Love and Arranged Marriages

Hi Readers,

It is often said that Marriages are made in Heaven. True! But many of us do not understand the deep seeded meaning in this saying. Many generally comprehend it as a different flavour of the intended meaning that Marriages are pious and they are related to the religious and traditional aspects of the persons involved in it. But the intended meaning is that the establishment of the bond of Marriage between two persons is beyond human control and decision. What ever is beyond the comprehension and control of humans, generally it is put in the hands of the Almighty. True it is, as two persons who had never met each other before are now to spend the entirety of their life with each other, as a couple, taking part in each others happiness and sadness equally. Bearing a child, becoming parents and then seeing them getting married and find a new life. It is a full circle.

Right from the time when my mind had started to think logically and debating was one of the media for a full scale discussion to place the pros and cons of two sides of a topic, the debate of - "Which one is better, Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage" has been on the top. Now, we as teenagers used to jump at this exciting opportunity and Love being a strange and forbidden fruit, used to take the side of the same in terms of Marriage. There were a few under the "Arranged" Category, generally treated as the orthodox types. We used to cite the reasoning like Love marriage is the best as it brings two people in love and ready to accept each other for the rest of the life,  it can be the only way one should be married, and other naive ones. Little we knew as 13-14 year teenagers, what really is a marriage and how marriage been it had resulted by Love or Arrangement, has nothing to do with the life after. Somethings are to be understood with age. So thought we. We never did.

How Love Marriage happens? You are at the right place at the right time doing the right things. Then and there, you meet a person. You like the look and feel of that person. Someone initiates, you talk. You like that. Then you converse. Time goes on. First friendship and then soon sparks fly in the air between you both. You feel love and if the other person reciprocates the same feelings and behaviour, you both fall in love. So, till now what were the factors involved here: personal attributes, spoken items and time spent together in public domain. In the entire matter, there certainly is a factor of opportunity, chance, fate and ultimately destiny. Now if everything goes on fine in a complex society like we have here, it results in a Marriage.

How Arrange Marriage happens? You reach an appropriate age. Your parents start looking for alliances for a suitable groom or bride keeping in mind certain parameters like religion, caste, sub-caste, gotra, age, height, weight, education, family, parent's occupation, location, dowry(I strongly and publicly denounce this practice, but had to mention as it is one of the factors) etc.. You look for profiles via various media channels, Internet, newspapers and ,last but not the least, word of mouth. After a long haul you shortlist few of the profiles. You start communicating with the point of contacts. If everything goes fine a date is fixed for the engagement and then the marriage.

The dissimilarities end here.

In both the cases, the life after marriage traverses the same path. Living together after Marriage is a completely different ball game. Love generated between the couple, before or after the marriage has the same value and effect. Understanding, co-operation, compromises, standing by each other's decisions, tuning one's ego according to the spouse, sacrifices for the greater good for the life together, life's tough decisions: All these can only be encountered and experienced after the couple starts a new life and start living and sharing together. So a love which resulted in a marriage gives no guarantee of enduring all the above challenges better than the arrangement which caused two different people to combine as a couple. Also it can be said without contest that couples in a love marriage get a head start of a significant amount, as they knew and understood each other well before the marriage. But after a time span of cohabitation, couples belonging to both the kinds of Marriage reach a level ground.

There is a message for all the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes out there. If you have any inhibitions against a kind of Marriage, lose them! If you are confused as your mind and heart is biased towards a kind of marriage, then you must know that Marriage is something you can only know about when you are in it. For all those out there who were blessed by the Almighty and were destined to meet their love before their marriage, challenges and joys are in store for them in the married life to come. If you did not find your love, or you were not loved before Marriage, be confident, you will find the same joys and challenges with the person you will be arranged to get married with. The only thing which can lead you to happiness after marriage is the confidence and faith in your spouse, you generate.

I wish all the folks out there, getting married, in the process of getting married or already married, the best for the life to come!!

Marvellous Marriage Melody

Hi Readers,

I am saddened and fed up of the crass, demoralizing and degrading jokes and one liners about Marriage and the life after. It's high time we stop them. It's one of those things which everybody likes to laugh about as if it is a hilarious subject to joke around, without any base or truth in it.

Image. Image building. Perspective about Marriage. Presumptions about the married life. All these are being created and impacted by the negativity and the cruel vilification of the concept of Marriage, consciously by those who could not make their Marriage a success or unconsciously by those who just want to be a stand up comedian and get acceptance among the bunch of guys from the office and in society by quoting a few jokes about how can one get going ruining one's life by getting married. Is it necessary to do so?!

On the other side, the couples who are leading a happy and content life after marriage, will never come out and give speeches of their success stories in the public. They are not meant to do so. But the disgruntled ones will never stop spreading the venom. Even when there is nothing to gain in doing so.

