Journey

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 19; the nineteenth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Life is a journey – Life’s actually a collection of smaller journeys,

Sometimes the destination matters, some times it’s the journey that matters at the destination point.

Anyways, all romantic things shown in movies seem so real & become alive in imaginations when love is in the air 

Correction -  love is arranged in the air – yes the saga of arranged marriage

Many of you must be already familiar with the TV series How I met your mother. This guy Ted, an architect, very nice guy, hopelessly romantic goes dating girls even after reaching 30, still his story continues, he tells his love story in reverse to his kids – the story of how he met their mom. In US people just pick up a girl at the bar for a date & see how it works out.

Contrary to this story, the story of typical Indian arranged marriage goes. 

Sunil’s a geek, it took him 22 years to realize that he is just like any other handsome hulk girl, sensitive, hopelessly romantic, damm emotional person.

            So it all started with Sunil getting scolding from the photographer at G K Wale, the most sought after photo studio especially for matrimony photos. First of all he was reluctant to get a photo specially made for matrimony purposes, when he could give any trip outing’s photo. The whole idea of appearing the best in first impression seemed lame & insane, it’s the worst part of you in looks or bad temper etc which has to be acceptable by your partner, the best of you is acceptable by any person anyway. Sunil wore his normal office formal shirt pant & sandals & with unshaven software engineer look, asked for a photo for matrimony. What 1500 for 6 snaps? Many of his friends are having SLR & are pretty good at photography & he would have got it done for free from them. The studio guy scolded him & asked him to get dresses in ironed shirt, trousers & black formal shoes etc. So he had to return to house, on the way brought new trousers & shaved & came back all shining! Its’s been years since he had that best look. Anyway the photo came surprisingly handsome, some enhancements were made although not told to do so, & circulated among his relatives just like advertisement pamphlets for a suitable match with a copy of bio data & horoscope.

The technique behind the fair & lovely advertisements was evident now, Ya boys applied fair & lovely before Fair & handsome. Why should girls have all the fairness?

                 After the home work of family background feedback or horoscope matching check, Sunil’s journey of searching for wife started. Seen some girls with their families discussing their family tree & origins etc & long boring conversations of both parties exaggerating the qualities of the boy & the girl, even missed a chance to talk exclusively with the girl in first round. Then there were many rounds & many girls, some rejected by him, some girls rejected him. One girl was so bold enough to cross legs & sit as if CEO of the company. One girl was afraid to talk & another started & never stopped. Weird questions, unusual silence are the norm. Feelings arouse & things need to move on when an alliance doesn’t materialize. The best part being you can start all over again.

In India a typical arranged marriage comprises essentially all the elders from girl staring at the boy like an antivirus software, as if they wanna know his full history, ofcourse the family background check etc would have been done beforehand.

In India, some people have assumptions & don’t think sensibly sometimes. One girl rejected Sunil, after he proposed his theory In DDLJ when Raj said that he closed his eyes while changing dress of Kajol, not only did kajol believe him but also the whole of India audience assumed this as true story & applauded at the concept, Oh come on, Raj was not gay & you know that still this movie runs in some theatre in Mumbai ! & bollywood hero can remain in the best of his senses even when he is drunk? Rajnikanth’s case is different. He just blinks even after taking a full bottle of sleeping pills. 

Anyway, the bottom line for bollywood movie to become a hit - sleeping together before the marriage never works in Indian love romantic story.

Once he had to lie about his drinking habit. Upon being asked by girl whether you drink?

Sunil’s reply was obviously - No. but when the girl said she drinks occasionally, Sunil had to lie that he too drinks- obviously occasionally. How difficult it is to find soul mate? If I represent Sunil’s qualities by a circle in Venn diagram & typical Indian hindu girl’s by other circles, Sunil was a small circle at the corner of the diagram. Does the maximum intersection area of boy’s & girl’s circles imply soul mates? Likes attract, opposite attract who knows?  I think soul mate is just overrated term used by matrimony advertisements. As the dialog in man from the earth goes, we can never be sure to prove a certain thing, no be certain to prove it otherwise, just go by the flow, just by the gut feeling. Or the new version of Aamir :  “ All is well ”.

    

While the boy is asked for this job details, family assets, house property etc, girls may be asked to sing apart from the normal introduction owing to the fact that music was an essential education on south India. Seems like girls have eliminated cooking & singing from their hobby list intentionally nowadays!

How cool the horoscope matching thing is, this tells compatibility of boy & girl even before they engage in meaningful conversations. Certainly a big business here. People who are well educated, who never took astrology seriously in their lives earlier also insist on this, simply to play safer.

Anyway, hope this journey comes to an end soon, to mark the beginning of new journey of married life.

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