Love Marriage ya Arranged Marriage ?

On this day,

I give you my heart, 

My promise, 

That I will walk with you

Hand in hand,

Wherever our journey may lead us, 

Living, learning, loving,

Together.
Forever.
 

   I live in a country where only 3 things are important food , money and MARRIAGE in precisely the same order .You may wonder about our obsession with the same and find no answer to it whatsoever. When you put all three of  these things together you are pushed into the world of the GREAT INDIAN WEDDING phenomenon. Remember the last time you went to a grand wedding and wondered what a bomb was spent on the same and how much you could have done with that money.? Well being a CA student I know how much money can do and where it can do it.. Blowing it on a wedding is such a waste of the world's resources , it depresses me.

   

   But the topic in hand is not weddings but the epic question that surrounds it , Love Marriage or Arranged.? What's the difference you may ask , well its just like Potato Patato, same thing different sounds. Ok fine maybe its like Potato and Tomato but thats it . Honestly speaking they are no different , both of them are equal amount of work and have an equal probability of giving you the satisfaction of marital bliss. So why  this big debate and why always this one question.? How many times have you looked at someone's wedding ring and sheepishly asked that one nosey question "Love marriage.?"

   We all have myths and assumptions about both these methods of vowing to someone for life. If its a love marriage it must have been against the family. If its an arranged marriage the girl must be married for the money. If its a love marriage it must be inter caste and if its an arranged marriage it must be in the same sub section of the religious community. Says who?  A love marriage can be with the willful and happy consent of the family , an arranged marriage can be an inter caste marriage and it can be because the two people actually liked each other and not their bank balance. In an arranged marriage you don't just marry the boy you also marry the family . Why? In a love marriage the boy abandons his family? Highly unlikely.

    But no our nosey aunties never know how to mind their business and commercialize even the beautiful union of two beings into one. A wedding is usually the catalyst for ten other weddings cause how can Sharmaji not marry his daughter away to a  rich NRI just because Vermaji did , his daughter is pretty  too , capable enough to get a good catch. Cause marriage is not about the togetherness and the bond but about financial security. Its not about whether your likes, interests and dreams match but whether you have 10 house properties in 10 different states and one in "Am-rica" wouldn't hurt too. So what then , the youth of the nation is stuck in this mess just trying to find  a good match , someone they can come home to in the evening , someone to share a good life with while their parents scan balance sheets and call their contacts for a detailed background check. I know people who sent spies behind their future son/daughter in law just to be sure, weeks before the wedding. Yes Indians are a mad bunch of people. Eligible bachelors and bachelorettes are difficult to find so they must be trapped before someone else lays their eyes on them

   So what the young generation conveninetly does is finds their match themselves and names it love marriage. Usually its someone they work with, or someone they've known for long or just someone who made voilins play and dancers in the heart do the Kathak. I call it the marry a friend concept. Its so easy and convenient to marry someone you have known as a friend first than just a romantic partner. Someone who knows you in and out and knows all your quirks , has seen you in bermuda shorts and probably won't spit their drink when they see you without makeup. There is just no need to impress cause well you've already done enough crap in front of them to make a brand new image.The level of understanding and the instinct to compromise comes easily. In an arranged marriage from the start the idea of more compromise than normal is in our minds but in a  love marriage when the exact  same compromises need to be done you start feeling like ,you didn't sign up for this or the person has changed. Love marriages can't live upto the great expectations we keep on them and then they break making our elders look like the smart ones while they  give us the pityful look that says " I told you so"

People think that if you love somebody hard enough then everything is just gonna work out. People are wrong. - One Tree Hill

  I'm a true believer in arranged marriage, one cause I have seen many successful ones around me and two cause I think the whole thing about getting to know a person so closely, staying and adapting with them is beautiful. There is not a single person in the world that you cannot learn to love after you know their story. And an arranged marriage is based on exactly that. There will be awkwardness , a little hesitation and a little shyness but when the bond is finally forged there is nothing that could replace it and it would be like it has always been there. People misconceptualise an arranged marriage as a loveless marriage , which is far from true. My parents , your parents and most parents had arranged marriages and they worked out pretty well didn't they.? Well most of them did. Love is the only thing that will eventually make or break the marriage. Love always has to be the largest piece in the jigsaw, it can make up for a lot. There will be tough times in both the scenarios wether you fell in love before or after the wedding but what will make the rainbow come out when it rains is the Love.

  Now with changing times and liberal views as opposed to the early dictatorships experienced by some of us, people and their beliefs have started to change. Human beings have this tendency to always squeeze in a grey area  between two extremes and that my friends gives birth to " Love cum arranged marriage" .

It usually goes like this :

Step 1 : Girl love guy

Step 2 : Guy love girl

Step 3 : Guy goes with his parents to Girl's house. Guy shows off MBA degree , appeals to Dad. Guy shows off culinary skills, appeals to Mom. Guys take little brother on a sports bike , win for the little brother who didn't care anyway.

Step 4 : Girl cooks a 9 course meal, for the Guy's 9 generations , wears a saree while serving it - impresses EVERYBODY.

Step 5 : Parents discuss and eventually agree in a way that makes the bride and groom feel like they had been done a favour.

Step 6 : Thats it there are just 5 steps. Yeah and then the wedding ofcourse, more like since I have so much money lets stuff 500 odd people with it .

  With changing times forever also has become a relative term , and marriages break just as easily as they were made. And marriage is no more the solemn bond you swore to keep for life and something you would stick around with even when its making you unhappy. All you can wish for is that things will work out , there will be those times when you consider the option of homicide but others times its just comfortably tolerable  and when you make it through all that you without even knowing it have a successful marriage.

| There is a biblical story that says , 40 days before a male child is born , the universe shouts out the name of the girl he will marry. 

  I don't know how true that is but I do agree that someone is made for everyone and the universe conspires to unite the two souls (filmy I know , i know ) and one day someone will come and explain why it never worked out with anybody else and then it won't matter whether you have a love marriage or an arranged or if you had a grand wedding or a simple one. What will matter is that you'll are together. |

Check out this awesome short film on arranged marriage :D

PS : This is the first time I have ever written for a contest and I am a little nervous.

This post is a part of Indiblogger and Sony Entertainment's contest " Love Marriage ya Arranged" based on Sony's new show that is to air soon go checkout their facebook page here Love Marriage ya Arranged Marriage?