Loose Thoughts on Getting Hitched

Ever since it first came out, over three years ago, I had mocked at the advertisement campaign for the Platinum Day of Love. A couple in an arranged marriage suddenly find love when the crowd at the railway station separates them for a few seconds.  The advert struck me as being clawingly sweet at best and utter nonsense at worst. Arranged marriages are practical. It’s your parents who have a love affair with another set of parents and the four well meaning individuals get you hitched with a man you barely know. A series of meetings, hugs, smiles and rituals later you are married. After that you wing it and figure a way to make it work.

Little did I know that my rather smug take on arranged marriages would back fire one day and I would be writing this post after meeting the man who I hope will be the love of my life. I have known Super Man (that’s what he will be called for the rest of this post and all future posts involving him) for exactly 29 days, 12 hours and 2 minutes (of course am kidding...we met about a month ago). Our first meeting involved so many people that my father had to actually book an Innova to transport the whole lot of us. And, that was only my side of the party. I was quickly told that I wouldn’t get three months to make up my mind as I remember negotiating with my father when the groom hunt started and no, the wedding cannot happen in December, it must happen right away, in March. My father is simply too tired and hopes to finally hang up his boots on the wedding scene, which has lasted an excruciating 6 years - the time it has taken him to marry off the two of us sisters.

Last week we attended a party where I got chatting with an old Parsi lady. Dapper in a chiffon salwar kameez, I was fascinated by her ability to not only make conversation with me but also keep pace with the information I exchanged about my work, life and interests, which are no doubt quite different from her own. Having been introduced as Super Man’s fiancé, the conversation naturally veered around to the wedding. Unknowingly perhaps, the lady let out a sigh of disbelief when I told her that I agreed to the match within a week of meeting him and that I had known him for less than a month. But she was hardly the first person who reacted this way. Somehow, all the friends and family that have been let into the ‘good news’ have been uniformly surprised. It has made me truly reflect on the perception that people seem to have about me. What were there expecting, I wonder, a torrid love affair with a completely inappropriate man? Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am at heart an incorrigible romantic. The kind that will read Wuthering Heights over and over and wish for the passionate Heathcliff to walk into my life. Or maybe I give off the air of being footloose? Or maybe everyone is simply looking for an appropriate reaction. I mean, let’s face it. “I am getting married” needs necessarily to evoke something better than “I am having a sandwich”.

I look around me at the life I have built in the last six years that I have spent by myself. Fortunately, I have moved a lot. Each year it’s been a new place and a new set of friends. I have travelled light, at least physically. This move will be different. I won’t grudge buying nice furniture instead of the make-dos and hand-me-downs that have made it possible for me to pick up and leave each time.

My final thoughts are on the day I made up my mind. I had spent a lot of time thinking through the precious week I had. The long conversations, pre-occupied moments and sleepless nights didn’t quite build up to the decision in the way that I expected it would. An hour before I was to decide, I was just as confused as when I started out. But I remember opening the door to him that evening when he had come to pick me up for a date. And I think it was that precise moment when it felt right. Clawingly sweet? Utter nonsense? Platinum day of love? I can feel my face pull into a grimace as I write. I suppose the incorrigible romantic in me is alive and kicking...