It had been less than a week since I returned home after completing MBA. My bags were still unpacked. I could still feel and smell the fragrance of Singapore, and I was missing my days at NUS a lot [I still do], when I was popped the shaadi question by my parents that December morning.
Wow, I thought, it's been less than a week and my mother seems all too eager to get me married. Anyway, I told my mother that day that I am not yet mentally prepared/ready for shaadi, and that I will myself tell her - in a couple of months - when I am ready.
It has been a couple of months since then, most likely exactly 11 months, and during these months the samaaj has been literally torturing me with the shaadi proposal. Relatives, distant relatives, neighbors, friends, nephews, nieces, cousins, bhabhis, uncles, aunties, business associates, pandits, matchmakers, and so many others have unstoppably been contacting us with proposals, coercing, and questioning. Wow, why can't they just understand - when they've been told already - that I will say yes when my mind and my heart says yes? Why can't they stop gossiping about my impending wedding at every family gathering? Why can't they just stop asking me the same question - when are you getting married?
People really need to respect others' views. I will of course get married, but when my mind tells me that I am ready. I am in no hurry to catch any train, and no flight will be missed if I wait for several months more.
Even Google, Yahoo, etc., have started showing me endless ads of matrimony websites!
Update [May'15]: The image below, created in PowerPoint, is related to a comment on this post.
And the message is getting louder, more overt, more frequent. It's disturbing, it's distracting.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post!
ReplyDelete19 Amusing Excuses Indian Parents Can Give On Any Given Day To Get You Married RIGHT NOW!
http://wishpicker.com/blog/2014/04/24/19-amusing-excuses-indian-parents-can-give-on-any-given-day-to-get-you-married-right-now/
I have to admit that my dislike for the omnipresent "shaadi" message has gone down over the last several months. So much, that now I actually look forward to getting married and feel good about the whole thing :)
ReplyDeleteTill now, I've only created my CV. Yesterday I was asked to create my "Biodata" for matrimonial purpose!
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere that love/marriage is a search problem. I think whoever said this is right. Looking at profiles, matching various preferences, etc., is all an example of a search problem.
ReplyDeleteHome Bias is a term used to describe a bias towards investing in domestic equities. However, I think it applies to arranged marriages also. Home Bias is visible in all its glory these days as we're looking for a suitable match for me. For some unknown reason, my family feels uncomfortable about profiles that are from other states [Haryana, Delhi, UP, etc.], and want someone from Punjab/Chandigarh, even if all our preferences are met by a non-Punjab profile. This unexplained anxiety about "outside" profiles is quite similar to the Home Bias witnessed in investing.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, this whole concept of "manglik" is a huge inefficiency in the Indian arranged marriage system. Basically it divides the system into two parts which operate independently. Many times even when everything else matches, one partner being "manglik" comes as a barrier and derails the alliance. Pretty bad!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like this blog post is also turning into a sort of a diary into which I write my thoughts as I'm going through the "shaadi" phase these days!
ReplyDeleteThe arranged marriage system in India has its share of not-so-good moments. There is an uncle from Delhi who has called us on phone many times [he has probably liked our profile a lot and feels that I am a suitable match for his daughter], and it doesn't feel good to see that a respectable person is trying so much to secure a good future for his daughter but we are not ready to say yes to him...
ReplyDeleteIt's 2015, and people still believe so strongly in horoscope, "kundli", etc. It's so funny :)
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I've realized during this process is that many times your education, your qualifications, your work experience, etc., can get covered with the smokescreen of standardized terms. For example, today an uncle called me up to confirm that my biodata with him was correct. After he was done speaking, I said uncle I am MBA as well [he had missed that out]. He said in a rather dry tone that okay, I'll add that. As if "MBA" is a standard commodity which everyone has, and as if every MBA degree is the same. Little does he know about the hours and hours that have been put in S3 Asia MBA to achieve those kinds of GPAs. Little does he know how great all three institutions are. And so on. GMAT, TOEFL, GPAs, three world-class universities in three countries, it all gets reduced down to a three-letter word "MBA", which so many of us have these days!
ReplyDeleteAdd 'gotra' to the list of imaginary concepts that people believe in :). Same gotra means a no!
ReplyDeleteFrom an economics standpoint, if the arranged marriage system in India is seen as a market, where buyers and sellers are trying to find suitable matches, factors such as caste, 'gotra', horoscope, manglik, etc., act as unnecessary constraints that prevent several good matches from taking place and thus make the market [highly] inefficient. Many matches which would otherwise be extremely well-matched and suitable don't take place because of these artificial constraints.
ReplyDeleteOver the last couple of months, I've received many, many profiles. One thing I've noticed is that when someone has to make a face look less broad/wide than it is, the person gets the photograph clicked from an angle, so that the full broadness/width of the face gets hidden [from the viewer's perspective, the broadness of the face is only as much as the projection of the face when seen at an angle]. The PowerPoint photo in the post makes this clear. Funny tricks :)
ReplyDelete