Anyway, I digress. So sometimes the Sunday supplement of The Times Of India, which is firmly committed to the  mantra of focussing on the packaging way more than the contents, does manage, probably unintentionally, to come up with something that catches the eye. Last Sunday,  on the occasion of the Valentine’s Day, they did a  feature on artists and their relationships with their ‘muses’–in the name of celebrating ‘true’ love, if you please!

Among the artists who featured in the article was Raja Reddy, the well-known Kuchipudi dancer who always performs with his wife Radha sharing the stage. Now theirs is a story straight out of Bollywood potboilers. Apparently, when as a young couple they shifted to Delhi for Raja to take up  a job, Radha was terribly home-sick. So her parents sent her four year old sister to Delhi to keep her company. This perked up Radha considerably, and so her little sister remained with them in Delhi, grew up in their house and also got trained as a dancer herself. The couple, meanwhile made a name for themselves as exponents of Kuchipudi and frequently went abroad to perform. Radha’s sister accompanied them and managed their tours and performances.

Everything was going perfectly till the time when a female fan confronted Raja in one of his performances abroad and begged him to marry her. This was when Radha’s sister took the opportunity to profess her own love for Raja and declared her desire to marry him. And Raja, who himself had come to nurse feelings for her, found it impossible to turn her down. They got married. Even Krishna had more than one wives, he states in his defence.  He has either not heard of the law against bigamy or does not care–not an unusual scenario in India.

Radha was, predictably, very disturbed at the turn of events but she eventually relented ‘because she loved her little sister so much’. The only thing she asked for was that only she would share the stage with Raja, to which Raja, being ever so generous, agreed. Both sisters have a daughter each with Raja and all of them apparently stay under the same roof. Once one of his daughters wanted to know why she had two mothers when everyone in her class had one–to which Raja replied that it was all due to Lord Venkateshwara’s blessings that she had two mothers to love her while everyone had ‘only one’. Very funny.

This is hardly the first instance of bigamy by well-known, public figures. The Hindi film industry provides many examples, but to my limited knowledge at least they took the precaution of converting to Islam( Muslims in India are allowed to have more than one wives at a time) if they were unable to divorce their spouses. Certainly a case of misusing one law to escape another but at least they tried to stay on the right side of the law.

What options are open to a woman whose husband marries another woman while still being married to her? Precious little, as this article I found says. Apparently, the wife must prove that both marriages, her own as well as the second one , were performed in accordance with certain rituals and procedures. Bigamy cases often collapse because the wife is unable to provide such proof, and the defendant gets off the hook all too easily by claiming that some or the other procedure was not performed. Looks like Raja was right after all–why care about such toothless, harmless laws?

Of course, Raja’s case was helped by the fact that Radha’s professional life was inextricably linked to his own, so she was unlikely to topple the apple-cart. And the fact that the other woman was her own much-loved little sister!

I think the only way to deal with this gaping loophole in the law would be to make registration of all marriages mandatory. I believe converting to Islam in order to remarry has already been outlawed. Make it compulsory to register a marriage for it to be recognised as legal. That will make sure that the only way anyone can remarry is by obtaining a divorce. What am I missing?

They beam with pleasure every time somebody indulges them by saying what they so badly want to hear–how lucky they are to be blessed with such a son! Such good parenting, and such wonderful karma too! Then they get all coy and say all of it is God’s grace.

We know how our country is obsessed with sons. We also know why. But is just having a son enough? He has to be a good son, right? And what good is a son who cheats you out of enjoying the fruits of your good karma by not marrying according to your wishes?

So just what does it take to raise the ideal Indian son?

Well,  the answer certainly lies in ‘appropriate’ parenting. And that probably entails, amongst other things, making the son hear these age-old  gems starting from the time he is old enough to comprehend simple sentences.

I am sure most Indian sons have heard at least some of these, and the really good ones have probably heard and internalised most of them.

Part 1: These stock sentences are delivered mostly by the mother. The idea is to imprint indelibly on the young son’s impressionable mind that he is special and much wanted and  in addition to nurture a sense of gratitude and indebtedness.

– I wept with joy at your birth.

– Your grandmother/grandfather/sundry other relatives wept with joy when they got the news of your arrival.

– Yours was a very difficult delivery. I nearly died. I could not get up on my feet without help for months.

–Your father was very worried it would be a/another girl when I was pregnant with you. He was so relieved when he was told it was a boy.

