शादी कब करोगे ?

Disclaimer : There is no intention to hurt any community or religion or person with this post. All characters and names are fictional and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

A respectable HIGH STATUS industrialist family of Mumbai seeks alliance for their smart, good looking, EXTREMELY beautiful, charming, cultured daughter. Looking for a professionally qualified boy hailing from high status, well established, CULTURED business family.

That's an advertisement from a matrimony page of a famous newspaper. Shadi (Somehow, marriage doesn't give the same emotions as Shadi!) season is back and so is my frustration. This is my third blog on shadi and somehow my frustration has increased manifold with each post! 

I don't have any problem with the concept of shadi per se but it is the big hullabaloo created by our society around this 'sacred union of two souls' that leaves me exasperated. If one could have simply a sign-and-done kind of marriage instead of having elaborate functions with dress codes, I wouldn't mind it much!

The shadi industry is one of the few industries which is immune to recession; petty issues like global economic slowdown can't mar the spirits of your relatives who want absolutely nothing than to see you in a marital bliss. How your marriage affects your mamiji's brother's neighbour's grandparents is a mystery to me but they will still suggest your parents to marry you off because THEY consider it right! And once you decide to get married, it's just the blur of functions that you are going to have to count using a calculator. And I don't know if it's just a Punjabi family thing but the grander the arrangements, the better your image in your society. This again leaves me completely nonplussed because shelling out 25lacs on a single night is moronic!  The YOLO (you only live once) trend further propagated by SRK in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai that shadi ek bar hoti hai has made Indian weddings from grand to outrageously grand -

1. Ostentatious

One of my friends broke open her bank balance for her wedding lehnga. It was undoubtedly beautiful but is there any point in shelling out lakhs for something that is only one-time wear? If only she had spent more time talking and knowing her beau than she spent on that lehnga, she might not have to file for a divorce months later!

2. Destination wedding

This new trend has been picking up with Indian couples quite a lot. My FB was flooded with a cruise wedding the other day while another one showed a wedding in Thailand. From simply taking vows in a temple to destination weddings, Indians have definitely notched up their choices! All this show off and no patience for each other, why have such a hollow marriage?

3. Pre-wedding shoots

I don't know who invented this innovative concept but it's been exploited by the photography industry like never before! The other day, one of my colleagues showed me what she called was her announcement picture. I got confused and asked if it was her version of pre-wedding! She told me that a decade back, people used to go to the photo studio and got clicked their pictures in specific poses to announce their wedding! From those tiny studios, the wedding shoots have moved on to exotic locations like Italy and Dubai. I do hope that pre-marriage communication also gets just as popular so that we are able to nurture caring and meaningful relationships!

4. Series of Functions

People surely spend their entire savings on weddings! From Roka to Shadi, the bride and the groom have to endure at least a hundred ceremonies, each more extravagant than the other! Add to it, the Indian brand drama of relatives - hame kisi ne pucha nahi, hame nahi bulaya th toh hum kyu bulayein unhe; the functions become a total nightmare! And God save you, if you somehow are unable to attend the wedding, people will treat you with a contempt so bad that no apology will erase their prejudice against you! the only people who really enjoy a wedding are friends and cousins who dance their hearts out!

I might come across as a melodramatic wedding critic but believe me I am not as cruel as it appears to be. I am just a little limited with people I share my important personal events with. So all this extravaganza associated with wedding makes me both nauseous and scared, confused and flabbergasted at the way people just drown all their savings for a single event.  I am in no manner against people holding a lavish wedding or suggesting in any way that grand weddings are in any way associated with marriage not being a success; I simply believe that the day is important to YOU so you alone have the right to decide how you want to make it happen. Some prefer the pomp and show while I am one of those who would prefer a silent court marriage and a month long travel around the world to celebrate it. To each, his/her own! 

If only, I could hold a swayamvar and put these conditions for the probable suitors - 

1. Must be a great travel freak.

2. Knowledge and love for Harry Potter is a prerequisite.

3. Must be willing for a silent, no non-sense marriage and spend all that money saved from extravagant affairs of shadi on point#1.

