An Iyer girl's musings!

Looks like I am on a writing spree here...three posts in three days....which is good I suppose. I was watching this bollywood flick yesterday night and the central theme of the movie was "pyar soch samajhkar nahi kiya jaata, bus ho jaata hai" (You never think before falling in love. Love just happens). A friend of mine fell in love and got married after a huge "Mahabharat battle" with her folks. So I was musing over it for a while in the night and decided to type down my thoughts.


A majority of the Indian middle class youngsters stick to arranged marriage for various reasons. And most of them I guess would have given up on their love just because of the pressure from their parents. No, this is not the age-old debate of  "arranged marriage vs love marriage". These are just some musings of a middle class Iyer girl. Relax Mom! I am not trying to tell you something through this :-)


The fact is that most parents are very conservative when it comes to marrying their child off to a guy/girl of a different caste (forget religion). We all know very well that when cupid strikes it is really tough and sometimes futile to resist. You come up with very lame reasons like "I can't live without looking at his/her eyes" or "he is so caring and sensitive" or "both of us like the movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, how cute is that?" etc etc. I heard that love is something which drives people crazy, so much so that they would go to any extremes for the person they are in love with. Thanks to our movies that give a million ways in which love unfolds that we are never short of examples of love stories. So, when you realize that you are in love with someone, would you be able to resist? 


Every individual has a right to shape their lives and a life partner is the most important part of ones life. But in our society where many parents are still not open minded about such love stories, can we take a risk? I call it a risk because many a times you might be able to convince them that your decision is not erratic and that it is something which was taken after a lot of careful thought (If you can narrate to your parents your love story and convince them for an arranged 'love' marriage, then you have a very good business potential ;-)). And the battle starts when they do not approve of it.  Elope, register your marriage, come with a baby in one year’s time and ask your parents to forget everything :-) I sometimes think - is it really worth this fight? Should you hurt your parents's sentiments? After all, they lived their life for you!! All this said, the struggle starts now to find someone of your same clan and then fall in love :-) Doesn't it all sound stupid sometimes?? I mean, can you go to a guy/girl and say, “Hey, you know what? I love You. Would you like to spend the rest of your life with me? Er, Um … by the way you are an Iyer right??!!” :-P


Like love in itself is not complicated enough, there comes the problem of meeting the parents! Probably people who have been there and done that would be able to explain the intricacies of the whole thing.


Is it really possible to step aside and defend ourselves from the cupid strike when you meet someone who is so meant for you, someone with whom you'll be happy to spend the rest of your life with? Or should you just go into a shell and be narrow-minded?


I guess this confusion would occur only to a certain set of people. Some wouldn’t even understand what I am talking about. People from the west would really laugh out loud at this. Sometimes I wonder if their approach to life is much more simpler - A son/daughter would go to their parents and say “Mom, Dad, I am getting married” and the mother would jump, hug her baby and say “Oh honey, I am so happy for you!” :-)


But since I am in that part of the world where many people are not that broad minded (but I would say that they are more sensible), I would think a million times before venturing into something like this. And in the end, I guess I would decide to kick away the cupid.


What about you??