– You got a really bad case of measles when you were about one. We spent whole nights carrying you in our laps, trying to comfort you, singing songs you liked to hear.

–I breastfed you till you were almost three years old .

Part 2 The following pearls of wisdom are offered by both the mother and the father to an older boy and are crucially important in the making of a good son, as they will shape his attitude towards women in general and his future wife in particular.

–The man is the head of the family. Women are born to serve men.

–You don’t need to worry about those pimples, now! You’re a boy after all! Girls will be falling over each other to marry you, regardless of your looks, as long as you do well in your studies and land a well-paying job. Only girls need to worry about their complexion and stuff–otherwise nobody will marry them.

–ALL women, except your mother of course, are scheming and devious manipulators. They never mean what they say and never say what they mean. The bottomline is, they can’t be trusted. (Illustrated with examples of the neighbour’s third cousin’s sister-in-law)

–Woman are irrational and petty. Their opinions just cannot be taken seriously. In addition they are prone to crying at the drop of a hat. Wise men pay no attention to a woman’s wiles and tears. (Examples of numerous uncles and bhaiyas whose wives ‘used’ their tears to lead their husbands away from the comforts of a joint family)

–There is no such thing as falling in love. It is a thoroughly decadent Western idea. The Westerners are jealous of Indian culture so they seek to destroy it by exposing our youth to such corrupting notions. No woman, apart from the mother, is worthy of being loved by a man.

–Women need to be kept busy at all times. This keeps them sane. They become unhinged when they don’t have enough work to fill their hours with.

–This is part of the reason why it is always a good idea to get married to a  woman who is trained in the fine arts. It shows that she has been utilising her spare time well, instead of bothering her pretty little head with irrelevant non-issues( say, feminist nonsense ?) It also shows that she is obedient and disciplined.

–Only parents, well past the heady days of youth, are capable of making a wise decision as to who their child should marry.

– Marriage as an institution greatly favours women. That is why their families are willing to pay such hefty dowries.

–Women use their charms and beauty to ensnare men. Their parents actively encourage them in this wicked pursuit, just so they don’t have to pay dowry. You know about Gullu Bhaiya who married his coworker in that big company, don’t you? His mother spent days crying! And did you see how happy the girl’s relatives were at the wedding? For such a nice boy they would have had to shell out 25 lakhs  at least. They got one for free!! No wonder they looked so happy!

– Women’s parents need to be kept in their places. Too much respect or concern goes to their heads. So wise men maintain a safe distance from their in-laws. Foolish men don’t, and their in-laws take advantage of their foolishness by visiting them frequently and for long durations. (several examples)

–In our great, timeless culture, the son-in-law is considered an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The son-in-law is therefore poojya ( and by extension parents of the son-in-law are param poojya). The son-in-law and his family are thus deserving of the utmost respect. Good, cultured families are never found wanting in their respect for the son-in-law and his family. They also take care to train their girl accordingly.

–No matter how qualified and well-employed a girl is, HOUSEWORK IS HER PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY. Never make the blunder of trying to help her out. Before you know it she will dump all her wifely duties of cooking/cleaning/ caring for the kids onto your head and you’ll be left, quite literally, holding the baby. Surely you know this is what happened to Dullu Bhaiya?

This list is far from comprehensive but I am sure you get the drift! If there is one thing that is pretty clear to me about the Great Indian Culture, it is this–misogyny, like charity, begins at home.

Edited to add: If you’d also like to know what goes into the making of a good Indian girl, read this !!

Now for nominating fifteen fellow bloggers….FIFTEEN? I wonder if I even know that many! Let me see:

1.Indian Homemaker- Say blogger, and I think IHM. One 0f the most respected bloggers on the blogging scene in India. Writes with amazing clarity, conviction and sensitivity. Her blog is the site of feverish discussions on a range of topics related to gender equality.

Bhagwad- His posts provide much food for thought. You might or might not always agree with his somewhat radically liberal views but the manner in which he argues his case and the way he engages in lengthy debates with commenters is very impressive.

The Bride, Gounder Brownie, Careless Chronicles–It is sheer pleasure reading these wonderfully gifted bloggers. Gounder Brownie has also published a number of children’s books which I am eager to check out.

Celestialrays–Discovered her only recently and have absolutely loved what I have read so far.

