A New Era of Matrimony
Aakanksha Singh, 24/05/2010
It's raining marriages recently, 16th may Delhi records ~20K marriages, Mumbai was far ahead with ~50K wow! I wonder, if all these marriages are trademark heaven, how busy god might have been with the task of paring the perfect ones, because looking at the preparations here surely Earthians drill every nook and corner of the marriage commodities market.
Away from the flashy lights, a peek into the groom-bride hunt is a tiring journey in the service class community. The search is dominated caste (to be understood), family status followed by right age, educational qualifications, job status and security, physical compatibilities of skin color to boy-girl height ratios etc etc - initial screen test passed. The next scene unfolds "meeting of the prospective couple", an affirmative nod implies background search of the boy (inquiring at work place to get a general ans). Merrily the families come together and propose the marriage budget. Common middle class rates are 20-25 lakhs (the girl's family sheds it, strictly for marriage preparations), backed by phrases of "parivar ki izzat ka sawal hai" "rishtedor ka aise mauke par khayal na rakhe ge to kab" "apki beti jab hamari hui to hamari ijjat bhi to apke haath mein hui, bas aur kya chaiye". The bundles of loans, Debt from friends, relatives follows. Becuase to be true, the girls parents earnings were spent on her education and managing the house, and whatever the parent could save has lost the value in today's modernized society. And apart from money, you can only be hopeful that your to be spouse meets the bare minimum criteria to understand you as an individual.
This materialization and commercialism of relation of the present days has left more than a few in a flux, they cannot bring themselves to be a part of the arranged (its fixed rather) setup, and hardly have any alternatives to look for , where parents concerns as well as their like-mindedness form the base of a relation giving money a backstage.
A few years back i wanted to help my friend, advice her as to what alternative could be, and i had no clue, and the situation occurred couple of days back with another of my friend. Having seen 25-30 years of life, it warms the heart to be able to hold hands with a companion for life, today we base our thinking on realistic dreams, the Cinderella story tales are over. sensible, self made, self morals and principles, an outlook to life and the mindset to deal with it are a part of what we are today. Now if in these times i am only looking for a like-minded guy or girl to spent the rest of my life and if Pre-marriage love didn't flourish in my life, do i have to bring myself to adhere to a system with is difficult to get under my throat.
Some of us are faced with this question, but hardly with any moderate alternates as in if not the same caste than maybe an acceptable one to the family but a person on my thinking lines. Seems too much to ask for. we are aware that the confluence to 2 different personalities calls for adjustments, up-downs/disagreements difference of opinions are a part and parcel but with equitable mutual respect and a sense of understanding is appreciable too. And if that's there, i guess why to lash out so much money, we can convince family going through a rigmarole with them and if not at least device a way by taking shared responsibility on our (the engaged couple) shoulder's rather than burdening one's parents alone.
Hence, the idea of why not to bring up a platform for mutual arrangements for people who are more of true socialists, and those who want to be initiators of this social change but rather do not find an accessible medium for actually bring it into their lives. Thinking on these lines, why not we take up the task of associating with matrimonial sites, magazines, newspapers for bringing up sections where the profiles are browseable based on off beat track, and on similar lines we form up our own group, promote in families, friends, work place etc etc and create it ourselves.
~ Aakanksha Singh (A volunteer from AID NOIDA Chapter)
It's raining marriages recently, 16th may Delhi records ~20K marriages, Mumbai was far ahead with ~50K wow! I wonder, if all these marriages are trademark heaven, how busy god might have been with the task of paring the perfect ones, because looking at the preparations here surely Earthians drill every nook and corner of the marriage commodities market.Away from the flashy lights, a peek into the groom-bride hunt is a tiring journey in the service class community. The search is dominated caste (to be understood), family status followed by right age, educational qualifications, job status and security, physical compatibilities of skin color to boy-girl height ratios etc etc - initial screen test passed. The next scene unfolds "meeting of the prospective couple", an affirmative nod implies background search of the boy (inquiring at work place to get a general ans). Merrily the families come together and propose the marriage budget. Common middle class rates are 20-25 lakhs (the girl's family sheds it, strictly for marriage preparations), backed by phrases of "parivar ki izzat ka sawal hai" "rishtedor ka aise mauke par khayal na rakhe ge to kab" "apki beti jab hamari hui to hamari ijjat bhi to apke haath mein hui, bas aur kya chaiye". The bundles of loans, Debt from friends, relatives follows. Becuase to be true, the girls parents earnings were spent on her education and managing the house, and whatever the parent could save has lost the value in today's modernized society. And apart from money, you can only be hopeful that your to be spouse meets the bare minimum criteria to understand you as an individual.
This materialization and commercialism of relation of the present days has left more than a few in a flux, they cannot bring themselves to be a part of the arranged (its fixed rather) setup, and hardly have any alternatives to look for , where parents concerns as well as their like-mindedness form the base of a relation giving money a backstage.
A few years back i wanted to help my friend, advice her as to what alternative could be, and i had no clue, and the situation occurred couple of days back with another of my friend. Having seen 25-30 years of life, it warms the heart to be able to hold hands with a companion for life, today we base our thinking on realistic dreams, the Cinderella story tales are over. sensible, self made, self morals and principles, an outlook to life and the mindset to deal with it are a part of what we are today. Now if in these times i am only looking for a like-minded guy or girl to spent the rest of my life and if Pre-marriage love didn't flourish in my life, do i have to bring myself to adhere to a system with is difficult to get under my throat.
Some of us are faced with this question, but hardly with any moderate alternates as in if not the same caste than maybe an acceptable one to the family but a person on my thinking lines. Seems too much to ask for. we are aware that the confluence to 2 different personalities calls for adjustments, up-downs/disagreements difference of opinions are a part and parcel but with equitable mutual respect and a sense of understanding is appreciable too. And if that's there, i guess why to lash out so much money, we can convince family going through a rigmarole with them and if not at least device a way by taking shared responsibility on our (the engaged couple) shoulder's rather than burdening one's parents alone.
Hence, the idea of why not to bring up a platform for mutual arrangements for people who are more of true socialists, and those who want to be initiators of this social change but rather do not find an accessible medium for actually bring it into their lives. Thinking on these lines, why not we take up the task of associating with matrimonial sites, magazines, newspapers for bringing up sections where the profiles are browseable based on off beat track, and on similar lines we form up our own group, promote in families, friends, work place etc etc and create it ourselves.
~ Aakanksha Singh (A volunteer from AID NOIDA Chapter)
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