Indeed. We've
come off that age, when a bride and a groom used to catch the first glimpse of
each other only on the marriage podium, evidently late enough to call the
wedding off. Sooner, the vows happened to seal a life-long togetherness of two
strangers who have had chosen to take care of each other just because their
parents felt they'll look good together. Quite presumably, those were times
when the tally marks of compatibility criteria were preceded by an imposed
mutual trust and perhaps, lots of compromises. But, above all what was
considered sacrosanct was commitment towards the bonding. Most of us belonging
to this evolved generations would agree that the loveliest of love stories
they've spotted in their real lives are that of their grand-dad &
grand-mums. And, there's no denying that most of those stories run on similar
lines of strangers falling in love -- truly, madly, deeply and eventually -- as
they tied the knot and tried sharing their lives with each other.
Our urbane
tweens, who take pride in their fast track creed of being and having educed the
mindset of 'moving on'-induced-innumerable-love-affairs, prefer commitments
towards compatibilities than commitments towards relationships. Hence, the
moment the idea creeps in that "oh! we're so bloody different!" they run
seekin their love sanctuary in newer people. Most of us think arranged
marriage, at least as far as the connotation of it runs, is not our forte.
Either it's too geeky or, too old-school. Still, many end up with that when it
comes to settling down. The reasons can be many. It may be all study and no
play made Jack a dull boy to have a Jenny for himself, or too many cook and
choicest varieties on the platter spoilt Mr. Pickwicky or, maybe the randomly common
story of 'all was going well for years till “we” realized it’s not working
anymore', or sometimes it can even be the parents' undaunted zest to get their
wards happily married as soon as possible. Now, arranging an arranged marriage
is much bigger a task than even that of the Cupid for a matter of factual farce. And, no brownie
points for guessing, there are 'n' number of matrimonial web portals to come to
the rescue.
The
matrimonial match making business thrives as it takes care of almost all the odd
perspectives associated with the celebration of love, even though mostly it
might be giving undue importance to the frugal and trivial corners to the
building of a new relationship and might pay lesser heed to the solidarity of
its foundation. Love, Care, Affections are just few words. In the automated
world you need to be robotic enough to fall in love or just simply marry in
terms of the binary digits of preferences. “Suits You,” will say “the lunatic,
the lover and the poet” as they grin about your tough luck with love and
relationships. Stop complaining. At least someone’s trying to help out, don’t you
see?
Pay to Peep
Just like a
typical middleman’s nuances the modern-day match makers have their own
tantrums. They’ll boast about an enviable database featuring thousands of
prospective married-to-be, they’ll poach you to the extent that you start
feeling that marriage is the whole and sole aim in your life, they’ll lure you
with the promise of helping find your ‘the’ perfect match and they’ll also make
you realize that perhaps, all that you’ve achieved so far is not worth to make
you lucky enough to meet the one of your dreams. What happens if you ignore to
pay them despite creating a profile? Every now and then you’ll be greeted by
prettiest of prospects staring at you from your screen but, the designed-to-make-you-helpless
portal does not allow you to contact them even by any crooked means of
chivalry. Then, as the agony aunts’ pestering bowls you over to give up the
lost battle of bachelorhood, you promote yourself to be a paid member. There
await the payment slabs, deciphered in acute metaphors of the cumulative values
of the precious. Be a Gold member and access the database that lets you fetch
say 25 contacts. Be a Platinum one to reach out to 50, or be a Titanium,
Plutonium or Unobtainium to be spoilt for more and more choices up the ladder.
And, as i said, just like the ladder, the comparative degrees of the
memberships also adjudicate how many prospects can reach out to you. Try your
luck. So, the more you pay, the better panoramic the view appears thru’ the
window.
Brandishing
the Brand You
A profile can
be created for a self, a son, a daughter, a relative or, even a friend. But,
instances testify that the website executives cannot and will not disclose the
identity of the friend who might have created a profile for you, apparently for
security reasons. Don’t be amused if some father creates a profile for you at
the matrimony junction and your own father denies that. You’ll never be able to
know that other father, again for security reasons. Let’s assume someone
creates a true profile with an honest desire to find his/her perfect match on
some or the other hook-me-up dot com. First and foremost, You need to synopsize
your life-story so-far in a restricted space of word limits and touch upon the
saleable intricacies of your past, present and future (if that too is possible).
Speak upbringing. Speak pedigree. You can probably give hint if your great-great
grandfather missed the Nobel prize by a whisker or perhaps, emphasize that you
have the tenacity to be the next Laika (dogs are faithful, so) or, maybe you
can do many things together with precision and hence are versatile (watching TV, eating and texting
your gfs, all at the same time DO NOT count). But whatever you say, you need to
tell them in a make-believe manner and you can never forget that you should be
doing all these with the utmost resonance of humility, modesty and sweetness.
