The BIG Fat Indian Arranged Marriage...

Act 1
The drama unfolds when an uncle or aunt's comments[rather a snide remark] make our parents think that their kid is getting really old and it's time he/she stops enjoying life. After all happiness is not everything in life. So they conclude we are ready for the holy union. The same uncles and aunts are then used for broadcasting the availability of an eligible bachelor/spinster in the household.

Act II
The show starts with a bang. With phrases like "Fair,slim,goodlooking girl wanted"(for a Bappi Lahiri look alike)... or a "Boy with decent family background and clean habits"(for a girl who idolizes Rakhi Sawant) going around in matrimonial columns or portals.

Act III
The verification, validation and elimination round. Innumerable matches are browsed and are eliminated based on pedigree[The Aunt: The bride's sister's brother-in-law is married to a person from another community it seems..how blasphemous].

Mars is in second house and Venus is in 4th house, that's a bad combination for a horoscope you see. If we marry this person there will be bad luck for the next 14 generations.The groom's father, mother, brother, sister and puppy will get a cardiac arrest, a tsunami will strike from the flush and engulf the house. No way we can take a person with this kind of horrorscope !! -- This is the uncle-ji.

A year passes by … they get bored and lose hope with this act. Then starts the phenomenon called as *.* search. Well it goes like this.........
First the parents would have started off with the search string 'Beautiful iyengar girl looking out for vadakalai iyengar boy preferably professionally qualified'...then due to lower success rate it is now changed to 'Beautiful iyengar bride looking for iyengar professionally qualifed groom'.W ith not much success either the search criteria is transformed to 'Iyengar girl looking for brahmin boy'...then at a later point changes to vegetarian boy. Finally the search is like Bridegroom wanted..caste, community no bar(Wah! wah!what a broad mindedness)...this implies to all castes,communities and creeds(last survey counted more than 50 thousand castes in my state alone)

ACT IV
At last the wedding gets fixed with some compromise or the other. Then comes the huge cost involved in an arranged marriage. The bride's & groom's side competes in building up a crowd. Hence we can see old pals, school/tuition teachers, plumbers, car mechanics, newspaper boy anyone and everyone who the bride or groom's side knows. We need witnesses for once in a lifetime occurrence you see. Of course jewels, silk saris and 'n' number of food varieties are there in the list by default.

The compromises too are not reached without a reason. The color and looks of the bride determines the dowry rate(let's not be so crass..its called kanyadhaan).The fair & slim girl conditions can be compromised if a few bucks are passed.

ACT V
Post all the drama and tamasha slowly the truth starts sinking in for the boy and girl. The boy thinks his wife is extremely beautiful, caring and would bear him kids who would win Spelling bee contests. But she may turn out to be someone who hates guy's who has parents or someone who won’t get a proper sleep if she hasn't heard the sound of her hubby's credit card being swiped every day.

And the girl who was expecting this caring and sensitive husband, may realize her man is as caring as Emperor Nero and the sense part..well he may be a non-sense though, especially if it's someone like me, whose idea of a fashion icon is govinda and the only sport he plays is throwing pop-corn into his mouth as he watches IPL,ICL,India Vs.Holland, Ranji trophy and any cricket match played on the television.

Final ACT
The man and woman realize there is no way to get out of this and either end up loving each other, probably sympathizing with the other’s plight Or they keep the marriage intact by remaining single deep inside their hearts.

Yes yes.. accepted arranged marriages have a positive side too. It's like a huge family reunion and two unconnected families coming together..where else can we expect the guy serving sambhar or one giving you rose milk to be a distant relative and gives aptitude books a run for the money in solving the blood relations puzzle.

With all its pitfalls and drawbacks the show still goes on with the BIG Fat Indian arranged marriage.

And yeah the Rebelz take on the same - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-VpTnliFRk ;-)

----The End----

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The Art of wooing....duh!!

I am almost nearing 30, ok am not sure whether I should feel sad about getting old or feel happy that I have more years of work experience and hence demand more pay. Whatsoever!! This post is not about me getting old,but about how I have totally forgotten something which I could claim I was pretty good at just a few years back - the art of wooing.

I remember the good old training batch days in my previous company,nop I wasn't a cassanova but I could atleast go up to totally unknown girl,start a topic,build an interesting conversation and a rapport[which eventually ends with exchange of phone numbers and some evenings in CCD]. But now...duh!!..to put it mildly, if I were a girl I won't fall for myself[I meant a boring, self occupied guy like me].

I have totally lost it. May be the corporate culture has made me more professional and I don't venture out of topics other than the boring,bland official ones with the pretty girls at work place, or may be I have got more mature with time and know that girls[or rather women] don't fall for cool looking/sounding strangers or may be another weird reason,my theare group, at times I say goodbye to my flirtatious alter ego[especially during auditions] since any wrong impression created by me might end up giving bad reputation to the whole theatre group[not that all the other guys involved are Ram avtars..still]..thousands of may bes but the final conclusion is that I am pretty boring man.There are times when Ms.Destiny throws me in the company of pretty girls but then approaching them?.. I am as confident as Manmohan singh facing an over from Brett lee at the Gabba pitch..duh!! again.

