So another cousin has gotten tied in the bonds of holy matrimony. That brings the grand total of 5 cousins out of 10 enjoying the bliss of married life. Out of the 5 married cousins, 3 have kids. Kind of scary thinking that after the upcoming wedding there is only one more cousin left before I face the firing squad. That is following the order of us cousins. By age I still have 3 more cousins before I become the target of “when are you getting married beta?”.. It’s a scary thought. Marriage is a huge step and a start of a different life with a whole another person and a crazy load of responsibilities.
Then there is the whole matter of an arranged marriage. I have to agree that the concept of arrange marriage has evolved over the many years and can be fairly labelled as been modernised. However it still remains to stand that an arrange marriage constitutes saying “Yes” to someone you do not know and might not know entirely until after having taken the sacred ‘saath phere’ (the equivalent of the wedding vows). I find this difficult to comprehend though I personally have nothing against the practise. I’ll just add that I strongly believe this path is not for me. (Being a highly weird and complex with person who is next to impossible to understand. Look at previous posts to comprehend my complexity.)
Fortunately for me, my mother has given me the green signal to find the partner of my choice. However he has to be Indian, come from a good family, be well settled, he has to be smart (“no lallus” in my mother’s words) and love me a lot (I love this last criteria the most). Sounds good eh? But I have some queries concerning this.. See my mother and I have never had the “can-i-date, can-i-not” talk. So I don’t know if I can have a boyfriend or date. Though I think the whole concept of dating is another murky business I have yet to get down to definition.
Anyways, back to the topic. So what I wanna know is how do I go about finding/ choosing the guy for me? I mean assuming I can’t date/ have a boyfriend, how do I interact on a level at which I can discover whether or not that guy is for me. Also just how do you go about even knowing potential guys? I mean do you stand outside your university canteen with a board saying “looking for potential mate”? Logical answer to this is to socialise more, expand your social circle, get to know new people, be seen, heard and known. I’m all for this. Yet there is a part of me that is always wary of the stranger coming up and talking to me.
“what are his intensions?” “why is he talking to me?” “maybe he just got bored and saw me as a time pass.” “is he sincere?” “is he trustworthy?”
It is all part and parcel of being the good Indian brought up girl who doesn’t mingle with strangers and certainly doesn’t become friends or accept the invitation for coffee on the first meeting. So then where does it leave us (me and the other scores of girls in a similar situation)?
All in all everything attached to finding the guy of my dreams seems to be with its share of doubts, uncertainties and an excitement of sorts.. I guess I just have to wait and see.
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