You don’t want your prospect to run away annoyed from the loud beating of your
drum, do you? So, master the art of making cacophony sound like music.
Fatter the
wallet, Fitter the choice
So much said
about the nitty gritty of tastes, preferences and compatibilities. Yet, most
tend to weigh the life’s happiness in terms of a prospect’s annual salary
package. In fact, that seems like the most crucial and determining factor to
qualify to be a match. Agreed, it’s much more comforting to cry inside a
Ferrari than on the pedals of a bicycle. The former gives you privacy too. But,
you’re crying anyway. I don’t want to make any sexual discrimination here, But
this needs mention. Father of a would-be bride aged 25 and who earns say, INR 2
lakhs per annum seeks a groom for his daughter, aged not exceeding 27 to have
an annual income of INR 12 lakhs. I mean, come on, what is he thinking? And,
this kind of an example is not one in a million. They are in galore. I’m just
trying to put up a sliced matrix of expectations here. So, don’t get astonished
if you’re proven useless by a bracketed demand of some individual unknown
despite the fact that you’ve always thought you have done good for yourself so
far and you earn just enough to lead a life much more luxurious than many of
your friends. The universe is miniscule that encompasses people who care more
about love and commitment and less about thicker wallets. Hence, all said and
done, the nuptial knot-welders tag men and women according to their earning
credentials and their salary ‘packages’ decipher the yearnings for them. You as
a man might not matter, but you as a man in terms of money does does matter.
Horoscopic
Heracles
On one hand,
we’re proud flag bearers of advancements in crude terms of various social
stimuli; On the other many still cling to the apparent foreseeable futures in
the cross grids of horoscope charts and astrological hula hoops. It may be that
two individuals (read a boy and a girl) don’t even have a single trait in
common and yet the horoscopes suggest otherwise, many upheld the match to be
literally made in heaven. And, god forbid if such a marriage doesn’t work out
in the long run, the match makers once again blame it on the planetary shifts
et al. So, be prepared to get rejected even though you might have had started
speaking to someone you met on the marriage platform, had started liking a bit
and had started planning to begin the new journey of life together. You might
just get stuck, perhaps for reasons that does not involve the either of you but
thanks to the planets on which you’ll never get to live even, just because
horoscopes posed a red signal. Sometimes things you always thought prosaic and
ignorable might just decide your fate. Crush, infatuation, love do not decide
here. They are considerably the lesser important ones in these grids of
mindsets and the matrimony pandits are well-fed and perhaps, well-read too to
forecast the bonding between a man and a woman in percentages. So, wonder
wonder a couple whose horoscope charts suggest they are 82 percent preferentially
matched will never be able to love each other fully. It’s like peeping through
the keyhole outside locked doors to steal voyeuristic pleasure or like watching
porn and believing oneself inside the screen.
Castaway in
Casteism
Agreed, there
can still be reasons that one can buy against inter-religion marriages just on
the basis of the slightly presumable difference in the ways of living of two
individuals belonging to varied faiths, but that too barring any associative
corners of spirituality. However, the unreasonability has had never made sense
to me that how does it matter to others if two people from different religious
upbringings choose to stick together and share their lives with each other.
Forget communities, the century old caste systems inside one or the other
religion continues to live deep-rooted in the so-called modern society. A Brahmin
wants to marry a Brahmin, A Kshatritya to a Kshatriya, and likewise. Shouldn’t the
choice of just a man marrying a woman be the order of the day? I wonder where
would have been the world and its most rational creatures, had Adam thought
about all these before making love to Eve. Or, was it Adam happened to be a
rich brat and Eve was from his own community. So, as the river of mindly narrrowscopes
keeps flowing, the match makers provide enough room to nurture them and lets
you allow segregate prospects of your same caste universe even before delving
into the other asteroids. And in the process, thus erases clean, the scope and
the hope of ever meeting your perfect one, who might have been just a caste
away.
And, the
story of the marry-me-dotcoms go on and on as the butterflies keep spreading
their wings and touch upon human souls to crave for someone very own. And
the intricate design of lure doesn’t make one ever realize that in order to
fall in love, he or she meanwhile falls out of it. Is it even possible to
give shape to the one in your dreams in the intricacies of money,
caste, horoscope, age, stars, citizenship, eating habits, and all that jazz? I doubt the eternal bond between two sexes can
be dubbed in the ways and means of an underlying bargain market, or for that
matter, in winnings of jackpot games. I pity those poets who made believe that love
seeks love and not a thing else. I guess, we’ve come a road too long and away
to care just about love and nothing else while seeking for a partner to spend the
life with. Hence, cheers thou match makers, our friendly neighbourhood jokers
of practicality, eat well and be happy. But, please please please keep your
fingers crossed that your sincerity in work only creates happily ever after
stories.
