The M word..- Series 1

Hi All,

I feel all jittery to write my new post.. because its been so long, I haven't written a decent post and hopefully this time it comes alright. Okay, moving on, today's topic of post is Marriage..!!

I know folks, I am too young to write on that and people ahead of me have written crap load already. But as a 23 year old's perspective, I would like to put forth my view thoughts on the same. I mean with enough crap already, why not add one more to it. Okay, why am I talking about marriage you ask (even if you don't, I am gonna answer it!). Its because I am gonna get married soon.. Hell yeah!

And folks, it is an arranged marriage, so I haven't even met the guy more than once and I am going to live my whole life (hopefully!) with him. See it's all so strange but yet feels normal. A situation that will probably happen only in India or may be in some small countries, I am not too sure about that but I am trying to drive home a point here so let's ignore other directions. So this guy I am geting married to is 6 feet tall, wheatish and in a small way cute, you know the puppy cute and smiles all along. The last time I met him (the only time I ever met him) he was in a yellow -shirt around jeans and clean-shaved.

I always liked guys with stubble so kind of bit dissapointed. The house was full of people. Five from his family and 20 from mine.. Some 25 members for just a meeting. I was already nervous and influx of crowd scared the shit out of me.

In all those nervousness I forgot to look him properly and now I face a small problem, I dont remember the face of the guy! and probably I am going to marry him. Imagine not knowing the face of the you getting married to. Thanks to facebook and linkedin, I could re-establish his face in my mind. Inspite of all the modernity we speak about, things still happen in a very traditonal way almost everywhere and regarding my decision, well you have to wait till the next post!

What's with the Indian mind?

One of my best friends who is in relationship with a guy, decided to break the news to her parents. Before leaving from here (She stays as a PG here and her hometown is somewhere interior of the state) she was so scared to inform the news to her parents. She was skeptical whether they would agree.Though convincing the parents to accept the one you love is universal, its more so in India because as they say, In India, its not two human beings who marry, its a marriage of two families.So my friend being scared of facing her parents with the news was procrastinating it.

Her reason for worry? The guy is from a different caste and more importantly from a caste which is considered low by her community and by our society. In a world where we liberally sprinkle our language with democracy and freedom and talking about being open-minded and bold, such things shows the hidden black truth that the society has never been modern in a true sense, it has been quasi-modern or conveniently modern. We chose to be modern on things we found suited our desires like wearing an one piece or losing our mangalsutra or using western toilets and modular kitchens but when it comes to thoughts, we are still in ancient 19th century, a society catergorised in terms of caste and creed.

So this friend of mine, finally musters enough courage and goes home to reveal the news. What happens? What do you expect to happen. Of course the parents slap her, scold her followed by emotional blackmail of how they will loose all the respect they have in the society and more so call up the guy asking him to forget all about her. I so knew this will happen but still had a hope that probably her parents will realise the love she has for him and agree. But for Indian parents, honour among the society is more important than their children's happiness.

I haven't yet lost hope that her family will agree to it soon and she or her boyfriend are trudging along with that deep faith in humanity and themselves . I keep motivating them that after a hurricane, comes the rainbow. Meanwhile, I continue to dream of a future wherein an Indian mind learns to be broad minded in true sense and let people have their "happily ever after".