The Big Fat Indian Marriage – Idiotic Process

Your parents, grandparents, close relatives.  All of them are waiting with bated breath as to when do you turn 24 or thereabouts. They want to see you in the wedlock. In a few cases even younger – this applies to girls, though! For guys it is somewhere around 27. So, once you pass that threshold, all hell breaks loose. If you have been smart enough and have found someone yourself, you are in a better position and less hell will break loose. Even then one cannot predict, there is an epidemic called commitment phobia these days. However, if by chance you have not been a smarty pant in your college hay days and have not been able to patao someone, you are in for a hell of a ride. The road to matrimony is not a cake walk!  It is like that hurdles event in athletics, for most part.  Your parents start searching with zeal and optimism. It stays, but not for long. The prospective brides and grooms join too with enthusiasm, Soon enough, though it dies down. The search becomes limited to weekends and meeting prospective partners too is relegated only to weekends.  Horoscopes are frantically emailed and calls are made. 

Alas. In most of the cases today, at least in the Indian scenario, there is a colossal lack of basic courtesy. The easier the ways of communication have become, the less the need for people to communicate is being seen. Come on dude, you want to get married right? So if a girl has sent you a mail telling you about her profile and where she found yours and to kindly check hers, can’t you reply to her? I mean how much time does it take to reply, saying yes I will get back to you. This applies to girls too. I mean what the hell is the use of sticking to your stupid iPhone the whole day, logged on to internet when you cannot even do this small thing?  9 out of 10 do not respond.  When they don’t you should be fucking smart to understand that they are not interested, for hell number of reasons.

If at all you are lucky, you would get a reply saying sorry we do not find your profile to be suitable or let us exchange horoscopes and profiles. Okay. That is a start you feel. Then you enthusiastically mail your details and wait.  And there it again comes to a dead end.  After endless cycles of searching through matrimonial portals and marriage bureaus and people if you are lucky you finally find someone.  Then comes the horoscope demon.  Just when you think yes, perhaps he or she is the one, that damned horoscope spoils everything. You are back to square one.  Thinking yes, one fine day, these hurdles will be crossed and you will find your proverbial better half.  Chal chod na, get on to the others in the list or chalo, lets party, is what your friends say.  And boy, don’t you prefer that? instead of rummaging through stereotypical matrimonial profiles? Who knows, you feel, you just might find someone at the party and you join in the fun!  No wonder they are always skeptical, is shaadi, aabaadi or barbaadi? !! 

This is however a single aspect of this idiotic and frustrating process! and then on the contrary to this, there are some couples who have been married through the good old arranged marriage process. They gave a green signal to each other the first time they met and Voila! in the next couple of months they were married!