Travails of a Bride Hunter

In two weeks I would have finished a journey of 29 years on earth, having finished up almost all my youth remaining a virgin. It's no mean feat considering my beauty, handsomness and enormous temptation I have been subjected to.
Jokes apart I had hoped to officially shed my virginity by getting married, the traditional Kerala style. But I don't think that's going to happen any soon

Now you guys have been reading blogs after blogs on travails of hot feminists in choosing from dumb boys. Have you ever read travails of a hot guy who had to choose his bitter half from a herd of dumb girls. Well, you're about to, atleast you are almost about to.

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' Is this your first kiss?' Imagine your wife asking you that. Just imagine the looks of suspicion when you find it dfficult to choose between  a Yes and a No.
If my better sense prevails I would say its my first and I feel wonderful

But if my sensiblity fails me I would say I had kissed a drunk girl a few years ago. She would pretend to take it cool and come up with the next question. 'Then why didn't you marry her?' 'Well it was a one night fling'. That would be the end of my brief 'happy-married-life'

That's the greatest challenge we men face. To be honest or not-to-be. If you tell the girl she is fat or dumb or pain in the ass, which is likely to be truth, could mean a lot of trouble. But instead if you say she looks smart, beautiful or sexy- you will have a successful, long , happy married life

The same rule applies for a bride hunter as well. Firstly speaking I am not a fan of marriage-the-institution. I would prefer to be a free single bird shagging off at Sunny Leones and Priya Rais. But my fate was that I was born into a traditional christian family who registered my profile in some matrimonial site without even me knowing it. I always despised and still despise this matrimonial site match making. This practice which was considered too posh and too ungodly is very popular now, since the old joint family no longer works. Even the good old brokers doesn't go around town searching for unwed handsome people. They too use the internet to hunt their prey.

So I told my parents, as they gave me no choice, to set up a profile and put in whatever they wanted in the profile. A few weeks later I get a call from a hysterical friend. I scrambled for my profile and to my dismay discovered that they had uploaded a passport picture of mine and created a profile which looked as if I was a Arsenal Football player. I was unbelievably mad, but then I realized my parents knew noting much of me and I don't have any proper looking photos.
Proper looking photos are essential for selling your profile. The old fashioned will get the help of a studio.  The chic people will  use a professional profile creator. Even selfie photos have become quite populare among girls. Among the boys, the fashion is to put up something in an exotic place. It shows you are cool guy and fun loving But let me warn you, get ready to get a shock when you finally see the girl for real.

The nature of work is the most clinching factor to get a 'good match'. If you're some top notch government servant or a doctor or a software pro working abroad the girls queue in front of your house with the placard 'steal my flower'. But if you have some boring jobs like say a banker or a software engineer in some god forsaken city you will have to hunt some equally loser girl. If the guy is settled abroad not only the girl but her mother and sister will give yo a blow job readily, irrespective of what your job is. That's the secret why guys try desperatly to get some posting in USA for a short term and get married before the whites kick your ass alll the way back to Hindoostan.

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A few weeks ago, after a year of bride hunting some God-fearing NRI came with the proposal for his doctor daughter. First his call came from across the seas, then his friend,s call, then the friend came for a visit to gauge the waters. Then came the NRI's facebook friend's request
He hadn't even seen me and the friend's request came before him.

This is a very creepy and wierd part of modern matchmaking. Your facebook profile is taken as your mirror image and it has to be filled with so much verses from Bible and other politically correct posts, photos and images.
Rest of the story is something like after so many visits the creepy NRI stopped calling  at all. End of the story

To tell the truth i hate most of the girls i see. But this seems to be an inevitable evil

What I would look for in a woman

Very soon I will be approaching my 30s- the age of the famous mid-life crises. All my compatriots are busy getting married off, flying to exotic places, begetting babies & posting it all in facebook. It’s best to stay away from the temptation of browsing through FB. The timelines have been serving as a constant source of jealousy.

