A MOTHER’S MATRIMONIAL MUSINGS

Right now, the focus of my life is Project Bindiya.  Bindiya is my 24 year old daughter. I am totally immersed in matrimonial alliances.  I have spread the word around in my circle, spoken to a few astrologers and flaunted my Bindiya at social gatherings.  I know the word is out – yet should I also tap matrimonial sites?

Like many of my generation, I am a little wary of the internet.  I can just about do my mails and google recipes.  Bindiya created a Facebook account for me so that I can network with old friends but I hardly log in; although when I do, I enjoy discussing with old friends what next will happen to Simar or Ram and Priya.

In fact, it was one such visit to Facebook that gave me the idea of matrimonial sites.  Something called marryinaweek there caught my eye.  From what I understand, it is like a matrimonial site with the usual advantage of a larger bank of prospective matches and the convenience of availability at a click but also has more: it’s a first of its kind matrimonial app linked to Facebook and as of now it is free. I read that it takes relevant information from a Facebook profile.  Should I ask Bindiya to register?  While I have been talking about our own community, I know that I have given my daughter the education and exposure to life that I was denied and deep down in my heart I fear that merely matching community may not be enough for her.  I want her to find a soul mate in the true sense of the word.  If he has the qualities to keep her secure and happy, I may be willing to compromise on the community part.  Anyway, who knows I may be lucky that someone from our community may also be up on Facebook and will suit in other ways as well?!

Bindiya decides who can view her profile so my fears about letting pictures and details loose on the internet without privacy become unfounded.  There will be no clutter since if she does not express an interest, the profile expires in a week; and if a prospect is really interested or interesting, the response will have to be in a week, or it is lost.  As a matrimonial site with a difference, it enables prospects to see the entire person – videos, pictures, posts and details – if allowed.  And since only those with 50 or more friends will have profiles taken, I am a little relaxed by the smaller chance then of sham profiles.  I know that along with other Facebook friends she can shut me out in her privacy settings, but as mother and daughter, we’ll share something and she does rely on my maturer outlook in many things.  I am traditional enough to know that she is “paraya dhan” and once married, she will have her privacy settings that will exclude me even in life.  She introduced me to Facebook – wonder what she’ll say when I tell her I found a matrimonial app I would like to introduce her to?

SWAYAMVARA – THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE

Swayamvara

The gathering is assembled, waiting.  The maiden has agreed to get married.  She steps into the hall, among the assembly.  All eyes are on her.  But no, she is not being inspected.  She is not going to avert her gaze in the name of feminine reserve as prospective bridegrooms and their families size her up.  She is not going to be paraded as if on display.  She is going to appraise…she is going to choose.  It is secondary whether the actual wedding is right then or she will marry in a week.  More significantly, this is the moment of choice.  In her hand, she carries a garland.  The occasion: her swayamvara.

Today, women empowerment need not re-invent the wheel but just take a leaf out of the old books.  When popular social networking sites such as Facebook team up with this idea, a woman gets a platform where she can decide who is good enough for her.  She has the avenue to familiarise herself with the interests and qualifications of the man she might find interesting from among those who have chosen to provide her their profile. Family and friends may be involved – the gathering that stands witness at a swayamvara – but the garland is in her hands.  Instead of elaborate invitations and resplendent assemblies, there are virtual invitations and connections through a Facebook app: the twenty first century swayamvara which places in contemporary context the benefits of the age old tradition.

Swayamvara is what gave the right to make one’s own choice in marriage, matrimony, vivaah, nuptials… call it what you will.  The maiden with the garland, unlike many even in today’s world, was unlikely to be pushed or driven into something that would so vitally affect her life.  The choice of the spouse was made by “swayam” (self).  Jaichandra may not have approved of his daughter Sanyogita’s love for Prithviraj Chauhan and even put a statue of the latter as a “dwarpal” at her swayamvara, where he deliberately omitted to invite this one eligible suitor; but he could do little to stop his daughter from proclaiming her choice openly by placing the garland around the neck of the “dwarpal”.  Before the stunned eyes of those assembled, she made her choice clear even as the man she loved and who loved her whisked her away.

Often, suitors had to prove their abilities before the young bride.  Ram had to first string the Shiva Dhanush and Arjun won Draupadi’s heart upon hitting the eye of a revolving fish after looking at its reflection in water.  When we dismiss what dates back years as ‘old fashioned’, we don’t realise that some of it actually makes perfect sense.  The woman makes the choice from among those men who have agreed to be there for her and who prove they are capable and suitable.  When garlands are exchanged at the mandap as the swayamvara, let that truly symbolise that the union is one made by choice of the man and the woman concerned rather than just a hollow ritual. 

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN GETTING MARRIED? FINDING A MATCH?

Take this quiz and figure out more about yourself and what you want …

I am excited if it is possible to

• marry in a week
• seek a match conveniently at my pace
• do both

I prefer

• arranged marriage
• love marriage
• either – any fine by me

 As far as social networking goes I

• am a whiz
• hate it
• am just ok – use it only when I need to

I am most on

• Facebook
• Twitter
• the couch

Facebook can help me find a spouse

• Yes
• No
• Don’t know

If someone has at least 50 friends

• that person has to have given genuine details – you can’t fool so many together
• that person is miraculously fooling 50 or more people at the same time
• er – how much is 50?

