Marriage Talk

This is one of my favourite topics that I like to read/know about. I guess it was from the time that I was a teenager that the “arranged marriage” system intrigued me.

I know someone who said “yes” just because she thought that she might not get good proposals after a ‘certain age’. I even ended up writing an uncompleted story on the arranged marriage.

I have came across posts few weeks back that was dedicated to the same topic. I have seen girls worry, wondering if the one they are marrying is the right choice. Not came across any guys until a few weeks back, my friend made me wonder about that.

Whenever I spoke to this friend, the topic would get diverted to “Marriage” and I was wondering what was wrong. I asked him but the answer never came. The last phone call cleared the air.

He called up and the first question that was put to me was “When are you getting Married? (Reminded me of my post). I was like after you. It was then a volley of questions were directed at me like “Whether you would go for someone working or not and why?” and other similar questions.

For a moment, I thought I was the one being scrutinized and wonder if my friend was trying to play a matchmaker. After a lot of prodding, the beans were spilled out.

He was on the process of seeing marriage proposals and this was his way of having a discussion on the subject. The discussion went further until my friend felt that he knows what he needed.

In an arranged marriage system, I don’t understand the traditional setup of a boy meets girl in the presence of families. After a supposedly 10 min or more talk they are required to take a decision of their life time. If they are lucky, they might get a chance to meet again to see their compatibility.

Even today, most of the families are not open to informal meeting between the boy and girl where they can talk & discuss openly. Which I think should be the norm On the top, a boy can go on to see as much more than 10 girls to decide his life partner but a girl (in some communities) cannot do the same and if she does, she gets stereotyped. Does this represent the so-called modern society of India?

I am not sure if this approach will change in the coming years but the mindset has to. As for my friend, I wished him luck for his search who is also seeking divine intervention like matching horoscopes.

Looking Out

 

People walking down the road, vehicles passing by was the view Shimir saw outside his window.

The calmness on his face hid the turmoil from within. For a moment being isolated from the world into his own gave him the sense of tranquility that he was trying hard to seek.

The calling of his name brought him back to the reality. He turned around and started pushing his wheel chair forward...

P.S.: In case you are wondering why a lot of fiction lately, its because I have not been able to jot my thoughts in a better way. Hope that changes. I have also created a new social blog called Freedom Expression (do check it out) and am experimenting with Twitter too :)

My Friend Ganesha

“When will Ganesha come to our house” the four year old Shreya asked her mother innocently.

“Ganesha lives in the sky, he cannot come to our house” her mother replied. “He is my friend, I want to play with him” she persisted.

Her mother looked at her and tried her best to make her understand that Ganesha is not seen by the humans and that’s why we worshipped him in the form of idols and pictures. “I want to play with Ganesha” Shreya kept repeating.

The father who was sitting on the sofa nearby, lost behind the newspaper was roped in by the mother to explain the absence of Ganesha.

“He is my friend and I want to play with him” she retorted as her father made his attempt. “How can he be your friend, have you met him or seen him?” questioned her father. “No” Shreya replied with her head down. “How will he come to your house now if you have not met him or invited over?” The question was met with a silence. She went back to playing with her doll lying on the floor.

The cell phone rang which the father picked up and hung up after a few minutes. “Who called up?” Shreya asked from a distance. “That was my friend Ganesh” he replied.

“Ganesha a friend of yours?” she asked her father who on realization gave a puzzled look and the mother broke into a laughter.