Wanndering – on foot and in spirit

This is the sequel to “When was the last time you had a GF?“. Many of these recent blogs have been my thoughts on Indian culture, which till now was ‘aisa hi hain’ (obvious), but thanks to the questions from inquisitive chinese and by myself seeing the (Taiwan) society, I wonder ‘Aisa kyon hain?’ (Why is it like this?)

When Frankie (yes, this is a real person and her own question) asked me ‘How did your parents meet?’, I didnt react strangely this time. I was now getting used the questions which was depicting the cultural gap. My parents met through ‘baap bharose’ – Arranged Marriage. Not long ago everything was in black and white – ‘Arranged Marriage’, the right thing; ‘Love Marriage’, the wrong thing stereotypically associated with elopement thanks to the genre of ‘Qayamat se Qayamat tak’. While black and white are slowly blurring into shades of gray

There are ‘Love come Arranged’ marriage where the guy chooses girl (I am not a sexist but just for convenience, I will let the guy take the lead role) and then they go to their parents to seek their approval. This is getting pretty common atleast in the software industry. People are more open for Bihari-Haryanvi, Punjabi-Kannada kind of marriages.

Then there are ‘Arranged Courtships’ literally like parents pick up a girl and you can go out with her before you agree to say ‘I do’. Cool! its like parents started their own dating service. Not too common, but I know some societies in which this has been acceptable. The potential coupling is usually among friends’ children, generally urbane, suave. There are certainly some limits in this dating service, but it is still better than how they chose brides earlier.

Then there are matrimonial website, which one of my chinese friends said, ‘Cool, like it is like xyz’ (quoting a dating site). In principle, yes it is but it is a serious ‘dating’, where your profiles are usually written by the parent or the groom’s sibling; where, you cant post pictures from your friends bachelor party like you do on myspace, but rather a studio-shot photo with 3-piece suit; where, families get involved in ‘dating’; where, you rather put your annual income instead of ‘turn-ons’; where this is a ‘life’ committment, than a summer plan. Okay! an Indian ‘dating’.

(If you didnt know,www.shaadi.com, is one of the most successful Indian dotcoms)

The shades of gray are emerging, and hopefully there would not be any white and black, just shades of gray.

The only good (?) thing about this system is you may fail but your ‘baap’ never does!