Arranged Marriage!!

Last words of Thomas Tom while shutting me in the Taxi on NYU exchange students night were, “and Vineet, do inform me if you get married during this visit of yours to India.” For him, all NRIs weddings are fixed like this, whenever they go back to their home in vacations, there is bunch of potential partners lined up for selection. One of his Indian flatmate actually got hooked up like this... when even the groom had no clue what his vacations would turn out to be.

I was cautious of this fact. I wanted my vacations to be like vacations and not a mini episode of some type-casted Indian flick. Also, I had assured Jade that I’ll be meeting my would-be partner for atleast 6 times before deciding on anything (unlike 6 years which she would prefer!). Though, we both agreed on 6 months to be ideal dating period as a convergence point between Indian-advocated ‘arranged marriages’ (quick-fire process) and westerners-advocated ‘live-in relationships’ (never-ending process). As desired, back home no one was bothered that I am unmarried. When I told my friends in India, “my parents do not seem interested in finding me a gal”, they would jokingly say, “yeah, now you are foreign-returned, they must be busy finding out a guy for you!!”

But fortunately (or unfortunately!!), my dad is totally against Indian men being a gay. He says an Indian should never be a gay. As if things are controlled by him! Or if, someone would actually obey him on this. He would never approve of a same-sex marriages. Infact, most of the Indians won’t. I fail to understand why. Think about it: we don’t have any population crises. In fact we can live with few of the homo couples. Had there been more of the followers of same-sex marriages in India since independence days, Indira Gandhi wouldn’t have to declare emergency. But Indian democracy has different opinion, and they advocate that people’s orientation is straight when they doesn’t get attracted to the same-sex but to the different sex!!

I wonder why people bother about things which never gonna affect them in any way. I mean how it matters to you as long as the two getting married are humans, or for that matter even if they are not! It won’t change your life. You would always be crashing on the same bed every night. (unless ofcourse….) Even otherwise, it is not the way to add spice to the otherwise boring life you are living. I am not concerned about same-sex marriages. There are bigger things to be worried about.

Arranged marriages are a problem, though. In fact, not even that, not so much as the same-sex arranged marriage!! That’s when it would go out of control. Imagine parents saying to his son, after finding out he is gay, “We would find you a nice guy, with big salary package. Someone from a good family” Gosh! Not sure about catching up of this trend as of now, but for sure, arranged marriages are a problem in our community. They are not so much, if you don’t want them to be.

But in my case they seem to be. After spending 3 weeks out of 4 weeks of vacations in peace, my mom came to me the other day and said, “Vineet, you are getting older now. And you are not married. Your MBA is also half complete. You should look forward to settling down. What if I bring you some nice girls at home?” There is this big deal always in the Indian community if you are not married. My parents always think I should have been married 5 years ago. And they have been thinking the same since past 5 years!! I wondered what age and MBA has got to do with marriage. What if I never started with an MBA? And then what does settling down mean? Am I always hovering over my house and bothering people sleeping at night? And then what does nice gals mean!! Would they all go back in the morning? I mean, that’s what a nice girl should be. This reminds me of difference between secretary and personal secretary explained to me by someone. One says “good morning, sir” and the other one says, “It’s morning, sir!!” Anyways, as they say, all nice gals should go back home. In that case, I can bring nice gals myself! Infact I could have started this since my early days. Why she had to wait for me to start my MBA for this. Ironically, my mom always tried to scare me off the so-called nice gals. Anyways, then she explains me the process of arranged marriage. GOD! My mom wants to pick ‘a wife’ for me!!!!!!! I don’t even want her to pick clothes for me!!