4.Handle the relatives and their taunts for committing the so-called social crime enlisted in point#3

5. Say 'Surbhi is the best' 10 times a day, with or without any reason. 😁

So, anyone for a date? 😆

उड़ने को पंख भी थे, ये भी भूल गए...

ऐसी आदत है हमें काम करने की 

कि उसी को सबकुछ बना लेते हैं,

उसी रट में लगे रहते हैं, उसी को ज़िन्दगी बना लेते हैं 

उसी से शिकायत है हमें

और फिर उसी पर जान न्योछावर,

काम काम नहीं होता 

अगर आदमी काम का नहीं होता  

I came across these lines while casually browsing through internet... and they reverberated deep in my heart for quite a long time. I kept pondering over these mainly because they left me introspecting...

Let me build a bit of background here first. I was always one of those people who had her life sorted since the beginning - getting good grades to get a decent college and then a job to make myself financially independent. I was, in simple terms, that cliched person who utters the words "working sincerely... giving my best...proving an asset" in interviews and then slogs the ass off to mean these words. But when I entered the corporate world and saw its ugly face, I realised the pretty picture I had in my mind was a mere illusion. The 'just out of college with her degree' me could not understand a few fundamental things plaguing the corporate culture -

1. How is sitting late a proof of efficiency? I mean, I could clearly see that a certain work can be finished in x hours but people will sit for (x+x) hours just to show that they are committed to the organisation, come on holidays, leave behind their families for work... I mean to say that I am not against working per se but it is the pretence of work that is beyond my comprehension and the fact that who have mastered this art are the star employees. And if I ever discussed this with anybody, I either got lectured on feminism or the fact that "kaam to aise hi hota hai..sab manage karte hain toh tum bhi karo, excuses mat do".

2. I don't know it's just the Finance department thing or a CA mindset thing but people will just NOT work till it's nearly the last day. I guess, the deadline pressure gives them a high or makes them more innovative? Not unless they pull all-nighters with all the free food and mugs of coffee/chai, shall the balance sheet be perfect.

3. Indian office culture is about making you feel guilty if you take a planned leave. Sometimes, taking a leave on a gazetted holiday (yes, you read it right!) will make you unreliable.

4. Don't even get me started on office politics for promotions and recognition. Even the thought makes me nauseous.

What's worse is that it is a never-ending loop. Everybody is doing it because their seniors did it. Anybody protesting against is the most useless employee.I don't know , it's either me who's wired not to fit into corporate culture or there's is something grossly wrong with the way we have made our lives centered around our work. My father cancelled a family trip for work and that's how I got the time to write this long-intended blog. See the irony?

Off late, I have been questioning my choice of field or the way I define success. True, I have a degree and a job that thousands of people aspire for...but if it is not making me happy, is giving me constant health problems, is changing my psyche and my behaviour; is it even worth? But then, if not this then what? From that sincere person who gave her one hundred percent in every endeavour, I have become that person who goes to work just for the paycheck, relegating to the backburner, that strong urge to do something unconventional at the back of my mind , day after day. That voice inside me that says live your dreams, grows feeble with each passing day because the reality is gnawing on the dreams like a hungry dementor. 

 The bitter truth remains that nobody seems to find this disturbing because most people think that this is not something that matters...  so I have stopped discussing this with anybody at all. Notwithstanding the fact that if what you do makes you unhappy and is altering the way you respond to everything, including yourself, this problem goes unnoticed. The only way I have come up with is to stop taking work/ office personally, minding my own business and focusing on personal growth and goals. It seems to be working so far. To conclude, I'd like to quote Nida Fazil - 

सफर में धूप तो होगी , जो चल सको तो चलो 

सभी हैं भीड़ में , तुम भी  निकल सको तो चलो 

किसी के रास्ते राहें कहाँ बदलती हैं 

तुम अपने आप को खुद ही बदल सको तो चलो |