The Wedding Circus....

Marriage / Shaadi / Vyah / Lagan / Kalyaanam ...... words which are sources of happiness and misery at the same time .....

Here, I am expressing views in the Indian context only,since that is what I have seen and in later life have experienced .

My views are about the marriage market and the entire circus surrounding it . The ominous beginning looms when one turns 21-22 for women and 26-27 for men .
Here, I use the words women and men purposely , simply because in India , it is not men and women who marry but boys and girls , irrespective of their age and this I find weird as hell.

I have heard my extended family say that after a 25 years of age , no one wants the "girl" . That age was set up as the- use by date- of the girl . I was aghast and enraged , are you talking about paneer/cottage cheese -which has an expiry date- or your own child ? I was about to retort when I was met by  my mother's animated eyes,effectively asking me to not bother and shut my gob.

The standard operating procedure is as below :

+ Son / daughter attains "marriageable age" and word is spread (not literally though)to the locality , sundry relatives etc of the entry of the said son/ daughter into the marriage market. Parents are under lot of societal pressure to do this. All this word spreading is by casual conversation, some strategically placed information and the like .

+ "Alliances" start coming in, mostly by word of mouth or the matrimonial websites one has enrolled on ( the criteria for an ideal bride or groom , the associated jargon and definitions, are material enough for another post 😀) and from families of prospective brides and grooms.
These are then put through some rigorous processing ie finding out through well informed hidden sources the general worthiness of the family ( social standing, wealth, pedigree , any family scandals etc etc) . It is not unheard of to hire  a private detective for this kind of research. This is followed by the matching of the infamous horoscopes.
Here I should mention, that in most families, there is an aunt or an uncle or some similar relation who is a seasoned and incorrigible matchmaker . It is as if they cannot see someone "eligible" being single and commence a partner search(with or without the consent of the party for whom this blessed task is being undertaken) with great enthusiasm as if their life depended on it .

+ If step 2 turns out to be satisfactory , the next step is for the families to meet and for the "boy" to "see" the "girl" , which is for the 2 families to discuss the terms of marriage , time , date any "other" requirements ( in other terms , dowry).
This business of "seeing" a girl often made me wonder if this was a marriage being arranged
( negotiated would be a better word) or a horse being put on sale to be examined by the prospective buyer .

This is also an occasion for the possible future couple to exchange a few shy sentences on the basis of which their being soul mates is confirmed. In more recent times, this has changed into a family approved coffee/dinner date to "know each other better" .

 I have put  a lot of the above in quotes because this is the jargon which is in use in the circus .

This is the normal procedure , but there is a build up to it .

In India that is Bharat , marriage is seen as one of the big milestones of life .
If you haven't married or have married very late ( as per deadlines previously mentioned) , there IS something WRONG with you.

Also we have two kinds of marriages , arranged marriages ( as above) or love marriages . This, to me, sounds funny as if there is no love in arranged marriages .

 I was  once told that arranged and love marriages are essentially the same thing just the order of events is different .
Arranged marriage= marriage then love
Love marriage= love then marriage

And now there is the arranged love marriage, ie falling in love, convincing the parents and marrying with their blessings , win win for all . The circus cannot be escaped though.

The reasons for having to absolutely marry are :
+ Else you will be alone in later life (makes a bit of sense)
+We are getting old, would like to see you "settled" . Settle is a code word for getting people married in India . As if they would be unsettled otherwise !
+Before we die, we would like to see you have children. ( as far as I know, there is no such qualification of having to become a grandparent, in order to die....but well....)
+People are starting to ask when you will get married

But all of this is not so simple for the people involved .....neither is it so hunky dory .

I recently asked my best friend who had married late ( by Indian standards. Please refer to line 4 for guidance on appropriate age of marriage of each of the genders) and had had an arranged marriage, if she had had to face any pressure during the ripe- for -marriage age ( line 4 above) and the age she actually got married. (apologies for making her sound like a fruit , ripeness and all)

She gave me a reply . This question popped into my head , one, because recently I have had a long discussion with another good friend, younger to me, who was going through this circus and was having a tough time dealing with his society pressurized, conservative, caste obsessed parents ,and two, looking back I myself had gone through quite some bovine excreta during my time in the circus.

