Sooo.... Haaaaave you planned to get married?

* Disclaimer 1* - Title to be read in 'How I Met Your Mother' style. My sincere thanks to my friend, whose talks have motivated me to write this post :P 

One of the most on-going irritating questions that a girl faces (and may be a guy too..) is "When are you getting married?" This question is normally raised by friends, family, relatives, doodh-waalas, rickshaw drivers, local BBC (Basti Broadcast Corporation) neighbour auntie(s) and uncle(s), sabji bandi waala (vegetables supplier), local kirana store owners etc etc... and the list is really endless, and extremely annoying. Lemme focus on just a few sections here, as covering all is too exhausting..

1. Local BBC Auntie's and Uncle's:

They would have seen us day in and day out almost all our life. When we reach the age of mid 20's, and you just step out of the house to go out to, get hot mirchi bhajji from the Balaji Mithai Bhandar, you wave a hi to the aunty as she is standing out too.. Your mom comes out to close the door, and then she calls out your mother, and here goes the typical convo:

Mr/Mrs. Reddy: Oh, Priya kithni badi ho gayi hai? Shaadi karaane ka kab irrada hai? (Oh, Priya has become so big. When are you getting her married?)

At this instance, I really feel like splashing Mrs. Reddy's face in the nearby water well. Hasn't she seen you growing from a kid to what to what you are today? Why do people even ask such insanely dumb questions? "Oh.. she has got that glow on her face now, time to get her married".. What glow? May be she has been using Fair n Lovely cream (which never gives a glow acc to me, except for the ads shown).. or she has applied a palm-ful of Pond's talcum powder making the face have white patches (if that is what defines glow!).. whatever.. Would it be nice to ask "Hello Reddy Aunty, you seem to dig one foot inside the grave, so when is the D-day?" I know it sounds rude, but the former question sounds embarassing, monotonous, etc etc. All in all, not always very positively taken. Come on, how long and to how many pointless people do you keep yapping the same answer? I have never been able to come up with any bold answers ever, but have always wondered how it would be like?

"Yes Mrs. Reddy Aunty, myself and your daughter/son are planning to elope this weekend. What say?" (U fatso, don't dare to ask me sucha  question again!)

"No Aunty, I plan to become Baba Ramdev, teach yoga on Aastha channel" 

"Yes Aunty, but I plan to get married to 40 girls (basically have 40 wives), have 95 children, and 34 grandchildren and be the world's biggest FAMILY MAN"

2. Friends:

Now comes quite an important topic..Basically no two girls are the same, but with respect to marriage, I would classify girls under two groups: One who can talk endlessly about marriage and the other, who just don't know "what is there so much to talk about marriage, it will happen, when it has to happen" kind. Lemme give you a brief insight of my observation regarding both these groups.

Well, first things first, neither of them are obviously right/wrong. Its just the way how one percieves things. Some galz can really go on and on for hours talking about wedding, the kind of guy they want to get married to (CRITERIA to follow later), honeymoon plans (may not be the exact location preference, but other details.. ), how to live a life after marriage including whether to have joint accounts or not, whether to have cooking turns, how much % of the salary to spend for the family, and MOST of it should go for shoppingggggggggg, etc etc.

Some of the top most criteria considered in USA to be an eligible groom:

Disclaimer 2: This list is as per some of my known sources strictly, not on a general basis. Limited choices have been indicated, other options are open for consideration.

1. Education/Job - MIT, Stanford, Harvard, CMU / Microsoft, Google, Amazon (sorry, no other options available as of now. Please check again later!). Should be one big shot, super geeky guy to tell people "Oh..my husband? Ah.. he is from MIT and working for Google.." * blush * * blush *

2. Looks - Tall, FAIR and handsome blah blah blah blah... 

3. Salary: Earning since 2-3 years, 6 digit salary (lump sum)

4. Location preference: Mostly, West Coast.. Seattle, LA, SFO etc.. 

5. In-laws: Well off family

6. Home/Apt/Car: Very very obvious choices - a single bhk apartment, brand of car - individual dependency preference

Other criteria like caring, loving, eating a simple home cooked meal together a day (can also be curd rice and pickle talking about how the day was), watching a movie together in a theatre, going for a walk together,  sneaking out of work to talk on the phone, long hours on the phone etc etc, in a nutshell, the attitude and nature of the person.. falls under OTHER critieria. Why does all this fall under "OTHER CRITERIA"? Yeah, how can you get to know the above mentioned attributes? Can you ask, hey are you caring? But, yes you can surely ask, how much do you earn? Where do you work? blah blah..

And thinking so much about life after marriage, I honestly don't know if it works the way or extent to which you plan. If it works that way, then way to go! If not, then? Things like, having a shared cooking, not having a joint account, according to me, is just a lil too much of thinking. I don't say all this is wrong. Just cross the bridge when it comes at least for things like these. 

The second group of galz, a lot of my friends, who just are not in for a conversation about marriage. Their attitude is like.. "what do I talk about marriage? yeah, it wil happen sometime, thatz it". Most chilled out relaxed attitude kind, and things will happen eventually. 

Imagine two girls having a conversation regarding marriage. One, who belongs to the 1st group, and the other gal to the second category, as described previously.

Girl 1: blah blah blah

Girl 2: more blah

Girl 1: So, when are you getting married?

Girl 2: Er.. yeah.. sometime hopefully.. Hmm. So whatz more?

Girl 1: What sometime? Get married soon girl..

Girl 2: * Irritated and holding the fist tight *, (smile) haha, yeah yeah sure..

After 2-3 weeks or a month:

Girl 1: blah blah blah

Girl 2: more blah

Girl 1: So, whatz more? When getting married? You're already 25.Searching for a guy ah.. (or if you already have a guy, keep bugging you till you either tie the knot or break-up with him)

Girl 2: (Thinking to what extent could the answer have changed in the past 1 month).. Ha.. ya ya.. lets see, should be soon.. * a dumb smile *

Sometimes I really wonder, there can be much more topics/things or gossip itself for that matter, to strike a nice, hilarious conversation between two people. How much are things really going to change if you keep asking when are you getting married? Is it that there is nothing else to talk and to keep the conversation on-going, one is forced to ask this question? Are people of age 26 and above not successful in life and not getting married?

I, honestly, always have these questions unanswered.. and yes, if you can come up with some bold answers (as I mentioned in no.1) to give back,  feel free to post it! It shall be a service to "womankind" :)

Cheers,

Janz!