Arranged Marriages- There’s hardly anything simple about it! -2

Form Filling Exercise & referrals

The form filling exercise in itself is a major task! It has a column to specify your expectations about your bride/groom to be… what do you write in that-

The physical qualities or the mental abilities? Who decides the compatibility if 5 out of 10 qualities are matching? There are columns where you have to describe the kind of food you like Home made/ dining out- again how many times would you be interested in dining out in a week – 1-3-5-7, the kind of humor you enjoy – is it political/dark/cheesy god knows what else… I never really found out under which category do jokes that make me laugh fall under!
By the time the form filling exercise is complete she realizes-
She has no clue of the kind of husband she wants
Worse still she never understood the kind of person she is!

Well such self realization would certainly scare anybody… isn’t it?

The completed forms are sent out first thing in the morning. By then the relatives have started calling in, informing about some proposal concerning a neighbour or their son or a relatives neighbour etc etc etc… the girl starts feeling as if the whole world is aware of her groom search!

The parents in the meanwhile ponder if they should be asking for the photos/profiles and horoscopes or just the photos and profiles, Should the girl and boy meet first or should they try and find more information about the concerned family first and then meet…and other such alien matters.

The girl is bombarded with profiles, photos and questions like ‘Could you adjust with a guy who smokes occasionally’ even after the girl has clarified that she wants a life partner who is free from all vices. After the initial screening some profiles are brought to the girl saying, these are the guys we approve of, you can take a look and decide if you want to meet any of them…

“Well this is moving quite fast for me… Meeting a guy with a perspective of marring and then what do I speak to him? Do you expect me to be paraded in front of his family, I can’t be inspected as if I am being displayed in a museum… all this and more is heard exploding from the daughter’s mouth and parents not quite getting it.

They find it rather queer and argue with her that she was the one who had ‘OK’ the groom hunting process and meeting the guy and family are a part of the process! The matter that they overlook is the ‘fear’ associated with this whole scenario. The fear of rejection, the fear of being analysed based on some parameters by a complete stranger… They somehow try to quell the hyper daughter trying to tell her how easy it is to meet and reject/accept a guy, which she desperately wants to believe….