R’s Mom–Be warned, RM’s blog is addictive !! It is dedicated to chronicling her everyday life as a working mom and she does it amazingly well. Her posts leave me a little breathless and more than a little in awe of this  superwoman who manages to pack so much in a day.

Shail–Spirited and blessed with a way with words. Never hesitates in calling a spade a spade. Apart from her regular blog , she writes two other blogs–one dedicated to her dog Luci and the other a collection of her poems.

Mandooka, SmallTownFeminist, Perspectivesandprejudices, Sam–Promising new bloggers (not that I am a veteran myself!!) whose writings touch a chord.

Writezblock always makes for some interesting reading and so does Sanjana.

Cynicallyengineered–Fantastic writer . I’ve often thought he could give fellow IIT(D)ian Chetan Bhagat a run for his money –his writing skills are any day better than Bhagat’s, and he is nearly as good at playing to the gallery;-) Currently on a sabbatical.

Fifteen, see!! Phew! This post contains more links than all my previous posts put together!

Now the award also requires me to mention seven random things about myself, so here I go:

1. I have two left feet when it comes to dancing but I can sing quite well:-)

2. The News at 9.pm on NDTV24X7 or CNN-IBN is pretty much all I ever watch on television, apart from a movie once in a long while. All my spare time is spent reading something or the other–books, mags, newspapers, blogs.

3. I have a rather pretty collection of antique silver jewellery–amongst my prized possessions is a pair of heavy intricately worked bangles originally belonging to my grandmother‘s mother.

4. I am scared of dogs. The other day my neighbour’s  friendly Labrador leapt at me and  rested his paws on my shoulders, standing on his hind-legs. I nearly passed out with terror.

5. I love the smell of Pears soap –it reminds me of my Mom.

6. Strong perfumes and pencil-heels are two things I cannot be caught dead wearing !

7. As a kid I used to be fairly religious but as of now I am not religious at all. I  hardly ever do an elaborate pooja at home– just about a very basic version of one even on festive occasions — though I do visit a nearby temple with my kids every week. And I certainly never observe any fasts.

There, I am done! And now I get to display the Versatile Blogger Award picture in my blog post. Tada, here it is

Thank you RM!!

I agree that having to watch a child suffer indefinitely is any parent’s worst nightmare, and it makes complete sense to seriously consider abortion if some congenital defect comes to light. In any case disability related abortions are not just sanctioned by law in India, but actually encouraged–what would be the point of pre-natal diagnostics if either the possibility of remedy in utero, or the option of terminating the pregnancy, were to not exist? Couples, in fact are medically advised to abort in cases where the foetus is understood to be suffering from a disease that is debilitating or potentially fatal or both, as long as the termination is carried out within the legally imposed limit of 20 weeks of gestation. Of course the parents have every right to reject the advice and go ahead with the pregnancy, as some parents indeed do. It is a choice they are entitled to make. To each their own.

I am afraid this cruelty vs. kindness line of thinking makes me feel very uneasy, because of the implicit suggestion that it cannot but be cruel/sinful to abort in the absence of any abnormality. That it is somehow wrong for a woman to choose to have an abortion for no other reason than the fact that she does not want to have a child at that point of time. That she loses the right to decide what happens to her body as soon as she gets pregnant.

We need to keep in mind that an abortion is never a frivolous indulgence. No sane woman likes to have an abortion. It is an invasive surgical process and as such carries definite risks. It involves physical and emotional trauma and most women, whether educated or illiterate, are aware of this fact. It cannot be an easy decision to make.

The fact is, no contraceptive in the world is a hundred percent effective, and that means at least some women the world over get pregnant against their wishes. Many times a contraceptive may simply be unavailable, and that is not really the woman’s fault–we know women, particularly women in the third world, are often not in a position to say no. Sad, but true. We have an abysmal record of protecting women from sexual violence. How fair is it to expect a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

I believe it is ethically dubious for any law or person to force a woman to carry on with a pregnancy she does not want. It is her body. She has a right to decide what happens with her body. After all, it is a part of her human rights.

