भीगी बिल्ली

I can’t believe it that things that I’ve ever hated can happen to me. Marriages have become a market these days. I mean marriages are sacro-sanct. But the way they are being commodified… just puts my mind into a spin.
From looking for a match – to dowry and to arrangements and the pomp and show that involves – and the give and take to relatives and money exchanging with invitation cards…
But then there are today matrimonial sites… bureaus were there earlier and were match-makers.
But it wasn’t as commodified as it is now.
The basic advertisement for a girl… “tall, slim, convent educated, fair, 5 ft 6 in… and all blah blah”. Come on man… are you selling your girl like potatoes and onions and tomatoes…? “Taaza hai sahab… le jaiye… dekiye toh sahi – rang kaise nikhar ke aaya hai tamatar ka… khaenge toh mazaa aa jayega.”
I hate this and I hate this…
But then there are people who argue, “All cannot marry after falling in love and if one wants to marry, one has to look for guys or gals around and advertising is one way.”
They are right… to some extent. You see, even animals look for the best match… especially the females… Yes… they do… but then animals’ parents do not advertise… the female animal looks for the best and the strongest match. Males fight it out amongst themselves to woo the female and the strongest wins her over.
But then we are social animals and that gives us the right to advertise. And that gives us the right to commodify our daughters and sisters.
Will this ever stop? The girl has to have the right to pick and choose… but then advertise… if one must… in a sober way…
How? I’m not sure… but there has to be a better way out.
I said in the beginning that I’m facing this. One might get an impression that I’m a girl. No… I’m not. But this is surely happeing around me and things though are not at home right now, so my girl’s parents have decided upon this.
I have nothing against her parents but then where is her choice and a decision will be taken or is being taken without her consent… without asking her if she approves of this advertising or not, or is she ready for marriage, or is she seeing somebody or not…?
When will our parents realise that we make 99.99% of the decisions ourselves today? So why not let us decide this issue as well? If I’m above 25 today and the girl is above 25, when our parents were of that age — they probably had two or three or more than that children and a couple of them going to school. And I’m sure, their parents (our grandparents) weren’t taking these decisions. Their parents probably took their marriage decision but then they were hardly 18 at that time. Some of these matches were fixed when they were kids and “gauna” was done when they matured.
“Jab chidiya ke bachche bade ho jate hain, toh woh udd jate hai aur unhe apna ghosla banane ka adhikar hai.”
So please let us…. Do not rule our marriages. We love you parents… we care for your concerns, but we are matured enough to decide our life partners. After all it’s the girl and the boy who have to spend the major part of their life with each other and not the parents. Parents will be there around but only 10% of the time. What’s amazing is that parents have most of the times frivolous objections, which are guided by equally frivolous prejudices…
“Mera ghosla kahaan ha?”
Somewhere round the corner.
Come on life, I’m ready to embrace you… so come on life…