journalism. Away from work, he sometimes makes time for a pair of binoculars, table tennis, cinema and the occasional poem.Read More