Ever since I completed quarter of a century on the face of the earth, my parents have been pushing me to get married off. Ever since my teens I have abhorred the institution & adamantly pledged to stay a heretic for the rest of my life. Once in my college fest, where I was pushed to stage to take part in some Personality Contest , I declared that marriage distracts you from the greater goal. I laid out the examples of APJ, Vivekananda. Those were heady days of dreams & ideologies.

Just 10 years later, I realize I have no goal and no concrete ideology. Hence there’s no point in staying unmarried. All my compatriots are getting married off too. I don’t know the inspiration behind it. May be it’s the fear of turning old alone. May be humans are born to mate & pro create.

I am on a dilemma, having to push myself to commit into an act I am not sure of. Having said that, I realize most of the life turning decision of a common man is taken by the people around him. Great men make their own decisions.

Amid all the noise, I approach a great friend & mentor. I asks him, ‘Dude I am looking to get married but I don’t know what to look for’. He says ‘ Write down what you really want in a woman’

So here I am writing down the list of ‘what I’m looking for in a woman’

BE WARNED: Girls, you will find it very tough to resist the temptation of falling in love with me 

1.       Beauty/ Lust factor: When I was high on teenage hormones, I dreamt of marrying those busty Tamil actors. Pretty naughty one, I know. Later on came the feel for cherubic beauty ( the cute kinds). By the time I was out of college & worldly wise, I realized busty babes wouldn’t be good enough when they are older. So I switched to slim ones.Years rolled by & I came to realize how unfairly biased is the ‘marriage market’ is for the girls with comparatively lesser beauty.  If you don’t have the money & land to offset the defect in your beauty (looks), you may end up putting up your profile for a long time in marriage matrimonial. I had a very ordinary looking friend who migrated to USA and took up nursing. Recently I found her married in FB to some hot guy. The guy was giving cool poses in some fancy cars.

That’s where looks end and money talks

2.       Profession & Intellect: I have always been turned by women with high intellectual capability. I wouldn’t take someone from my own profession, as I would like to leave the office at office. Economics, English have been huge turn on for me.

I abhor IT industry in equal measures. I am not at all bothered about the pay packet. Being the lazy guy I am, I would prefer her earn more and I would hand over the reins to her & be an obedient husband for the rest of my life.

I want her to be intelligent with pretty strong ideas. My mom was always on the opposite side. When the talk turned to worldly matters, she put up a poor picture of herself. Still she brought up the kids- not bad

3.       Religion, Ethics: This must be one crucial & confusing part for me. I have been a fairly good religious person and all of a sudden the vanity in the institution.  It would be tough if the girl takes a contrasting view. But it would be good to fake a religious fervor, atleast by the time kids are old. Even with all the rotten tomatoes religion imparts a sense of identity.

I had these fancy ideas on becoming a revolutionary. Even today I nurse the secret fantasies. I hope marriage doesn’t deter me if the call comes along. Or may be I would quit the job and join some college or turn a farmer. I simply don’t want to be a white collared son of a bitch.

Sadly it ends here. I am a boring guy after all

Growing up

I was slipping slowly into sleep, when my mobile announces an sms and pulls me back fromt he world of peace & tranquillity. I jump up from the bed to grab it not because I was expecting anything important. I’m a vain man who waits for some unknown girl to text a raunchy sms at night. I was half disappointed to see the sms was from my good friend Vattolli? But why at this time of night? If it’s some stupid forward I might as well kill him. May be he’s announcing some big Arsenal victory. Still it was neither of the above.  I was pleasantly surprised to know that he was getting married. Although a whiff of marriage was in air, it was supposed to happen further down the year. He was a happy go lucky guy who went soft on responsibilities. Seeing him as a married man down the years would be very strange.

The second invitation didn’t take much long to come. This time it was the freak guy of the batch- manga loving , unkempt , crazy behind wheels. But he was very sweet spoken & loved by all. Now he announces his marriage & I’m all the more surprised. We wouldn’t have imagined Kalaam spending a lifetime with a girl. I still remember those days when he fought some online game late into night and caught a nap every two hours. His antics were a source of evergreen jokes among us. When most of us wound up our Engineering course, he was left with quite a few papers to scrape through. He fooled around with some computer courses got into an IT firm. From then it didn’t take much for him to rise through & earn a good wife.

