Pages

Ads 468x60px

Monday, June 17, 2013

Episode 5: Domestically or Anatomically - You prefer?

Today's topic, boys and girls is about *drum roll please* The 3 C's of arranged marriage - Chai, Chapati & Children-bearing-hips!

In some cases, it is also known as the 4 C's - the 4th C being Chicken of course. But then again, particular to meat lovers.

Granted Chai, Chapati AND Chicken can all be clubbed as an altogether different C - Cooking, but that C is too vague a term. Boiling water to make instant noodles is also considered to be cooking by most individuals of the female variety. So is maintaining a folder of a wide range of take away menus of the neighborhood.

But is that what Mothers of Sons are looking for? No no no no no!
The qualities which they want, nay expect are - Nubile & Convent educated, Aishwarya look-alike, Martha Stewart-ish house keeper for their oh-so-precious sons!

Yes yes, I shall get to the hilarious C - Child-bearing-hips in just a little while.

So talking to the boys and even meeting them is fine - after all you are strangers getting to know one another. Judging each other if there is potential for lifelong companionship. God! I sound like my father! ~shudders~ (been trying so hard to incorporate the positives of my mum in my personality, I didn't realize my dad's snooze worthy traits creeping in! Dafuq!)

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes - meeting prospects for judging potential. So, meeting and talking to the boys apart, meeting the families, especially the mothers, is another story altogether. My "noteworthy" skills of making the perfect cup of tea or round fluffy chapatis and even child bearing abilities are put to test. Not literally of course, but the scrutiny with which the width of my hips are observed, really does redden my ears. And of course, that is then misconstrued as my supposed liking for the boy in question by the parental units present. Whoop de doo!

Some MoS's do adopt a "sly" approach. I've had one such Wannabe-Grand mother comment "I like the width of your hips - ideal for Child-bearing!" *Facepalm* Please note here that the world record for the quickest blush has a new name.

Some other mothers put it very subtly and ask how many children would I like to have or if I am domestically inclined or professionally oriented.

Sorry to have misled you Aunty, I put myself through 6 years of professional education just to add a couple of line items on my matrimonial profile. What I really want to do is to spend the rest of my days in kitchens and bathrooms instead of a cubicles & conference rooms tending to you and your sons whims and fancies. After all, that is the quintessential dream of the every modern Indian woman, no?

I should also add, the mothers view is not always echoed in their sons opinion. They all want working wives. Well obviously - two incomes are better than one! This is so in the case of the boys in India. Not the ones abroad. As soon as they touch foreign shores, they become chauvinist pigs of the highest order - whether they've been there for 6 years or 4 months or 3 days. A God complex of sorts permeates their attitude and they believe they are better than everyone they've left back home. These "men" want glorified maids as wives. Maids with multiple degrees.

People people people, please do understand, a B. Tech. does not mean "Bimbo when it comes to Technology" and neither does MBA mean "Marriage Bureau Approved"!