Are you ready to get married? No? Thought so!!

Should I? Or I should not say yes to dad to start searching for a suitable match for me for my marriage? Scared of marriage? Hell, ya!!

It is not only me wondering aloud, it is many other girls like me! So, this wedding season, the right question is- Why are girls scared of marriage today? It was the guys’ job to be scared of commitment and marriage, but now, the ladies take a step back when they hear the word. That doesn’t mean that every guy you meet is going to walk up to you and ask you to get married to him. No! They are still the big headed egoistic creatures who have the commitment bone missing from their body. I know quite a number of ladies who would not agree to this preposterous assumption of mine, but I happen to know quite a few lashes who will agree word to word with me on this. So what is wrong with these lashes? Why are they so scared to accept their so called ultimate fate? Marriage is getting a chance to create your own family, to make a new home with the one true love of your life. Then why are we running from it? Is it because these ladies are so broken and twisted with the experiences in their lives that they don’t believe in happily-ever-afters anymore? Or is it because these ambitious successful achievers have seen more than their age in life already? They have been snatched out into the light of reality by bunch of idiotic jerks so hard in their life that they actually don’t want to take the dip in the well of self-sacrifice anymore. All the dreams of marital bliss is not a dream anymore, it is more of a nightmare now. Maybe today’s woman has grown out of her real age long back and faced a meltdown of emotions enough to last a lifetime.

Lifestyle may play a part in the scare, a big part actually. Here I am talking about the metropolitan lady who has a job of 8-9 hrs a day, 5 or 6 days a week. She is smart and beautiful. She has a great smile. She is the success story of any organization. She does her work with a smile on her face and gets her work done easily as well. She is successful. She is single, not ready to mingle. That is the office version. Loud and clear. At home, if she is an outstation person, staying alone in the city, she is sad, homesick sometimes. She cooks well, but doesn’t want to feed herself daily. She is crying sometimes in the night. No one knows her pain. She wakes up late and runs to office, comes back home and goes to bed. On weekends, she is lazy to get out of her bed. At times, she parties with her friends. In one word, she leads a life typical for a bachelor. Well, she cleans her room, because she doesn’t want her friends to choke to death on the smell of her room. After all, it’s in her Y chromosome. Other than this tiny part, there is hardly any difference in the lifestyle that a guy leads before marriage from this. This lady’s family would be eagerly waiting for her to take the next big step in her life-Marry some big shot douschebag, go and settle in US or Fiji, who cares, but anywhere other than India. It does not matter what she is doing now or how happy or successful she is currently in her life. Now, this lady is scared to leave all of this ridiculous but comfortable routine of her all of a sudden and jump into being the great wife of the millennium in a jiffy. At least that is how the expectation is set for her. Is this fair? I don’t know. All of a sudden you have to wake up before anyone else in the house and go to bed after everyone in the house. I mean moms do it everyday, I know. But for this generation, this is a pretty heavy task to ask.

Sure you will have someone to take care of you, to be responsible for you. You will be someone else’s responsibility. But do we actually need this assurance? Does that lady need this? Her parents have taught her to be self-dependent, to take care of herself, to be independent and responsible for herself. She knows how to handle her life and take accountability of her actions. She even knows how to use a hammer and a screw driver, if need be! She doesn’t need another person to do that for her. Then why do you need someone else? Why to cut down the freedom you have given us? Why to give wings and then put us in a cage? Now, you will come up with the idea of love and soul mate. In today’s date, every girl has had a fairy tale love story which turned out to be something sort of a horror story. So how can she trust on the love crap? If a relationship could not sustain for a few months or years, how do you expect a marriage to work out? The increasing divorce rates say it all. What if the guy cheats on his wife? Moreover, extra marital affairs are like the story line of every movie in all the film industries across the globe. It’s like wives are meant to be cheated or something like matrimony gives both parties the right to wander around. So how do we beat that?

Every girl dreams of her marriage in her growing years. Yet, when they actually go closer and closer to the inevitable, their dreams turn into nightmares which haunt them day and night. When we are little, everything is black and white. But we realize the empty spots in that whole circle and the grey areas as we grow up. These ladies are furious to even pick up the topic. It drives them nuts. Why? The D-Day is not the problem, the years after that is the question. It feels like your whole life you have been raised like a pig for slaughter. All the lessons your mom gives you about housekeeping and growing and managing your family. It is all for this life, the life after marriage. But the terror is too much to handle and to contagious to stop spreading. So how do we handle this? Simple, often we close our eyes and take that leap of faith. Where do you end up? That is something each one of us has to find out for ourselves.

Then there is the preparation part, if by any means you have said yes to arranged marriage. You are no more a human being; you are the most valuable show piece of the showroom up for sale. So you are groomed to talk, walk, sit and stand. Your height, weight and facial color becomes of questionable importance. “If you are so fat, who is going to like you?”, “who is going to take such a tall girl for their son?” “Try something for your skin which will make it glow!! Go to the parlor more...” These are the more famous dialogues of the to-be bride’s family. Come on, if the guy's pituitary gland did not work properly, how is that the girl's fault?? Then when the guy’s family comes to visit, that is another parade. The girl suddenly wins the Master Chef season 40 and apparently everything served on that day would be prepared by her especially for the guy whom she has never met in her life before. And the guy’s family members behave like they have won the ‘President for 1 day” contest. Is this necessary? Really? I understand the fact marriage is not between two individuals but a bond between two families, but, seriously, is all the drama necessary? Why can’t it be a bit simple? This drama persists even in cases of love marriages, with a lot of other episodes some times. Actually without all the masala, how can we proudly say that we are Indians? Not only our food, our lives also have a lot of masala in it, enough to drive everyone crazy at some point of time.

This was about girls who are scared to get married. On the other hand, people who are madly in love cannot wait to tie the knot forever. Those girls are not scared. They want this. This would make them happy. They are willing to take the jump and are pretty confident of soaring on higher clouds. So what gives them this confidence? Why do these ladies not share the fear single ladies have? Maybe because they exactly know what they are getting into. At least they think so, because they know the guy (again, they think so).

Basically it is the fear of the unknown and unwillingness to participate in the inevitable drama that is paralyzing modern ladies.  I guess it is all about finding the right guy. At least you will be happy under the illusion of knowing that person and that the person will always stand by you. So if you do not find a way out of this Jantar-Mantar of marriage because of unfathomable reasons like family/peer pressure, emotional blackmail by parents, then create an illusion around yourself. It may not solve the situation but at least you may get the power to face it!!