The Great Indian Arranged Marriage: The Boy’s Version

Tweet

Disclaimer: This blog post is not about the superior or awful aspects of Love or Arranged Marriage; it’s about the tedious process that involved in both the cases. Hope U like it.

Read in Facebook recently:

“Parents always teach their kids not to talk to strangers,
except the funny thing is that they strictly support arranged marriage!”

In “Two States” Bhagat wrote about his hardship of ‘love marriage processes in India. I’m a big fan of that book, the humour he had put in every paragraph but I would say he was lucky that he got married ten years before, otherwise he would have to write one more title with different ending and in four volumes. The Boys Version, the Girls Version, Parents adaptation and the last ‘Neutral’ edition.

If love marriages are tough then arranged marriages are tougher if not less, at least for them who have a say in life, who stand for some cause and of course who do boast up about themselves. Lots of eligible people gets married in short span of time and in some case the search never ends, why? The reason is different for every other person but there is one thing universal – everyone want beautiful bride (Alert! the definition varies person to person).

Recent report in leading news paper says in India only 7 % marriages are love marriages. About double of this that’s around 15 % is ‘arranged’ with the ‘consent’ of bride and groom. Either they knew each other or spent time before marriage. And in rest cases marriages are arranged by their parents & relatives, needless to say with very little input from their side. This survey was done in some Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. In actual the ratio of real India is in single digit.

Even until few years ago we guys used to visit the girl’s home and the girl would be coming to the drawing room with her face down, cool & calm. Sari was the preferred dress but with time it migrated to Salwar kurti n all. Girl’s mom-aunties would boast up about the excellent qualities of the bride. The Samosa is always prepared by the Girl. Who on earth makes Samosa at home? Anyway little lies never hurt. But at least that indicate the girl can cook.  The men of both parties would be busy discussing Cricket , weather, and the well doing relatives of theirs if not about dowry. In parallel groom’s mom and aunties will be x-ray-ing the girl top to bottom, every move of her. Eyes, nose, hand, what not, I don’t want to go in detail.  If eyes could make some one pregnant then brides would have been coming with baby on board.

Jokes apart the Arranged Marriage process is tough, first of all ‘filters’, girl should be from same caste and religion, so 80% of the eligible girls are gone. The grass is always greener on the other side my friend. In the remaining 20 % there are other preferences and sub-filters imposed by our parents and relatives. Vitals, education plays an important role in selection criteria and if everything works well the Top Villain “Kundali Matching” would have the last saying.  I feel remorseful for a dear friend who is sufferer of all these since past four years and still single.

Arranged marriages are not at all simple as it looks especially if you have a say in it. When Niket decided to get married finally he though it would take month long time and everything would be set soon but he never knew which den he was entering. Many ‘tigers’ became prey here.

You see a girl and feel that she can be your good partner of but you don’t know certain facts about her that you may not like in future. Considering any span of time its not possible to understand anyone truly specially when there is no chemical reaction going inside your mind and without that you can never be 100 % sure.

In contrast, in love marriage the process is much simpler, when a boy likes a girl he doesn’t want to hear anything negative about her and even doesn’t listen to parents, but in arranged marriage everyone must like the girl. His parents, brothers, sisters, near and close relatives, even the Ramlal’s (Family Dog) NOC is needed before proceeding and by then either the girl gets engaged to someone who had seen her a year back or the boy would have already decided to stay single in frustration.

If you like/dislike this blog please put your comments in the Comments section below, Any suggestion of any kind, pointing out my mistakes  are appreciated. Its how we encourage Writers. Don't we ?
Hope to Write a better "Girl's Version". Happy reading.

Pritam