I started to make plans. Kalaam is going to be the first one among the two. It was Jan25th- The day prior to the republic day. Excuses for a leave is expertly tailored up & here I’m with my friends again. Kalaam is in the traditional attire spotting a pencil thin moustache. I wonder where he got that idea from. As he’s busy getting married we guys hang around making phaltu jokes and gaping at the sleeveless beauties. We wonder on how to spend the evening & Antony comes up with a great idea- Celebrate Vattoli’s bachelors’ party (ala get drunk).

The problem with hitting a pub in hometown is you’ll have to return home sober, early & in one piece. Besides you may have to steadily avoid running into any guy known to your father. But the of caution slowly dissipates along with your first peg. There are lots of laughter and phaltu jokes. But slowly the the decibel levels of laughter goes down and you start bitching about your life, your boss, your girlfriends and your friends. I probably slip into some far off no-man’s land. The three of us decided to shoulder the heavy burden of advising Vattolli about life. The talks got humorously serious. I decided to spend the night out with these guys knowing very well that Dad would go hysterical. I have to somehow hold the fort at home tomorrow. But the head is too bored to think about holding forts now.

Downing our fourth peg we get up, satisfied that we saw to it that our friend started his journey on the right path. All the advices got rewinded and repeated in the car and we didn’t happen to see the policeman waving at us. With amazing athleticism for a mid aged cop he snatch the car keys and roars at us. Soon we find ourselves in police station for drunked driving. Within those few minutes, I found out to my amazement that all what we drank simply dissipated off. I stood there silent for the most of the time as my friends eased us out off the mess and took us home.

But that night I made peace with myself. I no longer wanted my bachelorhood to be a liability. I realized I’m growing old and soon the mid life would loom. I’m hating getting drunk & bitching the whole world off. It’s time you find some girl for yourself..... even knowing very well that you may not like the choice down the road.

(the story hasn’t ended yet.....)

Arranged v/s Love

Years ago, I was still in college. That was the time when first seeds of rebellion and  reality, all grappled with each other. There were choices to be made and a life to be lived.
It was a time when India was doing rather well in industrial arena. The MNCs came in hordes and picked their students promising them immense wealth.

We had to prepare ourselves for this group discussions which were part of the interview. One such topic was 'arranged v/s love marriage'. I were as usual shy and tongue tied. I were looking for someone to hand me a chance to speak. Then suddenly all the blabber seemed to die down and I spoke my first sentence

' In India marriage happens between two communities rather than individual'
No one had a counter.

Years have gone by. Now I stare at this inevitablity called marriage. Or rather I would say with doubts on the stand I took long time back. Many of my mates got married, out of love or out of helplessness. A few years ago, the whole of my faith community was shocked when a devout guy bludgeoned to death his newly wed wife. The reason being she questioned his impotency.

My cousin , was too very eager to migrate to UK. He married off to a girl who seemed quiet and homely. But they divorced soon after because he couldn't digest her male friends and night life. He came back home .

My college mate, she was bubbly, full of cheer, very intelligent and grounded. ( I was smitten once upon a time too ) . She got married off to a well connected guy and flew USA. From the last chat, she's not pleased with living a life.

It's alarming that the way in which  so called 'arranged marriage' system has evolved over the years. In the name of preserving an age old tradition, we have mixed up commercialization, greed and fetishism.

Once when the avenues for a boy and girl to meet were rare & when joint family system was still in force , the arrangement of marriage had a relevance. But today you live in a cellular world and you have access to so many women right from college. So when you get tied down to a choice , make sure its the right one.

I have a few female friends who's undergoing the process of groom hunting. The process starts off with building a fake profile in the internet. Then the groom comes visiting or his relatives( who voluntarily took the responsibility of destroying his life ). The small talks are made , which is used to evaluate the financial viablity and family name.

