Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Pyar Vyar; Shaddi Vaddi

Suicide or Murder?
Love marriage or arranged?

That's the million dollar question!

Is the question actually valid? Why do we even need to choose between the two? Why does it have to be so black and white?

Say boy and girl meet each other. They fall in love and decide they want to marry each other. And they do. End of story. 

OR

Say parents like a prospective spouse for their child. Said people like each other enough to decide to get married. And they do. End of story. 

But things are not that simple. We Indians have this need to choose one of the two. Endlessly praise one and criticize the other.

We just like to complicate things.

So let's start again. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They want to marry. Boy meets girl's parents. Girl meets his. Parents disapprove. She is not tall enough. He does not earn enough. She does not have siblings. He has too many. His house is at the wrong place. Her dress is at the wrong place. He speaks differently. She eats differently. She has short hair. He has long hair. 


"You simply can't marry him"

"There is no way I will let you marry him."

"But we are in love" 

"Yeh pyar vyar chodo. Shaddi Karo, Ghar basao." (Forget that . Get married  and settle down. )

There are very few lucky people whose parents are okay with them falling in love and marrying anyone. 

So what about arranged marriage?

That must be good. After all our parents know what is good for us. But ain't they humans too? True, they will look into every aspect of the prospective spouse-family, background, career prospects. But that certainly does not determine a successful marriage. 

Its not about which way of meeting your partner is better.  Its about building a successful, happy marriage.  So why do we need to decide which is better? If you meet a person on your own, well and good. If your parents or relatives introduce you to people when you are ready to get married, that's fair enough. How you meet your spouse should not matter. What should matter is that you are ready to spend the rest of your life with this person.  



This post is written for the Love Marriage ya arranged marriage contest on Indiblogger, organised by Sony Entertainment Television. Their new show Love marriage ya arranged marriage revolves explores the debate between love and arranged marriage.  Check out their facebook page here




2 comments :

  1. this is the best take on the topic I've read so far :D

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    Replies
    1. That is so sweet of you! It feels SO good to be blogging again. I missed it so much.

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