To elaborate , my immediate family is a fairly liberal one when it comes to such things . I had no pressure to marry at the socially decided age and folks were fine with my wanting to marry later .The look out started at 24 or so but not really seriously . However, by about 26 things started to heat up. Exchanging horoscopes , looking up "alliances" on matrimonial sites on the internet etc .
Yours truly being the choosy , picky one ,her obsessive compulsory self absolutely needed to be actively part of this investigation and not surprisingly did not really approve of the cases.
Of the ones I did, the horoscope did not match or I was found to be too short or fat to be suitable for the "boy" . Once , my father was so hopping mad ,when told that I was too short , that he told the people "she is 26, as far as I know, I cannot pull and stretch her so that she becomes taller, so please leave" .
Then there is the extended family( aforesaid aunts and uncles) who brought "cases" . The problem with this was that they brought forward"cases" where the "boy" was brought up within the state I belong and had a different world view whereas  I had been brought up in  very cosmopolitan surroundings with a very different worldview altogether. In other words, my world and their world were as different as water and oil . I said no to these cases and that caused offence and insult to the relatives who had suggested these cases . One is then branded vain, proud, shrewish kind of a female in the familial and social circles . This business of being branded is female specific , a male may say no to as many "cases" that he wants to and remains label free. That said ,for both genders, there is a genuine pressure to get married , within social boundaries and with the person parents pick
for you ,else you are black sheep. For women, the pressure is a bit more.

Falling in love was and in large parts of India is still a taboo . If you do , you will me made to understand by a few close ones , the drama starts when you don't understand . The "morally bankrupt" west is usually blamed for such ideas of wanting to fall in love or choose your partner in life .
Strange that people considered eligible for and trusted with choosing their own governments are not considered eligible for and trusted to have the sense to choose their life partners.

I fell in love for the first time only to be introduced to the ugly face of caste and orthodoxy . The concerned male did not have the balls to stand up for someone he loved and preferred to give in to the caste and orthodoxy narrative, so I bid bye bye with pleasure .


This was about 13 years ago. But now , listening to my friend's woes, it feels like though things have changed, they have remained the same , education and exposure ( apparent exposure) not withstanding .

There is still this obsession with caste , as if people belonging to other communities are not human . They are spoken of in hushed tones as if they were ...ummm..... I don't know what .

On the matter of falling in love ,one of my cousins , a woman, sorry girl, fell in love and announced it to her parents .  What broke my heart was the way they made her feel as if she had done something to bring shame to the family, with the mother sounding depressed and apologetic about it as if a great tragedy had befallen them . Goes without saying, the alleged love interest belonged to another caste . Another interesting part of this caste equation is that folks are ok with upward caste movement but not downward . So if it is moving up for one side, it is inevitably moving down for the other , hence a conflict .

God forbid if you :
+ Say that you will marry only when you feel ready or will not marry at all
+Marry a person of your choosing

If you do any of the above , you will be faced with sentences like ,
+did we have you to see this day ( is din ko dekhne ke liye tumhe paida kiya tha ) , we brought you up , did so much for you
+people have been having arranged marriages within their castes for so long without any problems, what is so special about you
+only once you get married can your younger sibling get married. If you marry outside of your
caste ,it will be a scandal and then your younger sibling will have difficulty in finding "good alliances" and so on and so forth

In certain parts of India as we see in the newspapers , this obsession with caste translates into

murders ,which now have their own nomenclature - honour killings.

Even in educated, so called modern homes, the family often cuts off all connection with women and men who choose to go ahead and marry people of their choosing .Social isolation follows, a deliberate silence.

It is saying as if we have lived in this society and this all that is there is to the world . There is this refusal to acknowledge that there is a whole wide world outside with different types of people who are in no way inferior or superior to one's own caste or social system, different opinions , thoughts, ways of life etc . In short, it is a frog in a well mentality with no intentions of coming out of the well.
Also some are all for being liberal ,makes for great conversation and display of being an evolved soul, when it comes to others, but go back to being their socially bound orthodox selves when it comes to one's own interests .

Another thing in this context, is this fixation with living within the unsaid rules of your surrounding society , bothering about what will the society say/think if you go off the beaten track ( herd
mentality , to give it a name) etc . This also makes such people give the people around them the right to interfere in their life's decisions( unsolicited advice galore) , which courses to study, who to marry when to marry , when to have children , how many children to have etc .

The children part is enough content for another rant of a post ...😉

It is not all one sided though . "Boys" and " girls" are often fine with going through this circus because the decision is taken by the family and later if the marriage doesn't work out , the family can be held responsible .

There are , in percentage terms, few who want to take their own decisions are ready to take responsibility if it doesn't work out as planned .

In both cases, if it doesn't work out, it is a miscalculation  . But thing is, if I miscalculate and suffer for it later ( love marriage), I deserve it , fair enough ,but why on earth should I suffer for some one else's miscalculation (arranged marriage).
If it was a love marriage and goes wrong family and society say that it was one's fault for marrying outside social norms.
If it was an arranged marriage and doesn't work out it is FATE and its cousin DESTINY 😠.

The worrisome part is even the new generation (though it is changing in pockets ) does not stand up to take responsibility of their lives . I speak of the masses , not the relatively small percentage of the well educated, evolved liberals . I know , I know , the word liberal seems to have become almost an abuse in these recent times.

It is not to say that anything traditional is bad , but not bothering to adopt the good part of the old ways of the world and discarding the bad parts, is what is bad .

Enough said .....feels much lighter 😁😁. Till the next rant ..... cya !!!