The more I think about the flak this thread so unfairly received, the more stories of real people rise from memory. Two of them..25 years apart. There was this very young couple, as young as a native UP heartland couple is, the wife just 20, husband 23. https://twitter.com/katyyayanii/status/1257289582040829959

The gentleman worked for the same org. my father was with. As dad was raised in the west and north, they immediately took to my parents and were regular visitors. Very genial warm people. The lady especially was as traditional and rooted as they come. The textbook example the

thread describes. Loads of bangles, sindoor, bindi et al. A fun loving, traditional food cooking, movie watching, karva chauth vrat-keeping, no English-pure Hindi speaking, aji saying type. The guy was as traditional too. Wouldn't call out to his wife in public. The aji type.

All was good for a few years after a beautiful healthy baby boy. Then one night suddenly the lady calls, hysterical, and it all started. He had been having persistent issues with his back and legs which went ignored and passed over. And that night the legs gave way.

He just couldn't get up. Days and months of tests, investigations and consultations later, it is told to them that he needs hip joint replacements owing to a severe spinal disease. And that he would never walk without crutches again. He was only 30. Thankfully, since his employer

was a PSU, their financial burden eased to an extent and the employment also would be kept. But then, he would never be able to contribute to his household responsibility in any way. It was then, the same stereotyped woman demonstrated a will, strength and courage

beyond any modern female trope. She was a one man army. Household work, childcare, outdoor chores, the husband's medical needs, the aging parents-in-law care. 25 years later, I still cannot imagine what it would have taken her.

The icing on the cake? Their son, so raised, finished in the top 200 in his JEE and graduated from IIT Delhi. The Gods smiled somewhere.

Another example, but very recent. This gentleman, a very close acquaintance. He's the HOD-Maths in a very prominent school in a southern

metro. Has a UG and PG Engg from a reknowned HEI. Late 20s. His brother too graduated from a premier most institute of the country and is pursuing his doctoral studies in one of the best known univs of the US. So academics and the progressive-Indian family-type wise,

they are pretty up there. When his parents were looking to get him married, he was pretty clear about what he was looking for in a prospective partner. Traditional, saree-bindi-bangle-flowers wearing, mellow-thoughtful kind. His exact articulation~ conflict-resolving rather than

conflict-loving kind. And the woman he married? Someone who aligned completely. A lovely lady, a few years his junior from the same institute. An engineer. Now, a software developer, employed with one of the big 5 in India. Happily married, they are raising an adorable toddler.

A dream come true.
Actually, ordinary Hindus are like these. The ones described in the thread but for reasons best known to them, reviled, dissed, made tropes out of by the 'progressive' crowd..