Sheesh..this post in going into the self sympathy mode.Hope it's fine to do it once in a while, especially after my travails last week. Last thurday was one of those rarest days where I got a good bunch of folks to visit a club, we hit a place called escape which normally overflows with stags but that lucky nite it had lot of pretty girls.Not just pretty but kinda non-committed and ready to dance with anyone kinds[chuck the fact away that they would be 18-19year olds].

Add to it I was getting lots of positive vibes from a pretty girl in turquoise blue top.Ok I know only blue,at the max sky blue,never heard about a color called turquoise. The only turqoise I know is this mineral which is the phosphate form of copper and aluminium, chemical formula CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O...hope you get an idea into how boring I am now. The lady who accompanied me explained it as turquoise blue [women n colors..aah...I don't mind being called color blind].Getting on with the story this TB girl [turquoise blue n not tuberclosis] was giving a sweet smile at me [or was it the effect of her vodka] and we also had a decent dance together,first time I twirled around someone without dropping the person and getting booked for attempt to muder, also the twirl was graceful ,not my normal messy hands & necks thingy.

Yet I was stuck in my own world,unable to make the move and have a proper chat with her or even strike a conversation. I had no clue as to which topic I can speak about,surely not about the chemical formula of turqoise..seriously felt like how sanjay singhania of ghajini would feel after the 15th minute. Reconciling to the fact that nothing is gonna happen I then decided to do something smarter,spend time with the folks who I had for company and we did have a fun time.

Let me stop cribbing and go n grab this book called "Art of wooing" authored by a boston based social psychologist[funky term that..wouldn't girls love to speak with me if I claim to be one]. At the same time continue sighing at the green eyed beauty in my office until I get back a little bit of that lost art. Amen!!!

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Ram Sena here I come....

Long hours in office and even worse, working on weekends have made sure that I don't blog often, much to the happiness of many souls who got weeded out with my last post. But then I am back..argh I sound like some wannabe tamil super star who turns around stylishly and tells "I am back" though in reality none missed me :-).

Coming back to the topic (I am resolved this time around), the disgusting act @ mangalore pub stood as a testimony for the lack of historical/cultural value of the goondas involved. What’s all the fuss about? For thousands of years alcohol has been a part of indian culture and add to it ramayan, mahabharat speak about separate shalas for drinking..now aren't they kind of pubs. So buggers better don't stop me from following my ancient traditions. Jai Shri ram ki...three cheers..hic!!

And now coming to my other grouse..the 2d Saturday of this month, the day I dread the most and my annual brush with it. Every year when the calendar in my house screams Feb.14th I feel so frustrated and hope tragedies like a nuclear war, a meteor strike or a new SRK release takes place.

Should be a case of sour grapes, I am no 'pyar ki dushman' like the hindi movie heroinee's dad. When I hear questions like 'so what you do on feb14th' or a weird stare as if I am an alien when I say 'I don't have a girlfriend', seriously feel the idea of some huge scale tragedy is better.If I sound like a despo well fine I guess I am one.. Especially a cyber despo who hunts for victims on the net so if you know me personally count your days.

This may be because I am still waiting to get my kind of girl.. I know, I know such a weird imagination, and finding that kind of girl would be as be as tough as making me wear Kareena's jeans.

My first experience of VD(valentines day..if u remember a disease with the same short form I can't help it) was during my first year of college. I was in Loyola, an all guy’s college and my gang of friends bought around 10 tickets for a movie on feb14th.It fell on the first Friday, a day where we can go an hour late to college, thanks to the holy mass. We did not have an inkling of the holy and special importance of Feb 14th. On that specific day only 4 of us cud make to the film hall and Lo!! There was a sea of humanity. Guys of different shapes, sizes and colors with girls of the same specifications had crowded there, the guys holding their partner's hands so tightly as though she is gonna run away with a better looking one and the girls giggling for sweet nothings. Maaan we really felt left out and wanted to scream our hearts, lungs, kidneys out "I too want a girl!!!” but finally my brain(sometimes it works too) thought of an idea. We decided to sell all the 10 tickets we had, what with some of the crazy morons ready to shell out a bomb for it. After bumper sales with 300% profit we had a blast of a time in our own way. So VD had created some young entrepreneurs. Hail VD and down with those who are against it.

But soon after that year the reality of VD stuck me and most of my pals did settle with one or the other (meant the girl or her close pal who was messenger of love) for a VD date. And I take utmost care as to what to do on VD, this is applicable to all singles who are reading this a) Listen to music that is the utterly unromantic probably hearing Annu mallik/Reshammiya sing a duet will give some reasons to live thru the dreaded day b) Read about love stories which have failed or of stories about a college in Chennai which suspends guys or gals if they speak with each other.

Next is selecting the right TV channel preferably sports or cartoon, if at all you enter into the music channels, sorry I can assure you that you will end up drinking rat poison or aerated drink outta depression.They normally show the love affair of the newspaper boy, dhoodhwalla, dabbawalla and who not? and this is what seriously makes me to join the Ram sena.

If you take all the above mentioned precautions, hopefully you will carry on like me with the desperate single guy (DSG..wow sounds like DGP)tag without ending up as a violent fanatic thrashing girls at pubs. Though my DSG tag is fastly moving towards the danger of being taken off,I expect it to hang in her for few more months. So guys your pretty lady colleagues, neighbour's daughter, uncle's brother-in-law's niece and every other lady whom you have a crush on are still not safe...Beware!!

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