Where does the shopping for a wedding begin??
A simple question. Some may say that it starts when you book the wedding hall, for some it begins when they start shopping for their wedding attire; and if you still go back in time, probably it begins when you buy a engagement ring for your spouse. However, if you are one of those nice guys who are destined to end last, your shopping begins with shopping for your spouse. Hard to digest, but this is the preamble of constitution called "arranged marriage". I just want to share with you whatever I have learnt about this constitution so far.
After completing one and half years in my current job, it was obvious for me to enter the market where I was supposed to shop for a bride. Living in U.S., it is more difficult since you have hardly one month to shop for yourself. Why do I call it shopping?? Though the protocol of meeting your prospective partner has changed over the years in Indian society, unfortunately, I still had to "see" the girl in her house in the company of her and my parents. But fortunately, I was also given a chance to talk to the girl all alone for some time in a separate room. I never traveled India as much as I did this time in order to get a better deal. :) Secondly, what would you talk to a girl?? Once the obvious questions about job and all are finished, you ask bookish questions like what is you hobby?? (I took efforts not to use word "hobby" every time, though I was asking essentially the same ). The first dialogue could be the most painful part of the process, since sometimes you feel like you are selling yourself. I think I was at least on the better side of the wall; imagine how hard it would be for her.
Enough abt this shopping experience. I would like to mention two factors that play a crucial rule in arranged marriage.
Cast System...I am sure our sane ancestors created this cast system for better management of the society, but the four casts have broken down to numerous sub-casts and they makes no sense to me. The nuisance created by this caste system is not limited to reservations in government organization and educational institutes, but it also affects the system of arranged marriage badly. Had I taken home a Bengali girl from a totally unheard of a caste, I am sure my parents would have accepted her happily; but since I had to enter the market of arranged marriage, it was obvious for us to search for a girl from the same caste. Initially, I wanted to break these bounds and search for a girl from a different caste. But then later as I thought of it, now that we have to accept this caste system, it makes sense to search for a spouse within the same caste. Even though all you unorthodox people might deny this, trust me, your traditions, your style of communication, your style of cooking and your relations could change a bit as per the caste, and hence "marriage within the same caste" is not a bad idea at all.
Another important factor of arranged marriage is "matching of horoscopes". All you highly educated people might mock down this idea, but it is highly prevalent in Indian society. How can the position of stars determine how a person behaves or what is going to happen in his or her life or who is a correct life partner for him?? I don't know if it is true or not, but if at all it is true, Astrology is not a definitive science but a predictive math. "They" say that over thousands of years, our ancestors have gathered huge amounts of data about a person's behavioral patterns and the position of stars when he was born; and now what they do is a statistical prediction based on this previously gathered data. Apparently this data is documented somewhere, but nobody knows where. Do I believe it?? may be not.. but this horoscope matching helps you in one or the other way. My innocent mom explained me that in love marriage you spend enough time with your partner that you know you are compatible with each other. In arranged marriage, horoscope matching is just another way of finding out if two souls are compatible to each other or not. Do I believe her?? ummmmm, I would like to. But the thing I like the most about horoscope matching is that it makes your decision making a little easy. Obviously after talking to a girl for the first time, you are not going to develop a strong liking or disliking for her, and hence horoscope matching gives you "guidelines" to decide with whom you should continue and with whom you should not.
Am I cribbing about this system of arranged marriage?? Not at all!!! Because it is this system I have gone through, to find myself a sweet girl named "Shraddha" I will be spending my entire life with. Yes my dear friends, my search has finally ended. :)
Before going to India, I was highly confidant that the girl I would be getting married to eventually, I would be able to identify in the first meet itself. However, that never happened!! And since it didn't happen to me, I can not believe it could happen to anyone else. I met many girls in my visit, but mostly with my dad. Shraddha was just the third girl my mom met and she just fell in love with her.
With my near and dear ones in Minneapolis, I had taken an ukhana for my dream girl more than an year ago (I am sorry my dear Gult friends that you can not understand),
"Pari nasli tari khari asavi mazi Priya
Thodi lazari, goad hasari asavi mazi Priya"
Nothing could describe Shraddha more appropriately than these lines. Moreover, she satisfies all my three requirements: She is well educated (B.E. Comp), she is cute and she is rasik. She had learnt Bharatnatyam when she was young, she likes dancing, she used to paint and she loves Mehendi (at least that's what she says :D )!!
I have attached photos of hers.
Enthusiastically looking forward toward this new phase of life .... :)