The most popular and unfortunately the most cherished thought about Marriage is that it is such a event in a person's life which introduces complexities, stress, unhappiness, boundedness and compromises in both, day to day life and one's dreams and gives a few happy moments in return. The more saddening fact is that people believe in it without any doubt in mind about its validity. It's because it is very simple to put a stamp on a thing, as difficult and not worthy, which demands commitment and compromise in life.

One need to understand that when one has to walk the path of Marriage and hopes to get the best deal out of it then why to propagate and participate in such negative image building. Yes, true, life changes dimensions after Marriage, nobody will deny! Yes, there are compromises to be made, nobody will deny! But then just like anything else there are cycles of happiness and other things! Invest your best in your thoughts and get the same in action. You will reap what you shall sow!

On raising the topic of marriage in a discussion, all one gets in return is, negative and derogatory comments and observations from all corners. What is the reason? It is because, even though we were born and brought up in a society which marks Marriage as a mandatory and important event, it is mired and submerged in malpractices like the practice of dowry and casteism or the emotional separation of the bride from one's parents and home or the indifferent and under treatment of the bride or the immaturity on the spouse's part, where one allows pre-marriage love relationships to interfere in the marriage.

There has been an observation made. Nowadays, Marriage is attached with the additional and sudden burden of the establishment of resources like, house, vehicle, adequate movable and immovable property and other expectations from both the quarters of the bride and the groom alike. Why target marriage as the final point of growth in one's life? Why burden marriage with financial and material goals which can be accomplished in a phased and planned manner way before or after marriage? Why not view marriage as an enabler of the couple's advancement as a joint force, rather than attaching pounding expectations to it?

Whoever thinks that Marriage is a conversion process of making a person mature, is partially  incorrect. Marriage is for the mature. As two persons coming together for a duration of one's lifetime requires an unimaginable amount of planning, understanding and maturity on one's part.

Today, there are so many cooked up stories about Marriage and many a recipes for a successful one. The person yet to be married is in a delusion of a sort where one thinks that one is equipped with all the knowledge one may require to lead a happy married life. One forgets the fact that just as every person is different, there are as many different ways to make it a enjoyable journey.

You want to know the secret for a happy and successful marriage. Open the doors of mind. Look out. Unconditional Love, understanding, tuning one's ego to a healthy level and caring and pampering the spouse is one of the few things to start with. Invest in marriage with your commitment and of course one need to compromise for the greater good one will be bestowed upon.

Nobita Zu's Marriage!

Hi Readers,

You surely must have been introduced to my good friend, Nobita Zu. He is getting married! But there is something worth noticing in this marriage. The fiancée of Nobita is the only child of her parents just as Nobita is. It presents a peculiar circumstance for their future due to absence of siblings of the bride and the groom.

Let me describe how. Lets suppose M weds W. Now lets iterate through the relationships developed due to this marriage for M:

W's Mother = Saas
W's Father = Sasur
W's Sister = Saali (not the gaali)
W's Brother = Saala (not the gaali)

Now for W:

M's Mother = Saas

M's Father = Sasur

M's Sister = Nanad

M's Brother = Devar

Now after a few years, C is born. For C:

M/W's Mother = Daadi

M/W's Father = Dada

W's Sister = Masi

W's Sister's Husband = Maosa

W's Brother = Mama

W's Brother's Wife = Mami

W's Brother's children = Mamere Bhai/Bahen

M's Sister = Buaa

M's Sister's Husband = Foofa

M's Sister's children = Foofere Bhai/Bahen

M's younger Brother = Kaka

M's younger Brother's wife = Kaki

M's elder Brother = Chacha

M's elder Brother's wife = Chachi

M's Brother's children = Chachere Bhai/Bahen

Now for Nobita and her wife, the above will not be applicable as they do not have siblings and therefore each will make only 2 new relations out of their wedlock and their child will lose not less than 10 relations.

During summer or winter vacations, C will be finding it hard to believe that he has nowhere to spend his days at. No - "Mama ke ghar ja rahe hai", No - "Chachi ne ghar bulaya hai". Maybe then C will find more time for GOA!!!

A LOVE-ly train journey

Cheerful and busy married couples with cute-smile babies, just married couples, to be married couples, just couples (more than friends types) and budding love couples all around me. Where in the name of God am I, do you ask? It is the B1 compartment, AC 3-tier of Train number 2809 Howrah mail middle berth number 21.

Date: 17th December 2009.

Nature of journey: A visit to my hometown, the power and mineral capital of Chhattisgarh, yes you are correct, Korba.

Ah, the heart aches when you feel the love in the air especially when the compartment is AC one and the air the super charged with love, care and super show of affection.

