Money or no Money!

Unlike the other authors of this blog, I am still a very troubled soul in the marriage market. After meeting numerous guys, endless number of coffees, intruding comments I somehow reached a conclusion I would be comfortable marrying a guy I knew.

And then the interrogation began....mind you at this stage I haven't taken a guy's name (I don't have a guy in mind!this was just me thinking out loud to say I prefer a guy i knew)

-What caste is he from? (CASTE?!!! I live with an Indian, work with a jewish american and share my office space with a chinese guy, report to an American and you ask me caste!)
-The next big question, what is his family background? errr....do you even care if the guy has a job? What if his dad is a millionaire but he is an idiot sitting at home munching pakodas!
-How secure is his family financially? We will not have any family compatibility if they are not telugus! Their social status is lower than ours? Where are they from? Who is this guy?
It took them a zillion questions before the main one????!!! Are they wrong or am I getting my priorities wrong?

On the other end, they sent me on an "arranged date". Let look at his profile:
caste: Oh hell yeah! Telugu brahmin boy!
family background: Father is well settled in a village. No offense intended I respect his dad's profession but I don't see too much family compatibility between my dad who sips a drink once in a while and a well- settled person from a village who hasn't stepped into a city other than for work. The mother does not know a world beyond her husband gets a daughter-in-law who sips a drink once in a while!
But who cares, they are telugu brahmins there will be family compatibility. There are no doubts about it!
Financial security: The father is well settled but they don't know the boy's visa status/job for sure. He might not be secure. Again who cares, if the guy and I lose jobs, the father will feed us. Duhh!!!! He might just lie about his H1 papers...but hey! he is a telugu brahmin now thats a qualification that keeps him from cheating!

Oh now for the date: This is a guy who eats anything that moves! Err....still he was born into a brahmin family!poor thing life has been tough on him so he changed his eating habits!so what?!
The guy was courteous and really nice I must say for once no intruding comments but it just makes me wonder what is it that has the most importance. The guy or his family's financial security??? Is it really a crime if his parents depend on us financially at a later stage? My brain tells me they have a right to, after all its their son. So, why do we care so much about family financial backgrounds? Shouldn't the guy's job stability gain more importance than his family financial security? Shouldn't the guy be the most important factor when considering a marriage proposal?

Am I missing a point here?

"Is your son/daughter(s) settled in life?"

To attempt to answer this, one needs to know some theory behind this loaded question. Read: "Is your son/daughter having one and a half kid? Do they have a good job which gives enough salary to save atleast about 50% of what comes in, excluding the expenses? Do they have a home loan which is on the verge of completion? Do the kid/s go to a good school and are they dus bata dus students? Do you have any difference of opinions?" This is just the tip of the ice berg trust me! Unless it is a 'yes' to all the theory questions, you can say "Yes, my children are settled". Unfortunately these days, State Bank of India is not offering jobs to every child! If only that were the case, then the story would have been different.

What if one of them is still studying? Ans:" Tsk Tsk.. Pcch.. Poor you! It's OK, as soon as they finish you will be happy again. " Excuse me! Who's not happy now??
What if both are not living together? Ans: "Is their relationship alright? Is your SIL/DIL a good person?" I'm glad atleast one of them is suffering the distance when none of the others are! :)
What if one of them is studying and both are living together? I won't even bother to answer that. Clearly it is a route to disaster I am sure.

So much for 'settlement' in life... There's so much of gap between the immediate generation these days, that they fail to understand that the time has changed.

PS: The answers are all generic. There are special people who have different opinion on the subject and I am glad I belong to those families. :)

Marriage sounds claustrophobic???

Lot of 'single ready to mingle' kind of people that I meet these days have only one problem. They don't want to get married because they think if they do, they are going to lose out on their footloose and fancy free lifestyle.

It is only unfortunate that marriage is viewed more as cooking regularly, doing household stuff, taking more responsibilities either in terms of the partner or in terms of the 'dreaded' in-laws (No thanks to Saas- Bahu soaps!). If you think your life is not worth living anymore according to your terms, then I guess welcome to the world of marriage in soaps!!

Reality check: I've been married for two and a half years. The only thing that changed in my life is that I have a person who is ready to listen to me always and a person to share my views with. A person with who I have enough freedom to agree to disagree. Did I ever feel claustrophobic for being in a relationship?? I never thought about it that much. I still have my own space, pursue the same hobbies, am the same person.

I am sure there are a number of them who agree with this! Does it require effort? Or did I get plain lucky? I don't know!
So does marriage sound claustrophobic??For me: Nay- Been there, done that... :)

Committed With a 'K'

So, all these friends of mine keep coming to me and asking me how do you know? How did you decide? What do you really look for?

I've been putting off an answer for almost 5 months now. And I still don't have one. How do you know it's the right guy you've stumbled on?

The answer is, you don't, really.

I'm serious. How do I know for sure that my story is going to end with a "Happily Ever After"? I really don't. How do I know that we won't fight over smelly socks or Windows vs Linux? How do we know that we would love how the other person looks when they're 80 years old? Come to think of it, how do we even know that we're going to be 80?

We don't. We don't know a lot of things. And the more prepared we are to accept this uncertainity in life, the simpler it is for us.

It took me a long time to come to terms with this "truth". Fed as we have been on a diet of long blonde hair (who in India even has blonde hair except Amisha Patel in one of her ahem! phases?) and white horses that charge into the sunset. And stories of rings found inside fish and memories that enchant and love that transcends lifetimes.

I realized one morning that here is someone smart and sweet and sensitive, about as crazy as me and slightly more focussed in life. And I saw someone who I connected to and decided, I don't know about ever after, but right now looks pretty darn good... I'm not sure that I won't find someone "better" but who can define "better", really?

To all those friends of mine who can't make up their minds... You can't be too logical to think about marriage and come to a decision. Sometimes, its better to just let go...

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