Ah! Marriage!

To Be Or Not to Be…

And that 20-something time, you graduate, have a job..Yeh! you are ‘eligible’ to get married! No matter, what you feel about it. People say “Don’t get married at 25, marry when you want”, but for your parents and aunties and uncles! As if your ‘bachelor’ status is not bearable to them!

We all think, at least me, that parents today have become liberal, have changed with time, but when it comes to ‘marriage’, everything turns orthodox! Poor parents, they too are bound with ‘societal pressure’ after all. Attending marriages is like landing in a soup with some random relatives starting making matches with the ideal one. Your mother starts getting palpitations the moment she hears your friend getting married! It is also that time when social networking turns into a nightmare- you open your facebook page to find one of your best buddies posting marriage pictures, the biggest life event, becoming single to married, all in love.. Making you feel more lonely, for your best friend is not all yours, isn’t it? ;) It also becomes the topic of your discussion with friends that you have been trying to avoid from a long time! So, it’s not only adolescence, it’s also that ‘to-be bride/ groom’ transcending phase that needs to be handled carefully! We need help! 

‘Kitna bada ho gaya hai apka beta, iske liye ladki dekhi ya nahi’ and there it starts! Anger boils- you feel like.. but you only go helpless!

Suddenly everybody wants to get you married. People are after your life. When will you say yes? As if that’s the only task left to do on earth! Parents do what they do the best- 'Blackmailing'- "If you do not get married at the right age...." (by now the reasons are by heart..you complete the sentence before your parents :D) Preparing biodatas (with photoshop photos) for marriages, posting on matrimonies, your community portals, the match-fixing agents! Really? All for you didn’t find your life partner yourself! ;D

Your parents’ long conversations on phone, spying through some common link, comparing qualifications, salary packages, eating habits, lifestyle, sneaking facebook profiles, coffee meetings- and of course, how do you know someone in one meeting? How about the ‘shuk- shuk’ formula from Munnabhai, what say? :D

‘Kya kami hai isme?’, they say and ‘umm! hmm!..’ Be ready with your reasons. Didn’t think convincing your own parents was that difficult! And you reject one, there will be some mama-mausi calling for ‘mere chachi ki bhabhi ke mause ke bhanje ka rishta hai’… the stock is never-ending. Girls, all that ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya..’ and chocolate heroes become stark fiction and you suddenly happen to face practicality in life.

One of my friends rightly said, a 25-year old, independent and unmarried girl is ‘not valid’. So hurry up and club her with the Mr. Right, whom they think!

Even more embarrassing is the ‘chai-poha’ traditional programmes, (dressing up for a stranger), putting both the boy and girl in awkward situations. Thank God, we have come out of the ‘choosing without seeing’, ‘walk and show’, ‘sing a song’ rut! Mayhem!

After all this, permutation- combination, rituals, traditions, astrological angles and social practices, they say ‘Jodis are made in heaven’! JJJ