The idea of cruelty to the foetus rests on the fact that the foetus is a potential person and all persons have a right to life. But do human beings have a right to life at the cost of another human being’s right to her body? Do the foetus’s rights override the rights of the mother? I think most liberal countries have tried to achieve a compromise between the rights of a foetus and the rights of the mother by stipulating that a woman has the right to decide whether or not she chooses to subject her body to pregnancy up to the point of viability, i.e. the approximate time during gestation when a foetus theoretically achieves the ability to survive outside the mother’s body , albeit with medical aid. Once the foetus reaches the supposed point of viability, its rights as a person kick in and the state assumes the responsibility to protect its life (except when the mother’s life is endangered, in which case maternal life takes precedence over the foetus’s at any stage)–and the mother is obligated by law to carry the foetus to term, whether or not she wants to. She can no longer opt out.  In other words, the point of viability is the point of no-return. Fair enough, I think.

In India, the choice to carry on or not carry on with a pregnancy comes with a rider–the decision to abort must not be based on the sex of the foetus. No woman can ‘choose’ not to carry a female foetus to term. This is somewhat contrary to the concept of choice and the right of a woman to her body –it can probably be best explained as a small price to pay for the good of women as a whole. The sex-ratio in this part of the world has been worsening steadily and alarmingly over the last two decades . It is a grim situation, the only way to deal with which is to stop sex-selctive abortions from happening –in the larger interest of the society of which women are a part.

While Indian laws on abortions are fairly liberal, there is a marked inclination in the Indian society to regard them as sinful/cruel. It probably stems from its patriarchal setup which has traditionally thrived by oppressing women and disregarding their basic rights. Writerzblock thinks it might also have to do with the widely subscribed philosophy of karma–quite probable. That said, I wonder if the campaign against female foeticide (foeticide, by the way, is a deliberately loaded term meant to induce horror in the target audience and so is bhroona hatya, its Hindi equivalent) has not played a part in further polarizing public opinion on abortions on the whole. If it has, then it is a study in irony–because the campaign is showing no signs of having any effect on the prevalence of sex-selective abortions. So even while sex-selective abortions continue unabated, many people have come to feel more and more strongly against abortions per se.

My husband has been reading the Barry Norman’s Book of Cricket. Now he knows I am far from being an avid follower of cricket–my interest in the game waxes and wanes with the performance of our national team, and has naturally hit rock bottom of late–so he very kindly refrains from talking cricket with me. Yesterday, however, he handed me the book and asked me to read a chapter on the phenomenon of sledging or the heckling that bowlers, with the wicket-keeper in active cahoots, indulge in to distract batsmen into making mistakes and losing their wickets. Something like that is bound to make for interesting reading, and I must say I was not disappointed!

By all accounts sledging has existed ever since the game came to be played but it is undoubtedly the Australians who can lay claim to having raised it to the level of an art, having perfected it with a great deal of practice.It comes as no surprise that the word itself owes its origin to an Australian slang for someone who swears in the presence of a lady–a sledge is somebody who is as subtle as a sledge-hammer.

Sledging primarily involves insults about the batsman’s ineptitude. If the batsman can keep his cool and hit the ball well, the joke can all too easily be turned on the bowler. Instance: Aussie fast bowler Merv Hughes to Robin Smith:’You can’t f****** bat!’ Smith responded by sending the ball to the boundary, and shouting back,’We make a good pair, Merv. I can’t f****** bat and you can’t f****** bowl!’ Not bad!

Another delightful gem  involves perennial bad boy Shane Warne. When Daryll Cullinan of South Africa went in to bat against Australia, Warne said he’d been waiting two years for the chance to get him out again. Cullinan looked Warne up and down and retorted:’Looks like you spent the whole time eating.’ I wish the book had carried a photograph of Warnie’s face at this point

And my personal favourite–Norman quotes Mark Waugh as greeting an incoming James Ormond (err…who??) with ” Stone me, look who it is!! Mate, you aren’t good enough to be playing for England!! ‘Maybe not’, responded Ormond,’ but I’m the best player in my family.’ Brilliant!!

It frequently gets personal, Norman gleefully informs us, but it  isn’t taken too seriously as long as it is ‘within limits’.

It wouldn’t be out of place here to take a look at some of the ‘personal but within limits’ incidents that the book recounts:

1.Rodney Marsh to an incoming Ian Botham,’ G’day, Beefy! How are your wife and my kids? Botham, quick as a flash,’ The wife’s fine, the kids are retarded’. Ouch!!

2.Glenn McGrath to Ramnaresh Sarwan,’What’s Lara like in bed,mate? Sarwan:’ I don’t know, ask your wife!’ Eek! I suppose Sarwan was only giving back as good as he got, but did he have to bring in his tormentor’s wife?

