Liz: It’s not all arranged marriages and matrimonial sites in Mumbai. There is a thriving night life in singles scene.
What is your experience of being single in Mumbai?
Hamida: Being single is sort of good and bumpy because it sort of gives you a freedom of which probably you wouldn’t get in any other city in India.
Liz: What is it like to be single for you in Mumbai?
Female: Freedom.
Liz: What does that mean?
Female: I can do what I want
Liz: You love your freedom?
Female: Yes, that’s it. I love my freedom and I just thought that was the most important thing in life.
Hamida: In my mind, I am very free. I want to talk my own mind. I want to do my own thing. And I wouldn’t mind probably adjusting a bit. But then it should be my own choice. It should not be because somebody has forced it on me.
Male: Arranged marriages—tribes, I’m also an independent thing so I don’t like people crossing things on me.
Female: Look, when I was 14 in school when we discuss the future, we all knew, we would have jobs and then we would get married. Okay. By the time I was 18 that had changed 4 years, you had a career and maybe you got married.
Female: Yeah, yeah. The marriage that I’ve got like, “Yeah, maybe we’ll see.”
Female: And then by the time you were 22 it’s like “If I find someone, I’ll get married.”
Female: If they ask when you want to get settled I say “I’m already settled.”
Liz: You said you are already settled. That’s good. That’s good. I’m already settled. Alright that is fantastic.
Female: Because I think being settled has to do with a man. I’m too independent for that.
Liz: What are you guys all holding on for?
Female: Holding on for?
Liz: Exactly.
Female: But happy freedom.
Female: I’m looking for a good fit, I’d rather be—
Female: Same here, I would be—
Female: I’m okay being by myself. I’m used to being myself.
Liz: Do you think it will be different if you can be single for another six years? How do you think—
Female: Probably.
Liz: You think it will be different?
Female: I mean I cannot say you know I am a human and I want love, I want marriage and I also want my freedom and my career and my ambitions.
Female: And even if we don’t marry is because we believe in love, because I know a couple of friends of mine who are going to have it. And if I don’t get that or at least something I’m good at that, I’m not interested.
Liz: Yeah, that’s a bummer. Those stupid people that have it and you see it they’re really for everybody don’t they?
And do you feel that if you are like let’s say 44 and single and you had a fantastic career and you got to travel the world and interview women. Do you feel that you would regret all this crazy carouse that you’ve been doing if you look back and you think?
Female: No. What would you miss just—
Liz: You don’t think like, you don’t see this as a cautionary tale?
Female: No.
Female: We’ve met in cautionary tale—
Female: And they’re married.
Female: That’s okay. I mean I met single women who did it, who did the thing that they were supposed to do—
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