Can Love be Arranged?

Can Love be arranged?

Once you turn 25 in India, the primary agenda of everybody around you is to get you married. The relatives take sheer pleasure in taking responsibility to find a suitable match for their girl. The boy still gets to enjoy his freedom as the right age for a boy to get married is 28 in India. The “door wale mamaji” and “chahchi ki bhabhi” all get down to suggesting potential grooms in their distant families. In all this fiasco no one bothers asking the girl what kind of groom she is looking for.

With all the social media looming large, Facebook has given parents more space to search for a boy. My father also made a Facebook account since the clergyman in his office found a groom for his girl on Fb. Little did I know that setting up his account was inviting trouble for myself. In the middle of the night I would get a random boy’s photograph in my chat message and the next thing I know is I am meeting that stranger. It is all the more amusing how we put our most hypocrite side out when we are on this forced date. “Do you drink? Have you had a boyfriend? Do you party late night?” the answer to all such questions is a ‘No’, even though deep inside you want to blow a smoke bubble on his face and throw a glass of whisky on him but somehow you behave like a ‘sanskari’ lady.

In one meeting you have to reach a decision whether or not you are willing to spend the rest of your life with the fake replica of the person who you met. The first meeting mostly revolves around asking about educational background, career and family. This should be the first criteria, in fact the first filter in all these matrimony websites. Instead the first filter is caste, time of birth, manglik or non-manglik, gotra etc. The society is advancing rapidly and the youth now understands that caste is no guarantee for a good match. In fact to be able to spend lifetime with a person it is important to have a similar mindset. This comes when the two people are from equivalent educational backgrounds doing well in their respective fields. Who can explain this novel idea to parents!

My father still wants a Brahmin guy who is a doctor or an engineer. Since these are still the reputed professions and he wouldn’t let his little girl settle for anything less. Fancy professions like photography do not even make it to the list of professions for them. He has pre-set filters in his head – the boy should be of the same or higher caste, he should be a vegetarian, he should be earning more than what his daughter is earning, however if he is earning very well it is okay for him to be a non-vegetarian. Hypocrisy is fed by us and later we crib when people show such a behavior. My father is impressed by websites which let him search on these filters, realizing little that this is an obsolete concept.

The youth today gives more importance to love and independence in finding a partner for themselves. They do not understand the concept of arranged marriages and the sheer existence of it. The West attracts them but deep inside they do want one partner for life. Indians have been adventurous when it comes to marriages. The concept of arranged marriage is still prevalent because people don’t want to go through the extra burden of relationships and heartbreaks before a marriage. In the West people believe in knowing a person in and out before getting married but in India people find love in the process of getting to know their partner. The trust that develops once you get to know little things about your partner and the selfless efforts you put to keep him/ her happy is what drives marriages in India. We look at marriage through a different prism. Once the marriage is consummated we start accepting the person for who he is rather than finding a better one. This acceptance is what brings the inherent satisfaction and eventually happiness in a relationship.

By-

Vrinda Maheshwari

MICA, Ahemadabad