Hello folks! Hope you enjoyed my previous blogs.
When I went to Bangalore for my internship, it so happened that during the
weekdays I was all by myself most of the time. At work, I was the only intern
in my department and the others in my department were all seniors and were
loaded with work or were always discussing things about life and this went over
my head. And even when I got back to my PG, I was surrounded by a lot of
strangers and for the first time in life I didn’t make any good friends there.
They all belonged to a totally different planet or maybe I was the odd one. So
when I retreated to my shell and remained silent for hours, my brain actually
started working after a long time and 'bhavana' attacked me. And thus a few
stories were penned down.
So the topic for the day is my wedding!
I do not know if I should write this story, as I
am of the "marriageable age" but if you get to see it then it means
that my censor board- Amma, has approved and has let me post this ;)
Let me start blabbering! And no arguments from
you people, coz I am speaking what’s in my mind and I am not here for a debate.
All the crazy things written below are for purely entertainment purposes :D
When debates are held on the topic "Love
marriage vs arranged marriage" we see that there are n number of points
for and against both of them. I am neutral when it comes to love and arranged
marriage as I believe that its all dependent on the participant individuals and
the surroundings if their marriage would work or not.
But when
I look at the faces of strangers on my matrimonial page and wonder, "Would
he be the father of my kids?" (I know I shouldn’t think so much, but when
you have decided to opt for arranged marriage, then what I said is true na?
Some stranger who you see through the matrimonial site or through some mutual
acquaintance is going to father your child!) I feel, it would be damn convenient
if you knew your future husband atleast by face.
For eg: If I was told I was to marry Ranveer
Singh next month, I would panic about having to marry a total stranger, but
atleast I wouldnt have to waste time trying to remember how this guy looks
like!! In the case of arranged marriage, you dont really get to hang out with
the guy a lot provided you both are in the same city or there is a lot of time
between your engagement and wedding and the biggest factor of all-your parents
must be okay with it( or you should be daring enough to sneak out :D ) So thats
the biggest advantage of marrying a friend or acquaintance or neighbour or
relative or similar. You know his face!
And about knowing the person, I have nothing
much to say there as I have heard that all men( & women) wear this PERFECT
mask before the wedding happens and once the thing is official would just
remove the mask part by part and you get to see a total stranger! I know just
the theory, would confirm this once I marry.
So I am currently in this stage where a vast
majority of my friends have married and have kids and even the guys have
started getting married. I am just 24, and independent working women have 3
more years of time to actually settle down with their job and career and think
about marriage to an equal. But the sympathy filled looks of the people around
me and the frequent calls Amma gets from my prospective in-laws are all making
me bored to death.
If what Pooja believes in Dil to paagal hai is
correct, "Kahin na kahin, koi na koi, hamare liye zaroor banaya gaya
hai", then "My Guy" is out there somewhere. And I desire to give
him one tight slap when we meet! How romantic! I know ;) I have a good reason
for this.
In the quest to find him, life has presented me
with enough experiences that I feel he is responsible for majority of it. If
atleast he gave some assurance that he actually exists, I could have thrown it
on the faces of all those people who look at me with sympathy and also those
people who tell me, "Enough of enjoyment. Go get married!" “Why are
you still single?”Hello people! Do you think that I have a long queue of
suitors at my front gate daily and I reject all their proposals as they do not
look like Hrithik Roshan? Or do you expect me to approach guys and ask them to
marry me. Dont you all feel that, when it is time, my marriage will happen and
that it is not in my hands to marry asap? (Not that I want to hitch myself
anytime in near future :D ) And not to forget my perfect horoscope which does
not match with any of the nice guys out there!!
Amma has put my profile on the matrimonial site
and we get requests and calls and messages daily. Thankfully I have not yet met
any guy in person or talked to anyone, all thanks to my horoscope which is on
strike and would not match with any of the wonderful guys we like! And we have
a lot of weird people out there
Some of them are worth mentioning. Here you go:
1. Mr. Dasettan
You
all know that the talkative and irritating me
is confident about ending up with a man like Das from Bangalore days.
One of the first proposals we got were from a similar kinda guy. One look at
his foto and I knew he would be damn matured and reserved and would have
nothing to say to me except, "Grow up Gayathri" He was the kind of
guy who your parents would trust and he looked like someone who invested in
shares and ate food with forks and spoons. He looked like he doesn't own one funky
colored T-Shirt. Life would have been black and white. And silent! The guy
wouldnt argue and might even practice yoga. A photo speaks volumes :P But
horoscopes didnt match. End of story.
