Of Friendship and Travel!!!!

I am getting married. Very soon, really soon, sooner than you think. you may ask, why am I repeating this to myself, it’s probably because I am trying to come in terms with it myself. It’s not that I am not excited about the marriage or anything; it’s just that you get a lot of usual jitters….thinking about what the marriage entails, the whole lot of changing equations….the plethora of emotions, the omnipresent uncertainties, the changing me!!!!
I have stayed with Mohan, my roommate for over a year. He is been a senior from law school and a roommate, ever since he moved to Bangalore to join the big “Jewish” Golman Sachs. For all those who don’t know, here is a fun fact. Most of the top billionaires in US and the big bosses of the really big bad investment banks have a all been Jewish. God gifted them with the fabled money mindedness. Anyway, that being an aside, let’s return to Mohan.
As I enter this new phase of life, that is getting married, I can look back and safely say, I am going to miss him, miss his company, miss the travel, and miss all the stupid and silly talks, the agreements to disagree and above all the travels.
Yes, we travelled, we travelled a lot. Most of the time just the two of us, until new found friends, Jakob, Thomas and Hilka came in to the picture. and what fun we had? What fun!!! we have wolves chasing us, nature slapping us on our face, not to be screwing around with her, having a leopard running around our tent in the middle of the night, me falling in a ditch with Mohan holding my t shirt trying to pull me out, jingling keys in the middle of the night to keep the khichkarni away, going white water rafting, trekking and the like, the list, guys is endless. I cherish every moment of it. It pains me deeply to think that these will change and soon. Mohan tells me that this would not have been possible if we didn’t have the same mindset….though I agree with him, I also think, it’s more to do with him forcing me to go the extra mile. I love travelling but then I would not have enjoyed it as much, if it was not for Mohan.
Mohan is the one who convinced me to buy a good DSLR camera; I did buy a Nikon D80 and I think that it’s a fabulous buy. I have learnt to take snaps without closing one eye, and achievement which was from ever instilled confidence from Mohan.
We joined Muay Thai (read Thai kick boxing) classes together, sweated it out, collapsed, drained out together, lay on the carpet tired beyond our wits, all screwed up.
I am quite emotional….do not think I want to write any further…..
Hope the craziness never dies out…hope the travelling never stops …..I am going to miss you dude….a lot mate….

Meet the Parents!!!!

Well, I want the reader to start by asking a very simple question to themselves, as they start reading this post. The question being, “are you married?” if the answer is “yes”, well read on, recollect and introspect. If the answer is “no”, read on and do so carefully. Take it as a “Book for Dummies” or “The Survival Book” or whatever you may like to call it. But read carefully because it might help. On second thoughts, not really though. Nothing can prepare you for what may be dished out in the process.

In India, there are two kinds of marriages that can happen, “love marriages” and “arranged marriages”. Love marriages are those where you find your own bride; that is a metamorphosis from a “boyfriend/ girl friend” to “husband/ wife” takes place. Arranged marriages, on the other hand are where you really have no clue as to what’s coming your way and the best way to describe the same is, to be “venturing into the unknown!!!!” Arranged marriages are what we are going to be talking about here.

Let’s start with how an arranged marriage works. Parents, relatives, all those people who take it upon themselves to be our self appointed well wishers (as in most cases) to find a “suitable” match for us. They employ various available means for the purpose. They talk to friends, relatives, browse through matrimonial columns, visit matrimonial sites and as in some cases these days look at every beautiful girl/ handsome guy on the road and visualize a prospective bride/ groom.

The process involves scanning through numerous photographs and  bio data (equivalent of a curriculum vitiae), in some cases astrological charts, rashis, kundalis (some believe in them while some don’t). Some even go to the extent of getting the kundalis of the prospective bride and groom matched against each other and evaluated by astrologers and professional Pandit ji.

Then of all the prospects, some are short listed, further shortlisted and then debated internally, talked about with the groom or the bride as the case may be and then communicated to the respective families.

But tarry a little. That’s not all. There’s more. Once the “yes” has been communicated, starts a process of court ship and background checks. That’s when you dig up a snake when looking for worms.

Everybody has a past and it’s best left unattended, undisturbed, unanalyzed. Once we start doing these background checks, we invariably come  across some amount of information which disturbs us, which makes us put a question mark on the character of the individual in question.

There’s more to it. In the case of arranged marriages, I believe the expectations, these days are too high and that’s probably the reason why we get disappointed at most of the time. Come to think of it, when was the last time, you got everything that you wanted at a given point of time. Hardly right!!!   You have to compromise somewhere to be happy. Otherwise, you will just about keep on looking without ever being happy. And that would suck, and truly so.

The bottom line being, it’s a long drawn process, very subjective in nature and the more you play with it, the more it gets to you. And that’s when you had it.

Love marriages, well it’s another story….