Then the guy talks to the girl in private. The probable questions being 'have you had sex', 'you have boyfriends', 'you have beautiful girlfriends', 'you wear western outfit'. After the whole fiasco the visitors return home and call the girl back to say ' you and your family stink '
The girl is forced to fake more for the next fiasco.

I met a beautiful girl, Swathi. We talked on her family. She was married right in college braving some tough opposition from family. They both were jobless and had to live out of family charity. Slowly they both made a mark and ended up with cool careers. The way she talks about her daughter and husband, I was in  awe. I asked her the secret ....LOVE...she said.

The greatest shortfall in arranging a marriage is we look at the education, character, looks, family. But we don't bother about love.
Subjecting our women to such humiliation and then sing praises of the institution is moronic. Every practice and culture has to evolve in time, or they might destroy us.

**** A big thanks to the bitch for the inspiration***

Marriages ....fastforward

20 years has gone by. Life has turned a full circle. A lot has happened in between. The fancy erasers disappeared off the shelves. More Mallus have migrated abroad. IT parks have sprung up and so did engineering colleges. I have become as old as my uncle when he was married.

People have changed faster than the times. Bigger homes with tiny families in it have come up. Kids prefer TV to outdoor. They are loaded with information and junk food. The IT boom has given birth to a new generation with time for nothing else but the office. The changes haven’t spared the good old marriage too.

While I write this I am just back from a cousin who got married off. He is as old as me but with a richer Dad. The dad wanted to make a doctor out of him at any cost, so packed him off to an international school in Chennai. Soon the Dad learnt that his son didn’t have enough brains to wade through the merit scheme. So he dug a little more deep and made a doctor out of him.

The doc cousin fell in love with a class mate. Interestingly she belonged to a different religion and more interestingly from a very low caste. He introduced her to a few of us, and was hell bent on marrying her. But it seems his loving mother beat sense into his head and taught him the importance of reaping the returns of the investment his Dad made. Now the son knew the best, risk free business was getting married. So he dropped the ‘love-girl’ and married the ‘rich-girl’. And he managed to land himself a ‘single’ child of very rich parents.

Now, the enhanced individual income generating capacity has improved the quality of lifestyle. But it inturn eroded the need for attachment and dependence. The family and individuals started contracting into themselves. The first impact fell on the ‘girl/boy searching’. The practice which was once monopolized by the relatives now started to be done in the virtual world- matrimonial sites. The best part is there are tens of thousands of choices, most of them fake, and no possibility to check in the authenticity of information.

The invitations too have changed the old look. Tradition and formalities have taken a back seat, style and convenience have taken the drivers’ seat. With little time and very little help, people prefer phoning to running around from one end of the country to another in a span of few weeks. For that matter, we are seeing Facebook actively helping in sending wedding invitations.

Even so, no one seems to have the time to spare for anything other than themselves. The more people earn, the more they are sucked into their own world. Its left for the old and jobless (retired) to attend the weddings and fill the pews.

When the festivities started to reside a new concept came up- event management team. They will manage the entire drama for you and create an artificial atmosphere. Here you can revile for a day, for a ‘nominal’ fee. My cousin had his wedding done by the team. We were welcomed to his home by pretty girls in local attire. I made out that they probably might be from college earning quick bucks part time. There was a security guy in yellow shirt and red tie waving his hands rather aimlessly. In church where it became too congested for parking there was a giant of a security guy with tiny walkie talkie. People were awed by the size and came upto shake hands.

I sat there and figured out. These guys running the show has nothing much to do. Arrange all the items together and simply make the presence felt, you pocket in a cool huge packet.

My cousin lost nothing to highlight the extravaganza. There were a dance troupe of small girls doing traditional and remixes. He was escorted to the stage in a parade of dancing girls. The lavishness of food counter was the most reveling. Right from breakfast to dinner stalls were set up. I cant figure out if they thought people are planning to stay up the whole day for food. The waiters who were supposed to serve food ran around pretendin to be busy and the guests had to go up and serve for themselves their food.

