Every kid in this
country grows up listening and trying to live up to Indian values and American
dreams, balancing the act of techie engineer and a hot-shot MBA. Aspiring for
Ivy League & ending up in ‘Main-Bhi’ league. So, while he might have been
competent and scored well enough to have studied in the architecture department
of the best institute in the country, the social stigma associated with less
than engineering and a love at gun-point/second attempt with physics makes him
pursue engineering at a non-descript college. The joke becomes sarcastic when
you end up pursuing MBA, right below an architecture department, only seven
years too late. But then you can-not make somebody love forcibly and thus the
outcome in most cases is a wannabe writer. And this means of becoming a writer
does not impress parents and they forcibly make the kids abort the idea before
it becomes mature enough. . However, it does not end at that and you land in
jobs that are not meaningful or better say you do not understand them at all.
If you thought that the ordeal is over, there is this arranged marriage one has
to fall in love with. Thus, YLOO (You Live Only Once) and that too with the
wrong person. Life becomes a Stop Gap Arrangement rather than the latter being
a method of joining the pieces together.
So,
while you always thought that this one is the last stop gap arrangement and
after this I’ll do what I love, only to find yourself up against the great wall
of ‘Stop Gap Arranged Marriage!’. It stands literally for everything we settle
for in life and figuratively for whom we settle with. The literal part is also
bitter in taste but can be swallowed with a glass of compromise but its the
figurative part that leaves a lifelong bitter taste in mouth. Some of you may
differ and somewhere and take sadistic pleasure in the fact that you are in
love with somebody and being loved back as well ( the important, less probable
and irrational part). To all those of you :Didn’t you go weak in the knees
for Ranbir or Katrina/Priety/Anushka.?Or closer in your life, which we
foolishly assume to be the only real thing because these plastic perfect people
do exist. How about that girl/boy who was three years senior but looked as
equally young at heart and body or even lower ?. Or the one you backed off your
thoughts from just because they were committed and very loyal at that. No
points for having given it a shot and then backing off with flowers for
somebody else in hand and a cliche as favorite quote ‘Life is like
that so better move on !’.
The
society also glorifies this act of succeeding in a compromise. And thus we
live, suffocating the dream of being ‘Prince Charming’ of our respective
Princesses. And the argument that GoI did away with the princely states and
princes does not count. Hopping from one thing to another in search of that
break and break-ups as well. The skewed sex and seats to student ratio makes
sure that you wish and pray for break-ups and breaking even in the exam, more
than your proposal being accepted. It’s more and less for girls, most of whom
are brain-washed about the magical day of marriage and the life thereafter. The
day which anoints instant Princess-ness(Also, there are some men who equally
look up to getting married and that is being perfectly normal). More, as the
disappointment is more and less as the ball is always in their court and they
just want to frustrate the opponent or score a self-goal. And thus
fresh batches keep feeding the fire of Stop Gap.
Thus
we become cunning, willing to walk over a fallen man to get out of this mess as
soon as we can. Man/Batsman down gives secret pleasure as batting is done in
order and for most of us that order is decided democratically based on
arguments that defy logic. More break-ups means more fish in the
sea, it might not help you but it will help somebody and that somebody could be
you someday and thus you become devil’s /divorce advocate. And why not, let the
best man be her man rather than him settling for becoming ‘Best Man’ letting
her go by her wish and choose the wrong guy as in ‘Namaste London’ and saying
goodbye to your dreams which has her as the permanent & only cast. The
dream where she says yes blushingly to your asking her out. Enlightenment
strikes and the girl wakes up from her day-dream & decides exactly at the
time of the wedding ceremony that the guy she has feelings for is all fake and
runs away, and that happens only in movies. In real life, she runs away from
the right proposal and towards the Stop Gap Arranged Marriage. Sincere
apologies to the fairer sex but you have this tendency to choose the wrong guy
while the right one was standing right there, thereby becoming the biggest
facilitator of ‘Stop Gap Arranged Marriage’, which I believe is the root of all
problems including recession in IT. The guys are to be blamed equally for being
the girl when it comes to expressing, forget expressing, even talking to the
ones they want to. This wrong of arranged marriage cannot be done right as its
meant to be for a lifetime.
Thus,
we settle for a compromise tantamount to locking the bull by its horns and it
might prove fatal to control the bull called destiny. The practitioner of bull
taming would tell you that its not an animal to be easily tamed and should have
been better restricted to being the work-friendly ox. But the optimist in you
does not want to starve an enemy and then defeat it. You want to take things
head on as they come but then be ready to bleed if your miss to register the
detail of their strong, pointed and long horns.
In
our mechanized life, destiny has ceased to have meaning except for feelings and
feelings are drying up to the extent for family and close friends and certainly
the one with whom we end up. A stop gap is something which was not meant to be
and owes its existence to the unavailability of suitable options. It’s a stage
beyond which lies our destiny and before which lays our search. But then
complacence fills in and you start liking what you are
holding and the promised and promising person keeps waiting till we
come. The shorter its span the better it is. And thus there has to
be too many stop gaps to reach where you want to be.
A
strange comfort is accorded in this arrangement and the world needs to be
shaken out of its slumber .How about being a firm believer in love and that it
happens and not done, step by step, beginning friendship, and doing
things you feel like/love . How about looking at things upside down?. We need
to think more about what we want to be doing and take straight line paths than
circuitous routes to reach there. Having said that, its always advisable to
have a stop gap planned but do not jump to take it and should be the choice of
last resort. It will save the day for you and you get some more time, more time
to prepare even harder and take that jump out of the Stop Gap Arrangement.
Going by the dictum of what is socially and
has parental acceptance, is not always a recipe for misery nor is it
always right. We are here to commit our fair share of more than 3 mistakes.
Some of the times we should live in the moment and not in an arrangement. Also,
when its not meant to be, Stop Gap Arranged Marriage becomes your
savior/companion who/which will stand by you when nobody and that certain
somebody does not. This piece in itself is a Stop Gap Arrangement and I am not
very proud of it but then it’s a desperate attempt to get out of it. Good thing
that the government has banned Child Marriage, waiting for the day when the
stop the childish Stop Gap Arranged Marriage. Do what you feel like, screw the
Stop Gap Arrangement !!
Its awesome
ReplyDelete@preeti jayaswal : Thank-you !!
ReplyDelete