2. Mr. Pamban
I
am not sure if I am right, but if you observe the pics of a person in the
matrimonial sites, you get a small idea about the kind of person he is.
Generally people make it a point to keep their best photos in the matrimonial
site- atleast I did :P
So one particular proposal came, the profile was
perfect. NIT and IIM and well paid job. In the first pic, he looked like he
doesnt give a damn about the world- pacha malayalathil paranjal oru puchcham
poleyulla expression. The next foto- He had a snake around his neck. Wow!
Kollalo! Daring aadmi hai ;) But I smelt a show off somewhere. Then came
another pic, with a tiger cub. I was reminded of the movie Om Shanti Om, where
SRK plays with a tiger and says, "Ohh..tiger cat! Naughty cat, naughty
cat.Yenna rascala mind it!" Satyam paranjal chiri vannu. Why all these
pics in his matrimonial profile? Luckily
or unluckily, our horoscopes didnt match and so all my dreams of going abroad
and posing with snakes and lions were shattered there! Nammakk pattideyum
poochedeyum koode foto edukkana vidhi.
3. Mr. Perfect
Being
an MBA student, many matrimonial profiles remind me of marketing lessons I have
learnt. Our son is the best in the world/ He is a very smart, handsome,
brilliant......,etc etc
Come on- marry my son! He is the best in market.
Additional features : My son is a trained classical singer, he has done MBA in
the best colleges of US. He works for a Fortune 500 company. Hurry Hurry! Offer
till my son's single status lasts!
I really get scared seeing such profiles. The
guys are portrayed as being soooo perfect that it scares me. The crazy mind of
mine starts thinking- What could be wrong with him? He is soo damn perfect!
Womanizer? Gay? Underworld? Drug addict? Which one of this would he be?
So now this guy had a tick mark in all the
entries of my Mom's checklist of “My perfect son-in-law”! I was not very keen
on this guy coz his profile was damn perfect! I just hoped that my horoscope
saves me. But alas! Even his horoscope was perfect and our horoscope match
score was 8/10!! That was the beginning of an era! His Dad called and I was
hoping he was rude or behaved so badly that Amma would hate him. But No! He had
the best behaviour. He spoke for about 10 minutes about his son, who was the
youngest to hold his current position and blah blah smart blah blah ambitious!
B-A-D-A-Y-I!!!
So both
families checked horoscopes and they said that the guy was on a tour and so he
hasn’t seen my profile yet and that they would inform us as soon as he comes
back.( I guess he went to Antarctica or maybe some deep sea to explore oil
reserves where you don’t get internet connectivity!)
We waited for more than a month. I doubted if
the guy got caught in the Bermuda triangle and he never came back L And Amma
messaged to enquire. The Mom talked this time and she was like this ideal Mom-in-law.
“We loved your daughter, but our son hasn’t come back yet. We will be coming to
India in Feb. So we will come over then. The wedding can be held after June.”Which
part of the above conversation means that they are not interested? But that was
it! They never called!! :P My Amma was devastated :P We all cornered her and
she became the target of all our jokes!
And then last month, the element of my
Mom’s tears was in his FB profile- HE WAS ENGAGED! And the girl was a Chemical
Engineer like him. I smelt a love marriage somewhere.
So one request to all the committed people- Oru
nivarthiyillathe matrimonialil profile kodukkunna daridravaasikale oru mathiri
Sasiyakkaruth. If you plan to marry ur respective bf/gf please don’t create
matrimonial profiles and if you create please don’t respond to any requests!
Kaalu pidikkam! :P
4. Mr. IES
Proposals came in every now and then, but the
whole while, Achan made no comments. But then came in a proposal from Palakkad.
B.Tech from one of the best colleges of Kerala and then IES- Yes Indian
Engineering Services. Achan was really very happy. Central govt. Sneham!
His Mom was really very keen on this proposal.
She kept on calling saying that they checked horoscopes and asked us to check
the same.
And his house was near one of my most favourite
temples of Palakkad. My stupid mind started its imagination- Maybe he is the
one and maybe that’s why I liked the temple so much. I was destined to visit it
every now and then :P
Then I saw his profile. He was one serious guy.