3.Glenn McGrath again to the plump Zimbabwean Eddo Brandes,’Why are you so fat? ‘Brandes:’ Because every time I f*** your wife she gives me a biscuit.’( Uncalled for and way too crass. I seriously don’t get it why Norman thinks this was within limits)

And now for what Norman does consider ‘way beyond the limit’. Well, the ‘monkeygate’ involving Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds for one. And another incident when during a county match Ronnie Irani, Essex captain, accused Hampshire’s Shane Warne of calling his mother a whore.

Hmm. But I was intrigued by the fact that similar suggestions about the players’ wives are considered acceptable. Apparently, insults directed at the wife are not reported while those directed at the mother are. Why does calling someone’s mother names cause more offence? Could it be because the idea of the mother as an asexual, pure being transcends cultures? And could it be that it is considered unmanly to react too strongly to insults made to the wife, as that might betray the man as being a tad too loving and devoted?

What do you think?

In School I was:  Alice in Wonderland
People Might be surprised I’m: The Mistress of Spices    

I will never be: The Godfather

My Fantasy job is: Interpreter of Maladies
At the end of a long day I need:(to) Eat,Pray,Love
I Hate It When: Nice Guys Finish Second  

Wish I Had: The Fountainhead
My Family Reunions Are: Family Matters
At A Party You’d Find Me With: The Romantics
I’ve Never Been To: The Village By the Sea
A Happy Day Includes: Man,Woman and Child
Motto I Live By: I’m OK You’re OK    

On My Bucket List:The Blue Umbrella  

In My Next Life, I Want To Be:The Alchemist

Such fun, trying to remember the names of the innumerable books read over all these years!!

Not that I had liked all of these books–I had found The Fountainhead overrated. The Romantics had Pankaj Mishra blatantly trying to please Western readers. The Village By the Sea had been part of our class 10th English syllabus, and our teacher made us learn the whole book up– paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. It made us hate the book with a passion, although in retrospect, it wasn’t that bad. Doing this tag, however,  I was glad to have read them

Take up this tag if you are a bookworm like me, and have a great time!

For me the high point of the year 2011 was that I started my own blog,  and boy, am I hooked!!

To be honest, this blog was intended to be a kind of personal journal, and I had hoped that the anonymity of a random username would allow me to be more vocal about my thoughts and ideas–but it quickly became obvious to me that it just does not come naturally to me to let my guard down even under an assumed username.  Not that it is a bad thing, but for better or worse it is a part of who I am and it probably does not make sense to fight it. So some self-realization here. It is amazing how blogging makes you aware of tiny, unknown facets of your inner self.

Now the original idea was to simply write about stuff that interested me, without bothering much about how many ‘views’ it got. For a while I did indeed not really care about the site stats. But I’ll admit that over time they  gradually began to matter a little–and I realized that blogging is basically about having an audience. It is definitely not like writing in your personal diary . What is the point of all that raving and ranting if it doesn’t get you any attention!

It even becomes a little like keeping up with the Joneses–what! this guy started only yesterday and has a zillion subscribers already? I must  pull up my socks and get my act together!!!

Yesterday I saw that my almost five months old blog had totalled about 1040 visits–not really great going but probably not too bad for someone who doesn’t even publicize the posts on facebook.The reason I don’t publicize is that it will blow my cover and consequently make me more conscious, and that will be self-defeating. My brother is the only person, even in the family, who is aware of the existence of this blog!

Conventional wisdom says that the only ways to build a readership are publicizing on social networking media and to post as often as possible without compromising on quality. Since I don’t publicize, the only other option is to post more often. So far I have posted only as often as the muse visited–roughly thrice a month or once every ten days.

So here’s my blogging resolution for the new year–I will try to post at least once every week. Remember what they say about making realistic resolutions and setting achievable goals!

Now some of my other resolutions:

I will lose at least two kgs.(Now you know how realistic I can be.)

I will get back to work, no matter what.

I will learn to drive as well as my husband does.

I will also TRY to learn to ride a Honda Activa. Yes, I don’t know how to ride a scooty. *hangs head in shame, but pats herself on the back for being honest.*

On this very positive note, here’s wishing everyone who might stumble upon this page today or later a very happy new year 2012. May you prosper and find joy in whatever you do. May Lady Luck smile on all of you this year!

A thing of beauty is a joy forever !