Information taken from a Facebook profile is therefore

• worth considering
• unsure
• what’s a profile?

Compatibility in a marriage comes from sharing

• values, interests and attitudes
• caste and community
• umm – ever heard of ‘his’ and ‘hers’?

Privacy is sure if

• I control who sees my details, and not even my parents and FB friends can see them unless I allow it
• a small number of middlemen and brokers know all there is to know
• you don’t share information at all – just enter blindly into matrimony

Information and detail is helpful

• if it is sorted by relevance to the purpose, and clutter removed
• and the greater the volume, the more the confusion and the irritation
• to keep me occupied during commercial breaks on TV as I lie on the couch

If the detail sounds good, I would like to

• express an interest – easily – and take it forward from there
• wonder if things can really be so easy
• go under the couch – can’t handle attractiveness on my own

It would be nice to receive relevant profiles or responses

• within a week – so I know where I stand and soon
• whenever – I don’t mind waiting
• let me check – depends on the TV guide on my set top box

I am keen for the convenience if the option is available today

• for free
• for a no-exchange, no-return deposit
• Go on! Even my DTH operator charges 40 rupees a day for the package I want

If you have scored 80% or more in the first options, check out the new Facebook app on matrimony that lets you know who likes you in a week.  If your score is higher in the second option, you are not looking for an easy, quick and clutter-free way of doing things, so let your mind and heart process whatever they are doing right now.  If your score has more of option three, marry your television – that way you won’t have to get up from your couch.

MARRY IN A WEEK AT A CLICK – A POEM

There once was a man who wanted a wife

Why else but to share his life

Arranged or love marriage he was game

For him it was all the same

Family and experts sent word far and wide

Subjected him to comments sweet and snide

For privacy he did long

Just someone to whom he’d belong

Then came upon a matrimonial app

that to his goal provided the map

It ensured his profile only was seen

by those truly relevant and keen

Not even Facebook friends could tease

He gained control but without high fees

Cutting detail like hot knife through butter

The app prevented a whole lot of clutter

Six every week, each profile got individually

After being matched for compatibility

Expired, if of no interest, in a week

Some he wanted more to seek

Then he could on express interest click

And each could view other’s profile to pick

To go beyond community and caste

And judge the potential of relationships to last

Data taken from Facebook profile

Ensured accuracy, relevance and style

Only those qualify if FB friends number fifty

Such network prevents one from being shifty

FB provides age, status, work and education

If married or engaged, app ensures rejection

But if there, it is the person whole

Values, interests, pics – a look into the soul

So now he sits at phone and laptop

Receives what he needs and wants

A process streamlined and quick

That’s marryinaweek at a click

“NOT TONIGHT DEAR; I HAVE A HEADACHE…”

According to a recent news report, people these days have become so gizmo addicted that members of the same family, living under the same roof, communicate between rooms of the house through mails, calls and sms-es.  One had heard of staleness creeping into married life – but detachment to this extent in marriage and family?  Many nod their heads sagely and pronounce that a family born of the compromise of an arranged marriage can only end this way; others wag their fingers triumphantly to emphasise the fate of love marriages once the daily humdrum of life has taken off the rose tinted glasses and flung them out of the window of romance.

Communication is so vital that without it a relationship doesn’t really have much of a future except as a necessity, habit or trap.  All partners and members of a domestic group – family, nuclear or joint, marriage – communicate their emotions, opinions and needs.  How they do it depends on personality – outgoing, garrulous, reserved, expressive in more than speech, physically demonstrative and so on.  It is invariably a mix of methods ranging in degrees between deliberate and spontaneous.  Words, silence, looks, expressions, touch, carriage become means of communication.  A particularly explosive situation is promised if silence is taken as agreement or weakness, especially in cultures where age and gender dictate freedom or repression.  Not communicating feelings and aspiration translates into those around not recognizing them, hence being forced to shoulder uncomfortable situations until the breaking point is reached.  On the other side is the issue of communicating but in a manner that is either garbled or downright rude, even abusive, therefore often counter-productive.

These are complex issues with no straight answers.  There may be relationships or phases in them when talking and sharing every detail seems normal.  There may be those when speech becomes unnecessary – when much is revealed by the averting of eyes, a stiff profile in the car seat, laughing eyes peeping over the rim of a cup of coffee, a sharp look, wearing a color the other likes (or dislikes) … Into this now come the gadgets that are so much a part of our lives.  Using them from a distance is inevitable but when in the same house?  There is something to be said for ‘Wat time sports prac tom mrng?’ on a trusty mobile rather than crawling out of a cosy bed on a freezing winter night to go to the teenager in the next room, cursing for forgetting to check up on that at the dinner table. 

 And for beaming a spontaneously captured pose on the webcam before the moment is lost directly to someone catching up with friends on Facebook in the next room.  The impact of emoticons relaying a grin, anger, dismay can sometimes be greater than in person.  But can these things be allowed to become the norm rather than the exception in a home is a question too prickly to consider.  Just imagine a beep from one side of the bed being answered by another beep from the other side with the classic, “Not tonight dear; I have a headache…”