2 pics- No smile! Slim guy!!! And he worked in KERALA!
Look! Its not that working in Kerala is a bad
thing. But my understanding is that, as distance from home increases, you will
be missed more.
Lets look at this scenario. I get married to an
NRI. Most probably, I would visit home only once a year. At max twice a year.
And when I visit, I would get VIP treatment. All my favourite dishes on the
table. When someone asks Achan about me, he would say, ”Chinnu is coming from
Antarctica for a month’s vacation.” Wow!! Then he would have to take a day’s
leave to come to the airport and receive me! We would Skype daily. And everyone
might even cry on seeing me (Not coz I will pester them till the end of my
vacation! ;)
Now let us look at the scenario on hand. My
husband works in Kochi which is just 4 hours away from Calicut. If I want I can
come home on Tuesday evening after work and then go back on Wednesday morning
and still go for work. Boring! I can come home whenever I want( which is a good
thing) but where is the glamour? I would come by train and no one would even
come to receive me! I come home in an auto rickshaw and then enter and people
would not even look up from their work. No one would miss me, coz hey you are
never really gone. You come home every other weekend Chinnu!! We don’t get a
chance to miss you girl! B-O-R-I-N-G!
And so I was disappointed about this Kerala
working guy. Achan was happy about that too ( Railway station is closer to my
house than airport! And he needn’t take leave too!!) Another reason why I
disliked him was because he was thin. I am fat and I had taken this oath that I
would marry only someone who weighed atleast 10 kgs more than me! This guy
looked so damn slim! And I had no proof if he had teeth. He did not smile in
both the photos given in his profile. I started hyperventilating! I hoped that
our astrologer would say that the horoscopes would not match. But both the days
Achan went to meet him, he was not there. I thought I would die of high blood
pressure.
The guy worked for the Railways. Day and night
Mummy talked about the advantages of marrying him.
1.
You get to travel all over India free of cost in
the first class compartment (The guy who doesn’t even smile would not be
interested in petty things like travelling, right? )
2.
You would have your own quarters! ( And I
thought I would be staying in my Burj Khalifa apartment :P )
3.
He would have a good pension (Wait!! Don’t go
that far!!)
And my friends had other things to say:
1.
You will have to get my tickets confirmed and
book emergency quota for me
2.
Gayathri, he might even help you to get a job in
the railway ticket counter
3.
Your kids can study in the Railway school ( Eh
:O )
My friends started teasing me. When we have team
lunches in Mainland China and Barbeque Nation and wear formal suits to work, you
would wear a cotton saree and go to Indian Coffee House for team lunch!
They made me look like someone who worked day
and night, did household chores and went vegetable shopping while my boring
husband did a 9-5 job, travelled in 1st class, came back and shouted
at me and even snored at night :P
It was like I was one of those 70s heroine in
whose house nothing good happened and she stayed married and put up with all
the torture just so that her kids would have a father.
Tooooo much right? But if you know me, you know
how my over-imaginative brain works. I mentally burnt all my jeans and
sleeveless tops in those two days as I would never need them :P We would be
staying in Kerala right?( I am just joking. No offense meant. Even I belong to a middle class family and this kind of normal life is really a blessing in disguise according to me )
Then came the verdict from our astrologer.. the
horoscopes matched perfectly!! TADA TADA!! Goodbye pub dreams! Goodbye blue
jeans! Goodbye Goa!
The Mom was informed and she called immediately.
The questions begin.
His Mom: How tall is Gayathri? (PLEASE REFER
PROFILE)
His Mom: Is she fair? She looks fair in her
pics. Then why did you write wheatish?
My Mom: She is not very fair and is not dark
too.
His Mom: Is she brown?
My Mom: *speechless*.
His Mom: Please send more pics. I have a doubt
about her colour.
Brown? Racist Madame. How dare you? You son
looks starved. What would you call him then? I felt like Nagavalli. Unakku
evalo dairyamiruntha ippove enkan munnadi vanthu nippen? Unne njan konne un
rakthathe kudiche omkaranadanamiduven!!
But this could be a good idea for a Fair and Lovely advertisement right?
She never called after that! I have absolutely no
idea why. Maybe because I was brown!!
4.
Mr.Uncle
He was 57. Older than my Dad. He sent us this
message and it said that he was really rich and he was looking for a soulmate.
