Thoughts on my parents' anniversary

My parents have been married for thirty years now.
And Ma said Baba reminded her of it when she had forgotten the day.  So gender stereotypes can go defenestrate themselves. My parents have always been wonderful to me, and whatever stresses that might have affected their relationship over these many years were never very apparent to me,  most probably because they did not let that affect my upbringing.

That's quite amazing but they have also bequeathed on me a hard model to follow. My parents met while students at medical college, and they stuck it through the thick and thin of regular middle class existence in Calcutta, always working towards that steady level of affluence which all doctors make their way towards slowly and surely in urban India. From young ideologues in the turbulent 70s they gradually transformed into the smug consumers of the 90s, tracing in their own personal lives the curve of middle-class India's development.
Many would argue that I have a more comfortable life than my parents did. My parents chose to have just one kid because they both worked and wanted to invest the maximum possible time and care on that one lucky zygote (yours truly). Their own parents had several (four or five), as per contemporary social norms, and my mom still has regrets about grandmom not pushing her to take up music or swimming lessons (my mom has this belief about herself which she has successfully transmitted to me - that we both need to be pushed into something before we can be good at it). There were five kids - and it was impossible to cater separately to all their individual needs.  I was brought up in a big city, unlike my father who lived in various small towns as a kid. They were very particular about me getting an English education from an early age, and ensured good schools and teachers for me. My dad pushed me (yeah what else?) to apply for grad studies in the US when I was not very sure that I wanted to leave India (This is not generally true of my career, mostly I am very independent and decide things for myself, but an occasional nudge when I am thoroughly undecided may not be so unwelcome).  He had to take up medicine to keep his family happy, whereas I had the luxury to choose what I wanted to do with my life - which was to become a physicist.  I drive a car, have a rented apartment to myself, and have seen more of the world, at an age much younger than my parents did.  

But ever since I left home I have not (and will not, in the foreseeable future) live in any one place (or even country) for more than a few years at a time.  Where is the time or opportunity or appropriate cultural context to pursue meaningful relationships then, let alone ones that last for more than thirty years?  It is interesting how everyone who has had a happy childhood (there might be many others who face abuse and neglect, and I cannot claim to speak for them) look up to their parents' relationship as models for family life and try to replicate that in their own. But times  are always a'changing, each generation is different, and one is forced to make adjustments and accommodations, and discover their own formula for having a family. The template still comes from the parents though, and some sort of continuity in the culture and values is preserved.