What a lovely shade of turquoise! And just take a look at the tusk-shaped petals!

In the animal kingdom, gender disparity is the most obvious in mammals, the  group of animals considered to be the most advanced and to which human beings belong. In most mammals, the female is smaller, weaker and less aggressive than the males, which translates into their being susceptible to sexual aggression from the males. It is common for males to force themselves sexually upon unwilling females.

In most mammals, the gestation period is a significant part of the life-span. Labour is painful. The offspring are born weak and defenseless and are nursed and cared for by the mother for an extended period of time. The females get little or no support from the males in the business of rearing the young ones.

It does appear like nature has actively conspired to give female mammals the shorter end of the stick.

There is no way of knowing with certainty whether other mammalian females resent, or even fully comprehend, the way the scales are tilted against them, but the human female  obviously has the intelligence to do both. Of course, the human female today has it much better than other mammalian females. Contraception has given women freedom of a scale unimaginable barely a couple of centuries back. Sexual assault is punishable by law in most parts of the world( although implementation often leaves much to be desired). These small mercies have taken a long time coming but they have indeed made the human female  more equal than the others, as it were!

The rapid strides made during the last century towards the cause of empowerment of women might lull us into believing that complete equality may be within reach, but how realistic is it to hope for complete equality when the average female can be so easily overpowered by the average male? Let alone rape, it is ridiculously easy for a man to kill a woman with his bare hands. Isn’t it basically this sheer lack of physical strength in women vis-a-vis the men which makes the average man so proud to be a man and so dismissive of all things feminine?

Now men are stronger owing to a greater mass of muscles, which in turn is an effect of greater levels of the hormone testosterone in men, the very hormone which is responsible for generating libido(in both sexes). So nature, in one fell swoop, gifted men not just greater libido but also the ability to force themselves sexually should they so wish. Women, on the other hand, are stuck with not just lower sex-drive but also the stark inability to defend themselves in the face of unwanted sexual overtures from males. The law provides only so much protection, especially in the third world where implementation is poor in general.

So how different would things be if women were to become, in a flight of fancy, as physically strong as men?

The most obvious result of this fanciful scenario coming to pass would be that women would become far less susceptible to sexual assault, although they would continue to be a little susceptible due to the other gender being more sex-driven.

Parents of girls will worry less about their safety in this big, bad world and will stop pressuring their daughters to get married as soon as possible. The who-is going-to-look-after-you-when-we’re-no-longer-here line of thinking will be rendered irrelevant. That by itself will solve a lot of problems.

No restrictions on movements will mean better prospects at education/employment. No looking for ‘safe’ jobs like teaching, medicine and suchlike which severely restrict women’s choices. No fear of on-site or marketing jobs or jobs which require traveling. More assets, more control over available resources.

There will be far fewer incidents of domestic violence.

Chivalry will become redundant. Men will no longer feel the need to behave like knights in shining armour, just as women will not feel the need to look up to/please all the males in their lives.

In short, it will be a world drastically different from the one we know. Disparity in physical strength is the root of gender inequality and for better or worse, it cannot be wished away. Which means that complete gender equality is not achievable today or anytime in future. For all efforts made towards emancipation and empowerment, the bias is something we will always have to deal with.

This led to some objections being raised in the next post, the argument being that people had no business meddling in other people’s affairs.

Well, I admit it does look like meddling in other people’s affairs. In fact it would constitute meddling in other people’s affairs, and I understand that . All I can say is, it is difficult to always mind your own business when everyone around you is a proud upholder of the Great Indian Culture, which dictates that people, and most certainly good people,  should never mind their own business.

I mean, matters such as whether or whom you marry and when, and what you choose to do for a living are what most people in the West would imagine to be their own business. Now the ‘good’, cultured, wise  people of India leave such trivial, mundane matters for their parents to decide, and concern themselves solely with the most important job of inculcating the right cultural values in their kids–so that the kids grow up to be what their parents always wanted them to be, marry when their parents express the desire to see them married and to whoever catches their parents’ fancy too. These kids, having claimed the society’s approval by NOT minding their business, can now devote themselves to ‘properly’ raising their own kids, and the cycle continues, perpetuating the ageless Indian Culture. I would say it is little short of blasphemy in India to mind your business.

