In a country like India, it’s important to get married; and if a girl opts for arrange marriage, she may sometimes get into unexpected anger and emotional turmoil. Questions started popping in my head why marriage is so important. I come with answer that we as a human being, always seek for the happiness and continue doing various experiments to get it; and wedding is one of those experiments. It’s on the individual whether (s)he wants to embrace this or not.
Like every ambitious girl, I was not really ready for the marriage but family pressure started getting more intense with every passing birthday since I crossed the predefined age of marriage. Now a days, matrimonial sites help to search life partners, replacing ‘Pandit Ji’ (who brings proposals for marriage) and mediators as well. My parents started insisting me to create profile on Matrimonial Sites. My view was less favourable to these because I used to watch shows like Crime Petrol and so on television. I had to surrender to my parents because you would never have rational points when it comes to the argument with parents and that too on matter of marriage.
I was very reluctant to groom hunting, so my brother created my profile on matrimonial sites with some nice snaps of mine. As soon as the profile had been created, my mother started receiving calls from the boys or from their family members who were looking for suitable bride. The series of meetings started through these matrimonial sites, however, I too had a criteria like others but in the simpler form.
Boy Number One
This meeting was in Bhopal. I was strategically; ready to marry the first boy to whomsoever I meet if he looks near to suitable. When we were chatting in a hotel, this guy appeared very talkative; and later he was in regular touch with my mother. They shared some common topics to talk. I said my mother to proceed further because no one supposed to fall in love in a first meeting. Furthermore, I did not want to go through this process because it was quite intimidating. Later we started talking over phone to know each other well. While we were talking about certain social issues, I realized that he was gender stereotype. Indeed, I understood his ulterior motive behind his questions. Eventually, I decided not to marry him.
I was clear about my decision, I agreed for one more meeting on his request. When we met, he came to visit me wearing a t-shirt with his company’s name imprinted on it; this seemed show-off and somewhere it was fading the scope of a second chance. Finally, he understood my lack of interest and my mother conveyed my “No” with an appropriate reason. Only this experience was awful otherwise others were little funny.
Boy Number Two
This guy was the banker and was very calm and composed whereas his mother was very loquacious and sounded little inquisitive. She was appraising her son like anything followed by her son nodding in affirmation on every statement. Although I fell in love with the interior of their house, I was not getting those vibes here. She called my mom next day and said, “Ladke ko Ladki pasand hai”. Again my mom replied her with “No” by giving an appropriate reason that ‘Ladki ko Ladka pasand nhi tha’.
My destiny was preparing me for the long journey of groom hunting and I understood that this would never end without a streak of my active participation. I decided to meet boys only with my siblings because I did not want to bother my parents to travel continuously for this.
Boy Number Three
The boy number three was a marine engineer and he used to stay in the ship most of the time. Although I was not in the support of this proposal from the very beginning, my parents convinced me for one meeting with his family. When I met with the family, I seriously found them very genuine and cordial. His mother was in touch with my mother after this meeting and she was talking with her regularly on phone. I was clear that I want my future husband every single day and in all my thick and thin, therefore, I had to lose the nice proposal.
Boy Number Four
He was a manager in a famous Institute of Indore. And this time I was getting the feeling of tinder dating rather than that of a matrimonial meeting. This guy asked me whether I am vegetarian or non-vegetarian; he started over explaining his priorities without knowing my answer which was really annoying. I was puzzled why this person stuck so badly on his points. He said, “Being Brahmin, even I can marry a Jain girl”. And I wanted to scream, “then, go and marry a Jain girl, please”. He sounded as a religious guru after some time and I felt like drifted away. Precisely, I understood he’s adamant with his choices and this person was not my cup of tea.
Despite of some weird encounters, I was trying not to become judgmental about anyone. But anyway, this is human mind and it often tends to make inferences about others on the basis of their outcomes. And, this was helping me to reach on a certain decision.
Boy Number Five
Here the situation was hilarious. This person was AO in LIC, Mumbai. My sister accompanied me this time. He seemed very reticent, I had to start the conversation by asking random questions to elicit some idea about him. He answered all question very politely and again returned to silence. He was giving the cue of interest in one sided conversation. I got a vague idea about him - either he’s shy or less expressive. Meanwhile we placed an order for food. I was eating my stuff restfully because I knew that I would have to take initiative for the chat. My sister was so surprised with my reckless behaviour and started nagging me saying that you came here to eat the burger or for something important. Finally, I said that we were getting late as we had to reach the Paying Guest little early - it was the big lie just to get rid of this weird situation. He hardly asked two or three questions to me. Yes, I liked his courtesy, but somewhere I thought that quiet nature is not going to work.
Boy Number Six
In the continuation of this series I met one more boy. He was working in Shine.com - his face was also shining like his company’s name. I don’t know if it was the effect of facial (because he came to visit me after attending his cousin’s wedding) or shine.com makes its employees shiny.
Meanwhile, my mother found few proposals from her acquaintance. A boy was in US onsite and because of her proximity to his family, things were going good; but there was a major issue of ‘Kundli Milan’ scoring a match of seven ‘Guna’ only. And, this was our major demarcation while seeking a groom.
Throughout this journey, I remember of getting proposals from NRI boys. Generally, it happens in these sites because most of them want to marry Indian girls. But my father filtered them worrying about the chances of fraud. These sites were bringing us nowhere. So, I was pissed off these meetings.
My Destiny
Meanwhile, my parents fixed one more meeting with a family at my home through acquaintances not from matrimonial sites. Obviously, as per my criteria, he was the complete alien because - firstly, he was putting up in Delhi and I never thought of staying in Delhi (just because of rising crime), secondly, from the photo, he looked like foodie and I am not fond of cooking at all, thirdly, he had complexion fairer than that of mine and I never wanted to marry a guy who is fairer than I. So, I was on the wrong path. Anyhow, his family came to visit just for the sake of formality because everything was already fixed. I started one to one conversation with him but he did not ask any question. I doubted over his seriousness and expectation from the life. Suddenly, HR spirit entered in my body and I bombarded him with questions related to job, nature, anger, and his job etc. He answered every question by giving an endearing little grin.
I was very confused in this case. Eventually, after having chat on phone regularly I got to know that we both were sharing many similarities. Its a saying that opposite may not attract; but birds of a feather most certainly do flock together. In some ways, this guy shook me up and made me believe it a destiny. This was meant to happen, and thankfully, I made the right choice. Today, if there is someone who should believe in destiny, it is I. This groom hunting was the part of my fate.
Indeed, the matrimonial site did not work for me. But I will not say it did not work at all. I saw many friends, cousins, siblings or acquaintance getting their true match from these sites and just in few meetings, not like mine. After few years of my marriage, I learnt that not everything goes according to our plans and strategies especially in case of marriage. If it happens so, it may spoil the surprises which the life has kept hidden somewhere for us because planning is limited up to one’s vision but magic is not. It depends on the individual whether (s)he wants to let it go with patience or makes it a suffering.
No comments:
Post a Comment