After all this tamasha and a filled tummy, I couldn’t figure out if this was a wedding or an exhibition.

A Marriage from the memories

In 1992 I was just a small kid- sweet and chubby. The sole purpose of life was to have all the innocent fun. Those days ‘fun’ didn’t burn the wallets. It was more of running around. Playing cricket with tree trunk, in the end getting bored and wanting to return to school.

My uncle found himself a bride from a far off city. I didn’t have any idea on marriage. The sex knowledge was derived from Ramayana sops. The Devi and Dev got together in outer space and stared into each other. An orange light would shoot out and the baby was born.

I was pretty close to my uncle. He had a room of his own which I shared with. He used to buy me fancy erasers and pencil sharpener. The fancy ones wouldn’t last long and ultimately damaged itself in days. I knew that a pretty lady was moving in and would kick me out of the room. But I always were an admirer of pretty ones, right from childhood. Her prettiness outweighed my sad feeling.

I am left with only a few fleeting memories of the Marriage. Uncle had drawn up a list of ‘to-call’. A blue telephone with round dial had arrived at our home. It was then considered rude to call through phone. Phone invitation was for those who didn’t matter. The smell of new clothes was another piece of memory. As the D day neared there were lots of guests coming and going. The house wasn’t big but there was never ending supply of food. I don’t know how it was for the grown ups, for me guests were fun.

The persistent rains had made the courtyards muddy. That made running around all the more fun. I had an hyper active brother. In the pretext of controlling him, I used to run after. As soon as he was released he darted. The elder ones, never bothered what we did.
By the night before wedding the far off relatives had assembled. The finer details were ironed out and there was never ending quantity of food. By the morning cameras had come in. It was a new concept then- videotaping marriages. The gulf expatriates had introduced some luxuries in India setting off the beginning of a boom. The people were sort of perplexed when camera stared into their face. Most of the men pretended to be busy. The women looked away in shy smiles. Then the camera went into uncle’s room. A crowd was assembled there. Back then it was the duty of the friends to dress up the groom. We still laugh seeing uncle desperately trying to cover up his manhood from the camera as the friends make snide remarks.

Another imagery is my grand parents becoming teary eyed as they set off from home. I still try to figure out the reason behind those tears. And if the father /mother was dead it was a practice to go to the graveyard on the way to church.

The food was simple (compared to today’s standards). Biriyani was a luxury then. It was the staple luxury food for marriages which was succeeded by the ‘cup ice creams’. The starters were a piece of bread and chicken curry.

Relationships and an essential ingredient

It was the maintenance workers who smelt something fishy in the rented house. They had been hearing the TV @ full volume all day. And no one responded from inside. They called up the police who broke down the door.

Wife’s face was plastered by marking tape. She had been strangulated to death. The husband had hung himself. They had married out of love and it wasn’t that bad for a murder and a suicide.

During the investigations his mother revealed that the wife had been receiving late night calls from someone unknown. It was indigestible to him and the suspicion might have aroused the devil.

My sister told me about a girl friend of hers. She is engaged to a guy working across the seas in the sands of Arabia. They started off by chatting through Gmail. He took up no time in spilling out all his sexual escapades. The problem started when he wanted her to reveal hers. She did not feel comfortable with sharing the past. Do you think knowledge of her past would make him feel more secure?

It’s easy to slip into an illicit relationship today. We have got social networking sites and free text messages for aid. You find someone in the internet, then enjoy yourself in the virtual /real world and slip out at the right time. In reality you can’t call quits before burning your fingers. And sometimes the ghosts of the past will be back to haunt you.

Having said all that I do not claim to be a saint. I have fallen in many unpleasant situations while trying my luck online. Yes, I’ve had my share of fun too. The reality is it’s very difficult to control myself, in spite of knowing the consequences.

Disclosing the little secrets to our better halves can be tricky. Rather than an ‘open book’, the secret of a decent family life can be ‘trust’. Trust is something built mutually and may take years to happen. So laying yourself bare in front of someone you hardly know could be dangerous.