“Love marriage, or arranged marriage?” has to be like the silliest question ever. Like duh. Also, who even asks each other these things eh, apart from juvenile/precocious twelve year olds? (At 12, it is possible to be both juvenile and precocious at once, it really is.)
But now suddenly, approaching the twilight of 23 that I am, it does not seem so silly anymore. T got married a few weeks back, and the only good thing about missing her wedding, is the bypassing of the whole family pouncing on me to say “You’re next.” To say the same thing to them at the next funeral is a funny idea alright, but I don’t know of a single person who ever got a chance, or the heart, to say that to anyone. (On the other hand, the oldies shall always be allowed to piss us off, trample on our feelings and gift us insomnia for the nights. That’s how life works.)
In light of T’s wedding and my currently unemployed status, my mother has been gently suggesting that she “start looking” now, because “these things take time.” (This makes the whole love marriage or arranged marriage thing sound like the most wonderful question in the world! At least there is still a choice!) Job or no job, now is the time that the mothers of girls start getting a little restless. “Besides, it is not like you are doing anything about it no? So at least let me do something,” is the mutter’s point, which from her warped POV, makes some sense. My being 23 makes her feel old and responsible and the need to see her daughter settled, no matter how.
But that is not the way it works for us, right? For instance, I can think of several reasons why I should have a love marriage:
a) I do not have a fanatic father who will shout in surround sound DTS effect and irrationally disapprove of my falling in love without any reason and lock me up in my room where I shall weep like a damsel in distress. If anything, sometimes I drive my father to the point that makes him want to lock himself up inside a room and weep endlessly.
b) I do not have an older sister who ran away with some wastrel mechanic type, making me duty-bound to my parents’ foolish sentiments of only getting their other daughter married to someone they find for her. (Although I can’t, for the life of me, remember exactly which movie that was.) If anything, I am likely to be that older sister running away with some mechanic type, but my eloping with anyone today seems like such an impossibility; so chill, Gundu.
c) I do not have some morai mama that I was promised to when I was conceived, nor did anyone peep through the olai sandhu while I bathed in my petticoat, for the panchayat to demand that my honour be saved by my being married off to the creep. If anything, if despite my best efforts, I am caught undressing through the one blinds-less window in my room, the neighbour will probably secretly refer to me as ‘ugly naked girl’, and needless to say, no one is getting us married.
d) My parents found each other, dood. It’s just plain uncool that I ask them to engineer my set up with someone, when they, a whole generation ahead, didn’t do that. It’s like, many steps back from homosapien to Neanderthal. Minus the hot cavemen.
More seriously, I do not have anything against arranged marriages. I think it takes immense courage to take that leap of faith into the unknown, being fully aware that you might not survive and to make the decision happily and consciously like T did (unlike say, resorting to an arranged marriage in order to cope with a broken heart, or doing it due to resignation and defeat to family pressures). These things can be pretty romantic when the girl is not treated like a commodity in the market. It’s just that I have never seen myself as an arranged marriage type; in my opinion, I am chicken to begin with, ineligible and unsuitable for the arrangement in many respects, and only a few of them are actually cool respects, like the tattoo I am hopefully getting next week.
Of course there is the fear that I’d end up with a narrowminded slob (*shudder*), even if some parents really do find a true rockstar for their daughters. But frankly, to hell with modesty, my problem is that I didn’t think the day would come when my mother would even gently suggest she start looking, because there wouldn’t be a need for that. But considering the limited, untimely luck I have had in matters of the heart so far, apparently there is.
Of course I am too young, and it’s too early and ridiculous. Of course I will resist and resist until some day, a hot, older, uncynical man a la Rahul Bose will come by and make it all ok, or till the day I get old and lonely and wish to ‘settle down’ myself, god forbid. Nothing is going to happen for the next few years even if the ball started to roll just about now. It just pisses me off that my mother is gently suggesting it. It is just such a huge dent to the ego, it really is; one of those things that you think will never happen to you, but it all does, like in your worst nightmare, where you are unemployed and single and away from home, and your mother offers to set you up with someone. The horror, the horror.
And you protest, rightfully so, and your mother thinks it is all a case of the-lady-doth-protest-too-much. How did I even get to this point? Unemployment makes me even more angry and angsty and overreactive than ever. I need a job, I really do. A Rahul Bose wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
PS: Situation song, if only I had a girl-in-the-chudidhar equivalent.