The message was something like this. “If you can suggest anyone you know. I
don’t mind if she is divorced or has kids. I am ready to provide for them as
well. Age is also not an issue I am a very rich person” Blah blah blah!
Basically he wanted to marry a woman. That’s not much to ask for. But why tell
me?
It was like I am the wedding broker! Uncleji.. I
myself am looking for a soulmate and now I need to look for a bride for you
too? Spare me sir!
5.
Mr. Expectations
This guy sent us a message. And I checked his
profile and was shocked. More than he wrote about himself, he has written about
his future bride. It was scary. Basically she had to be perfect. His ideas and
concepts about the girl were all made clear. He was a control freak and he
liked things in place and everything should be clean and so on. He needed a
housekeeper and not a wife. And her height should be atleast 5’6. So that she
can clean the fans and ceiling?
Sadly I did not match any item on his checklist.
And the last sentence he added was: Even if she is not all this, I am ready to
accept her. She just has to have a heart ready to love. C-H-E-E-S-Y!!
His description made me feel so damn inferior
and the message looked like he was being kind enough to accept someone like me
who did not match any of his expectations. People!
Something which happened a few years back. A
friend of mine. It seems I was his idea of an ideal life partner( Nice
selection :P But a moment of silence for his idea! ;) ) The guy did not have
the guts to talk to me about it directly. Text messages were perfectly fine! :P
And as far as I am concerned, if you love me, you should have the guts to atleast
come up to me and say it on my face. Maybe Im old fashioned, but all other
proposals are just KKPP-Kittiya kitti poyal poi ;) according to me. So this guy
failed to impress me.
Then
finally, he went as far as asking his parents to get our horoscopes matched. God
bless him! And when they didn’t match, his so called love flew out of the
window. I found it very funny because as soon as he got to know about this
horoscope mismatch then he started behaving all funny. It was like he was
scared that I will stalk him and ask him to marry me :P Or maybe the horoscope
talked about death if we got married. Whatever it was Mr.Lover boy was scared
to death. Itre ullu!!
And the parents too were really worried and they went as far as asking my Mom to ask their son to forget me. Wow! I felt blessed!
:P But little did they know that the son ran away like I had plague as soon as he knew about the horoscope
mismatch!! :P Our generation has not lost its values! :P
And then within a week he announces his engagement to a girl! I
guess the guy thought that I would end up at his doorstep with his text
messages and ask him to marry me and thereby he jumped at the next best suited
horoscope which came his way!! ;)
Paavam! Jeevanil kothi ullathondalle? Horoscope
mismatch is injurious to health :P I still wonder where the love he kept
professing for a year went all of a sudden! Feeling Sasified :P Oh my
horoscope! Y do u do this to me!
These are some of the specimens I met. And the
good ones, the normal ones(the lucky ones) had horoscopes which clearly shooed
away someone like me who could eat their head with my non-stop chatter.
Trust
me, there are a lot of sensible, nice and normal guys who don’t go on marketing
themselves. Like a good advertisement, they speak less but that speaks volumes.
The photos they post speak for themselves. No weird selfies with pouts ( I hate
men who pout!! Its soo girlish) I doubt if few of the guys have eyes. Coz like
Mammootty in Rajamanikyam, they have goggles in each and every foto they post.
Some write they are teetotallers but have pics posted with drinks in hand :P
Some cannot live without jackets! And some have a thing for posting pics which
have a foreign country as background, even though they work in the rural areas
of Tamil Nadu.
Then then the latest joke is that many of the
guys I see on the matrimonial site get married to girls I know ;) Just
yesterday, I saw the wedding pic of one of the girls I know and the guy looked
very familiar. Yes! I know him! I have seen him on the matrimonial site. :P
It’s like my own private joke. Hey! I know your husband before you even met
him!!Hahahaha(Villain style) :P
A wide variety of people out there! And after
all arranged marriage might not be a bad idea. You get to choose from a lot of
options which you filter and filter and filter and then do background check and
so on. But whatever you do, it’s all about time. When it has to happen, it
will.
Till then let’s crush on the handsome film stars
or random strangers or even your friends’ bfs and look at the matrimonial
profiles and attend the phone calls of all those wonderful men out there. Who
knows? One of them would father your child :P
Irritating, right? That’s me :P
I am like this only :D
Reminder: The above post is just for entertainment sake. No hard feelings! And shoo shoo please no irritating comments!! I am already overloaded ;)