Let’s also take a long hard look at the institution of arranged marriage. Now our culture, being a very straightforward and honest culture, makes no bones about being partial to the males and their parents. Male supremacy is, after all, enshrined in our holiest of holy texts, the Vedas. And the institution of the arranged marriage is the most potent and effective weapon in the hands of the Great Indian Culture to help carry forward its dearly held idea of male -supremacy(and the inherent corollary of patriarchy). A groom can actually demand, and get paid, a huge dowry for allowing some poor girl the exclusive privilege of waiting on him and his parents hand and foot all her life. If there is no dowry involved, the girl’s family is expected to remain beholden to the boy’s for their ‘kindness’ all their lives.

As to why parents of sons prefer the arranged marriage is obvious enough, but why do parents of girls want their daughters to have an arranged marriage?  I am afraid this is something I’ve never quite understood. I imagine that long term cultural brainwashing coupled with fear of the intense social censure to be faced in the event of non-compliance must be powerful reasons in themselves. Whatever their reasons, the fact is that parents of girls are as eager to arrange their marriages as the parents of sons, even as they whine and complain about ‘having a daughter to marry off’.

Now I come from a very conservative community where arranged marriages are pretty much the norm, despite the recent spate of ‘love’ marriages. The old guard is still by and large in control. So I see a lot of arranged marriages still happening all around me, which means that I am also fairly familiar with the politics that accompanies the negotiations. Dowry is, mercifully, not explicitly asked for but most grooms/their families accept gleefully whatever the girl’s side might want to give, of their own volition. These ‘gifts’ are a sort of public proclamation of deference to the groom’s side, an acknowledgement of the groom being much sought after, which is primarily what the groom’s side derive their sense of entitlement from. Needless to say, daughters of better-placed(read richer) fathers often get preference in the marriage market, as they are *likely* to spend more on the wedding, jewelry, gifts etc. If they don’t , too bad, that family does not value its daughters, imagine scrimping on your own daughter’s wedding, yadda yadda yadda.

In the arranged marriage market, it is understood that neither side is above whitewashing its own flaws and presenting a rather airbrushed version of themselves in order to get the best possible deal. Both sides invariably launch an independent inquiry into those candidates which match up with their criteria the most–often inviting inputs from neutral, third party sources or whoever might be in a position to give an unbiased opinion. It is not too difficult to ascertain the veracity of  claims made about qualifications and job profiles. The problem really arises when parents wish to find out more on the personal front.

Parents, particularly the parents of girls, have of late been very anxious to make sure that the guy is not being arm-twisted by his parents to marry according to their wishes .

Why are parents of girls more worried on this count? Well, for one, the stakes are much higher for them. For another,  it is invariably the boys who succumb to parental pressure. I have heard of seven such cases in the past two/three years in our community . For some strange reason I have not yet heard of any case where the girl happened to be in a relationship and was emotionally blackmailed into agreeing to an arranged marriage. Why? Are girls better at handling emotional blackmail ? Doubtful.  Do parents let the girls off the hook more easily? Possibly. Or is it simply easier to make a guy come around in such cases,  by reminding him, no doubt, of the tremendous perks of arranged marriage, and by extension more difficult to convince a girl to have an arranged marriage when she has experienced a relationship based more on love and equality than an arranged marriage can ever be ? Very likely.

The groom’s family, of course, cannot be expected to let the girl’s family know if their son happened to be wanting to get married to somebody of his choice and came around only to please his parents. Information of such sensitive nature could doom their son’s prospects, and who in their right mind would want that? They have nothing to lose in any case. At worst, their son will be resentful towards the girl, which is never an issue. (It is the guy being loving towards the girl which is more of an issue, trust me. It is part of the reason why they oppose ‘love’ marriages with such passion.) They know the flesh is weak–lock the couple up in a room for the night and let nature do the rest. What have these Western ideas of love and affection got to do with procreation–the primary aim of marriage– anyway? A win-win situation for them, you see. And just in case the marriage does indeed not work out (of the seven cases I mentioned, two ended in divorce and one in separation) it is all too easy to heap the blame on the girl– she made an issue of a non-issue, she did not try to walk the extra mile to win him over etc. etc.

I feel for each of those seven girls who were tricked into a hopeless union in this manner, though I do not even know all of them personally. Would I have told their families if I were to get wind of the sham beforehand? I sure as hell would. For once I would not mind meddling in matters that do not concern me. It would make me feel terribly guilty to simply mind my own business and keep quiet.

Minding your own business is not always the best option in Indian conditions.