narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

of which he ‘proposed’ me and we started ‘dating’ and ‘going around’ ‘officially’
as ‘girlfriend’ and ‘boyfriend’. All this while we have been friends and will remain
so even after marriage, if we are to be ‘truly modern’ and not just ‘pretend’ to be
‘modern’. It is really a ‘stupid thing’ to shift from ‘tui’ to ‘tumi’ just after marriage. It
is bhishon gaiya ar shekele (extremely rural and backdated), like traditional
shwami shree natok (traditional theatrics of husband-wife conjugality). It reminds
me of ‘premik premikar ga gulono nyaka prem’ (sickly antics of lovers’ romance)
like ogo shunchho [expresses exasperation on face]. Seriously, I just can’t
imagine telling Rahul ‘ami tomake bhalobashi’ (I love you). It is ‘too gaiya and
backdated’. I would rather tell him ‘I love you’. Also many of our friends think that
‘tumi’ elevates a conjugal relation to deeper romance but who says there is no
romance between Rahul and me? People often make fun of us but they are
extremely traditional and conservative. Sometimes in their presence, especially if
they are elders, we refrain from calling each other anything or to avoid
controversies, just call each other as ‘you’ and at times perform to call each other
‘tumi’ in order to avoid criticisms that our’s is a flimsy conjugality or I disrespect
my husband and all sorts of ‘meaningless nonsense’!”
These narratives illustrate how in specific interactional situations middle-class structure
and code of intimacy are maintained and modified. These also demonstrate the social
accountability of ‘doing gender’ (West and Zimmerman, 1987) and of doing class
(Bourdieu, 1984; Lawler, 1999; Skeggs, 1997) through doing intimacy. ‘Practices of
intimacy’ (Jamieson, 2011) do not simply exist in the social world as a structure,
imposing itself on individuals as ‘cultural dopes’ depicted in structural functionalism
(Garfinkel, 1967). ‘Practices’ (Morgan, 2011) in ‘practicing intimacy’ rather imply actively
negotiated meaning by meaning-making individuals (Hall, 1997a) in the microprocesses
of everyday life. Goffman’s ‘dramaturgy’ (1959) is highly relevant in
Anandita’s narrative of performing intimacy at different ‘stages’ of the everyday
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