Following were the incidents which surrounded me, enough to make one cry in pain arising out of love pangs:

Case number 1:

Mrs. Wife and her family, taking super care of the whole lot. Her baby is making all sort of amazing cute noises and all attention grabbing activities including the horrible wail and she being the mother, the God's greatest gift as people say and it is true according to me, is making sure to leave not a chance to take full care of the baby. It is 1:30 pm, lunch time, so the Mrs. Wife single handedly takes out a well assorted and packaged packet. You see the mystery unfold, as one by one various number of pickles and chutneys, a huge can filled with delicious looking paranthas and wow a oily paneer curry. Mouth watering mmm.. Then she takes out plates and bowls. It seems that the she has brought whole kitchen with her. You must have heard of "Palace on wheels". I feel here "Kitchen and dining hall on wheels" will be apt. She carefully places each variety on the plates, beautifully arranging them. In between, she loving reminds her husband to go and wash his hands and asks whether he will have the egg now or in the dinner. The husband ignores the question and walks to the water basin on the other end of the compartment. Then starts the super lunch. During all this time, don't imagine me looking at the food like a hungry dog! I was pretending to transfix my eyes onto the newly brought "2 States" by Chetan from the Nagpur wheelers page number 121 all this time. At regular interwals like the Server's poll and round robin algorithm she queries each and every member of her clan regarding the reducing number of paranthas or oily patch of paneer curry in the plate and on successful response refills them, all the while carrying the cutesy baby. Ah , how great is she! Standing salute to this great woman. My eyes almost moist seeing her multitasking abilities and her great serve (not the tennis one, I hope she might be knowing that too).

Case number 2:

At some station (one cannot properly observe thought those sun screened and dirty windows of the AC compartments) one just-married couple boarded our compartment. Hey, how do I know that they are just married? Was I invited to their marriage? Or did I, to steal a free meal, crash their wedding? At least do I know them? -- Cool it. Let me answer, Mr. / Ms Reader. One can easily know by the insecure glances of Mr. new-husband which he throws around to check potential male hazards and by the super-duper care he shows for her new-wife and his soul mate for all the things ranging from the luggage (he carried all the heavy ones), the berth, her comfort, on arrival of ice-cream/ Soft drink vendor he jumps and asks her if anything she needs. Coming to the new-wife, she will converse in a very loving and honey embedded way with him. Occasionally touching his arm!

After they are comfortable enough, they start making others uncomfortable. How? Do not ask me. You should understand, (in low voice) they are just married as I already mentioned above. Oh just listen to their talk. "Honey, next time we will do that, go there.. blah blah" (giggle). "Honey, did you see that .... blah blah" (more giggle). "Hey you naughty... blah blah" (a loving slap on the husband's arm). You observe the super glued eyes they have on each other. They hold each other's hand in theirs. They are two bodies one soul. Standing salute to this great pair. I wish them all the best for their married life. My eyes almost moist seeing their never dying love towards each other. (Let's see after a few years, ha ha ha)

Case number 3:

Entered the train at Raipur station, the political capital of Chhattisgarh state (in case the ignorant reader is unaware of the Chhattisgarh state let leave Raipur). Entered our sleepy compartment 2 young, full of energy lovey-dovey boy-girl pair. They occupied the place in front where I sat of all the places. God what is happening today?? What's special about them? As soon as they sat, they engaged themselves in a animated chat which I guess they paused when they have seen the train arriving. Some things about girl's cousins and friends. Some friend is getting married. Today is somebody's birthday. Some guy is not picking up the phone. Some vague talk about some cousin's behavior. At first I thought, they sure will be related to each other. Then the mystery was resolved when a call broke the continuous chat they were having and the girl told the caller that "yaaaaauuuu, thanks for the wishes, yaauuu this is to be Mrs. -[Name not disclosed], to be Mr. -[Name not disclosed] is also here, talk to him also naaaaa". Then the to-be also has a a very nice and polite chat with whoever it was on the phone. (I fear if was some x-boyfriend or a boy who had hidden, not expressed love for this girl, his day would have been a bad one). After the call the girl, out of the blue takes out her laptop from her purse/bag and opens it to show some pictures of some marriage and her birthday party. Then they both start to fight over which video song to play next (all the romantic ones). After some time the boy loses interest in her laptop and starts to chat again. By this time my brain has completely ignored their talk and voices and I immerse myself into the love story of Chetan and his wife (2 states). Standing salute to this great pair. I wish them all the best for their upcoming married life. My eyes almost moist seeing their compatibility and their commitment.

Thus ended my love charged and playful care and affection filled journey when I got down at Champa and was overjoyed to see Papa waiting for me eagerly. I touched his feet and thanked God for this safe journey and good health of my parents.