Marriage - A festival about YOU

“Marriages are made in heaven”, really?? You must be asking this to married men/women

to understand what according to them heaven is all about, while we set this quizzing aside,  some marriages are "Made in India" and which in some way are funny and interesting.

Why do you get married? If you ask this question to any guy / gal each would come up with a

fair and convincing and some unconvincing reason.

Every Indian man/women would get married in one of these 2 ways, The Love marriage and Arranged marriage, not that the arranged is an absence of love, it is more of an anxiety marriage, because both bride and groom would never know what is waiting for them, according to me in a way it’s a biggest life risk both takes, which you may not get to see in many countries except the great Sub continent, these bride and groom according to me are the real daredevils than the one you see in AXN tv.

Ideal marriage ages are fixed between 25-28years for men and 21-24 for women, and if you are'nt married at this prescribed age bracket then we are forced to assume that you have a big life problem and you are wasting your life, all your relatives and friends will be keen to know as why you are still single and lost your virginity, regardless you had broken the virginity myth earlier.

Once you cross this age bracket a common question even a stranger would ask you is "when are you getting married?" A woman goes through a greater pressure than men when they cross this age bracket. If you are in this age grade, you are considered as fresh market piece and you are likely to be picked sooner in a matrimonial site.

Now that I am not accustomed to this matrimonial classified world, thought I would check what exactly is the future bride and grooms are expecting and what they would want to showcase in their profile in a site like this. Basically how best can you sell yourself?

First thing I observed is the completion, its heavy, not referring to the competition between the .coms but the competition with the fellow groom or the bride. I could recollect my recruitment days, where I need to pick a right candidate to my company something similar.

First and the foremost is your profile picture, this is the key. A reasonable job is done if you have got the profile picture right.

You have to make sure that you sell yourself well in a matrimonial site. If you notice some profile pictures, you would always find a guy posing in front of a tall building or bridge in USA, or a snow filled background, placing one hand on an luxury car which he owns or rented with a black and brown shade sunglassess, which clearly sends you a message that he is well to do, though he would have visited USA/UK or any foreign country for a matter of two week assignment during his six years work experience.

When it comes to brides there will be a complete mismatch of how they look in a profile picture and the way they look in-person. I really believe the wonders what a makeup can do, best living example is Rajnikanth in his movies and his contrasting appearance in real life.

There are few common aspects found in the every profile in "About Me" column is , every bride and groom are kind hearted, family loving people, self proclaimed good-looking, broadminded, unconventional, very dedicated, loving, caring and sincere person” , India would be totally a different place if most of their people matched their profile description.

Most of their hobbies include listening to A.R Rehman music and photography is a common hobby everyone carries which may include pictures taken from their mobile phone, all their daughters are fair and slim, all their son will have pleasing personality, god fearing is a positive trait, most of the dads will be retired general managers and most moms are homemakers, one of their brother or sister would be married and settled in USA/Dubai or their younger ones studying in UK/Australia. Most families talk about importance of traditional values and many more, some funny stuffs which are popping up in some profile description include “participated in Jan lok pal bill movement” and “was at Delhi to protest gang rape incident”. 

Finally after rigorous shorlisting of some profile, the groom takes a weekend off and arranges minimum two or three meeting to different brides in a weekend, they make sure that they do not take leave as he would require leaves later it if a marriage is fixed and ofcourse for the honeymoon. Both parties share numbers only if they pay the .coms, usually the meeting place is in the brides house or a restaurant and in some cases temples. In a typical south Indian arranged marriages, when bride and groom(referred as daredevils henceforth) usually get to meet each other for the very first time with due permission from their parents and most of the time during their presence, this will be their first date with some tea/coffee and loads of sweets. During these meetings there would always be an uncle who prefers to take a sugarless tea. Imagine your first date with all your uncles and aunts sitting around you...Cool sintit!! You can call it a family organized first date!!

It’s the future groom who visits future brides house right at the first date not a candle light but in the morning hours along with his family members, the grooms first asses the brides fathers wealth at the first glance of his house architecture and bride side access the grooms assets from the car in which they arrive. Usually the ice braking starts with important topics like  weather, city traffic, pollution, government and IT industry etc.. An example ice breaking conversation is, lets say you work in an IT company, they will have a close relative's son/daughter who is also working in the same company you work, then they will name them and ask you if you know him/her or not, out of the two lakh colleagues you have at office, while you are still to be introduced to the person sitting in your next cubicle.  

While this important discussion are on, the daredevils will get to speak for about 15-20minutes sometimes even less, during this short period both would have got to know each other well, as both would have been through this family dating process at least half a dozen times before, by now the daredevils had become an expert in assessing another person super well than any human resource specialist.

Some daredevils are lucky to meet again and roam around, however few decades ago, the

daredevils get to meet each other right at the marriage venue a few seconds before the event and share surprises with each other...watsup buddy it’s our marriage today... !! What a heavenly surprise.

And finally out of frustration or scarcity of leaves in office or due to some pressure some marriages are fixed (everyone has a reason though)

That’s when you usually find the Face book status would change from single to Engaged with loads of likes and "you are made for each other" comments, here is an important note I realized that, only in Facebook everyone openly agrees the fact that you are made for each other and every baby born to your Facebook friend is cute, and do you think you have any other option?  And no looking back from here, within three or six months, it’s not a private ceremony it’s a festival about you - Marriage.

Can you imagine this? You getting married to a stranger and your family and friends are celebrating, this event for some is an opportunity to try some new outfits, for some it’s time to try some delicious food, for some it’s time to pose for a best photograph and upload in Facebook, for some it’s a responsibility well completed, for some it’s time to network and find a partner, for some it’s time to travel new places, for some it’s time to party and booze, for some it’s time to wear their costly saress and straighten their hair and for our bride and groom it’s time to celebrate their our festival called marriage. It has become a parents pride as more people attend your son/daughters marriage more notable person you are. So at least a bare minimum of one thousand people attend a marriage with each leaving a 500 different complaints.

I was curious to know why would one get married the Indian way and asked few, not that I went with a notepad and took note of every answer they came up with, it was more of a conversation with no intention of knowing the reason, here most volunteered with answer without being questioned and some came up with these

"this is how the world functions, this is the age you have to get married".

"If I don’t get married now, then I may not get a girl in future .. you know, the marriage

market...I may end up being some last choice.."

""""I love her"""" (the best answer I guess)

"My parents are torturing me every time I visit ma hometown.. even I thought this

is the right time.."

"I am losing my hair.. I may be bald in couple of year, Thats why dude.

"All my friends/cousins are getting married"

"Logically speaking someone should take care of me during my old age rite ? "

"If I get married now only then my younger brother could  ... you know what? he already found

a girl for himself.

"I actually delayed it.. My route was clear two years back when my younger sister got married..

I now think I am ready."

"If I get married now, I can plan for kids after 2 yrs.. until then ma wiffey n me can have

Some fun, you know what I mean"

"My girlfriend said if we not getting married now then her parents will force her to

marry another guy...and that guy is in USA now... so I din think further... "

"My parents are getting old, thought if I get married she can take care of my parents..."

"Fed up of hotel food..."

"I have only 1 month holiday while I am in long term onsite.. If I don’t get married now

then I have to wait for another 2-3yrs.."

"When my son/daughter is in his teenage I shouldn’t be appearing as a grandpa instead a

Like his very own dad”

“My waist size is increasing man”

While I was getting all this from people, some stranger asked me “BTW Ranjith.... when are you getting married?”