Once upon a time we were young, and dreams were like stars in the sky in abundance. The world was a less complicated place and we grew up watching our parents, together in companionship and love. And we aspired to that, dreamt of having that for ourselves one day. Slowly, time passed and we grew up. We now wanted things our way, even when it came to finding love - we were our own people. Parents' love story was far from the ideal situation now. Sure, they were together after so many years, unfettered and still in love, the subtle kind. But who the hell wants to get fixed up with a stranger we only had so much time to get to know? We want passion, madness (as much as we claim to want to be as far away from it), and we want the consuming kind of love.
And although many of our idealistic parents had it that way, arranged marriage doesn't fit into that picture. No sir.
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As much as some of us may deny it, we love the idea of love - I may be generalising but under the layers of career driven, independent, ferocious people, somewhere we retain a special place for that flutter of emotion, that heart skip a beat feeling. We all love the idea of companionship and one day finding someone who we share our life with. We all have a place for romantic love in our hearts. Some of us may not be ready yet, it might not even be a priority, but it is a thought for sure.
Some nights when we are inebriated and free in our spirit, we even think about that someone out there and laugh nervously, hiding the trepidation at the thought of never finding them. But in the middle of juggling our lives, social scenes, careers, family, friends, taking up relationships (and the emotional investment it requires) is a choice we happily forego. In fact it is finding someone half decent that is the bigger of the worry anyway.
So in that case, what's so wrong with letting the parents take forward the hunt and set you up?
**
I have heard so much being said about arranged marriages. I have seen many work out wonderfully and some failing miserably. These two end results largely depend on the amount of knowledge the two people being fixed up share about each other, and the time they have spent together.
Largely, arranged marriages as a concept has come way ahead from what it was back in our parents' time; but there is still a long, long way to go. No matter how educated or well-to-do the older generations maybe, there is still a large section of many socio-economic groups that practically "ship-off" their daughters under the garb of arranged marriages.
They are introduced. Engaged within a week. Married the next month.
Talk about chatt mangni, pat byah.
And that is where the entire fear for our generations comes along, the sheer pressure that comes from the parents. Because otherwise, what is wrong with simply meeting someone the folks have set us up with, and then seeing how it goes? Don't we ask our friends to set us up all the time anyway?
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Our parents, their heart is in the right place (for the most part of it); they want their child to find someone to spend their lives with because they don't want us to end up alone when they are gone.
So as long as we have the final word, as long the ultimate choice is ours, as long as we are given enough time to get to know the person our own way, what's so bad about meeting a man who was once just an online profile?
Besides, haven't we already made the arranged marriage concept our own?
We now call it "arranged-slash-love".
And that is how, we embrace the idea of finding love the way our parents did, and making it better still.
