'marry-me-dotcoms' -- the Meena Bizarre of relationships

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.