The Great Indian Arranged Marriages

Most of the marriages that happens in India, specifically Tamil Nadu (:P) is 'Arranged'. Fact is: Many people like love marriages, but because of so MANY factors the poor youths have no other choice other than settling for an arranged marriage. I am NOT saying arranged marriages are bad and love marriage is great, not at all. That is totally different and debatable topic. This post is all about: What all happens in a typical arranged marriage. Please don't take it serious :) Please Please.

Arranged marriage is a 4 step process.

Phase 1: Project Opening Ceremony / Initiation

Scenario A: Broom House..oh sorry, "Groom's House"
Typically when the guy is at 26 or so, a popup reminder flashes in the parents brain and auto-snoozes every month. The reminder will say: Your son has reached the marriage age, start looking.

Scenario B: Bridge House.. oh sorry, "Bride's House"
When the girl is 21 or so, the same reminder flashes in the parents brain, but snoozes daily, that’s the difference.

Parents decide to take steps to get their son/daughter married. First step is to inform their closest relative that they have decided to get their son/daughter married. Parents will be all happy on that day, they will not sleep on that night. What they will do without sleeping - Dreams. They dream about the bride/groom, where and when to have marriage, whom all to invite, post-marriage activities etc. Their life never stays the same after this day. They communicate this decision to their son/daughter, and you could see them blush, but they won't express it out. Natural. Understood. Fine.

Phase 2: Project Kick-Off
Parents ask the son/daughter about the expectation from them. This expectation requirement will be communicated to that closest relative and few others as well. Mobile phones usage goes to the peak during this definition period. "You know, my son needs a girl of 5'10" height, beautiful, working, especially in IT, should be working in a company where she gets bonus every year, increment every year, modern blah blah and blah" and the list goes on and on till Vodafone cuts the call. All the brokers will be in high demand during this period and will be in full swing action. Parents will schedule for daily status update with all the brokers, closest relative, closestt relative, closesttt relative.

Phase 3: Project Implementation
In this phase, the beneficiaries are photo studios. They make good business by offering marriage-photo-package. I know a studio in Chennai that charge 5K+ for few marriage snaps. What’s next? Yes, all the brokers receive a copy of the photograph on the same day. The courier companies also make good business. The parents start seeing the photos of bride/groom. This first round is called “Photo-Screaming” round. Only at this time, their vision will be extra powerful and crystal clear, even the Sankara Nethralaya doctors cannot assure such a clear vision. The subtle points on the looks will be promptly noted by parents and they reject photos one-by-one. The photo that they think is the best goes to the second round, it’s called the "Astro-Mastro" round. In this round, the family Astrologers are invited to the house and the paper in which the squares are drawn in random (called Horror-scope) is given to the Astrologer. He looks at it and tells loud all the planets name he remembers – “Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Uranium, Benzene, Chlorine etc and etc should come in one line, the day it comes, the marriage can happen”. Also, the astrologer compares the Horror-scope of girl and boy and gives a comprehensive review and a match score card. If the score is more than 70% then the Astro declares that the couples are a perfect match. Don’t be surprised if the Astrologer says the score as “268 for 3 wickets” if he is a cricket fan. The next round is the “Desktop-Background-Verification” round. In this round, the parents hire a secret agency as freelancers, that’s their relatives. The message passed to them is “try to find out whether the boy/girl is of good character, no bad habits, their wealth, health, etc”. The secret agency feels proud of this assignment ad in-turn outsource the work to many small groups. I really don’t understand what these secret agents will do. After a week, these agents send a report to the parents. The probability of these reports to be at least 5% correct is ZERO. Parents asses the details like as if they are reading Gita / Kuran / Bible. If this round is also cleared, then this indicates the completion of the Technical round, now it’s the HR round that will be conducted by the son/daughter. “What is the name, education, work details, date of birth, height, hobbies” – few questions asked by the HR, that’s the son/daughter. Parents don’t answer these questions, instead they show a white sheet in which all these details are documented, the Marriage Resume. If the person fails to clear the HR round, then the parents start the Technical Round afresh with the “Photo-Screaming” round. Point to note is – HR interview happens by not seeing / talking to the candidate, that’s the rule of the project set by the project managers (parents).

When the person clears HR round too, it’s time to initiate the joining formalities, that’s the time to talk about marriage. Boys side parents, relatives and the boy go to the girl house for the 1st time. They are treated with Kg and Kg of sweets, some special dishes which the girl’s mom have tried for the first time. Irrespective of the taste of the food / sweet / un-named dish, the boy side says it’s the best food item they have ever had; the digestive system manager hears this from inside of the body and just cries and the person immediately asks “where is the loo”. The girl usually comes after the parents called her name “name_of_person come come”. The girl comes with dozens of coffee tumblers (even though there are only 2 people from the boy side) with her eye sight perpendicular to the ground. While serving coffee to the boy, there is a 2-second extra wait deliberately made by the girl. All four eyes meet. Romance. A full length Manirathnam movie with AR Rehman score completes in 2 seconds. Boy like girl and vice-versa. Boy asks parent “can I talk to the girl for sometime”. The parents react as if they heard “can I goto Bombay and do a sex-change operation” and immediately stare and say “No”. Pity the boy, also the girl. The talks like – date of marriage, place, budget etc are discussed and they come to a mutual agreement by exchanging two copper vessels in which saree, flowers, fruits are kept. This is the “Sar-Flo-Fru-Treaty”. Everyone puts the first gear and moves ahead for marriage related work. Marriage happens.

Phase 4: Project Maintenance
Post-Marriage!