Love marriage or arranged marriage? Which is better? Better to avoid the
marital complexity of loving to love or arranging to love or loving to arrange
or loving to adjust or adjusting to love and all that! Better concentrate first
on the simplicity of love itself. …Sorry? …For the sake of making a beginning
at least…yaar! Love is not that simple…we know! But what’s wrong in
trying?
Once upon a time there was an aunt of mine who was waiting for quite a
long time to get arranged to marry. With her parents already departed, the
brothers tried and failed. It was becoming a matter of serious concern when my
mother that is one of the elder sisters of the aunt struck upon a brilliant
idea of arrangement.
One professionally employed nice and bright boy from the aunt’s native
place got appointed in the town we were living in. He used to visit us
frequently often making it to lunch or dinners. My mother called her sister
over to our place and told her specifically to come for at least one month. The
sweet, homely and always smiling aunt arrived to our great joy.
Meantime my mother talked to the boy’s elder sister also living in our
town and through her obtained a token permission from the boy’s parents to make
the arrangements. The boy came over one evening and…they met! The first seeds of
an arranged marriage were sown. The get-to-know-each-other campaign started in
all earnest with the boy visiting us almost every evening and for long hours.
We were getting annoyed since every time after serving tea and snacks we
were sternly told to leave the room so that the boy and the girl could arrange
privately. As small children our curiosity kept on growing thinking what they
could possibly be doing!
The sitting room where they passed the hours had an adjacent storeroom
with a high window in between always closed as it served no purpose. The lower
half of the window was curtained up in the sitting room, but the top transparent
glass panes were uncovered. We began to focus on those.
Standing up on a wooden stool in the storeroom we could reach up to the
top glass panes and peep inside. It was not easy to just walk and sneak into
the storeroom as we had to do our homework compulsorily. But the efforts paid
dividends as we managed to have uninterrupted views one particular evening. We
witnessed the boy taking up the aunt’s hands fondly into his! We got thrilled
and cried victory.
The same night we confronted our aunt with our great discovery and
ordered her to explain. Our sweet aunt gave a heavenly smile and squeezed our
cheeks uttering ‘Wicked ones!’ We could understand the meaning of that heavenly
smile only years later…it was love…damn it!
The arranged marriage took place in due course and the couple lived
happily ever after. They had completed more than forty years of conjugal bliss
and still looked forward to more, beaming and full of life.
Cut to a little recent time when we were freshly out of university and
looking for jobs. In a particular hilly town where we lived then we all knew
about a particular lover couple whose selfless love for each other was a
constant talk in our sittings and a source of inspiration. Only their
respective families did not know and nobody bothered to inform them.
Every evening they met on the streets and passed hours together, and of
course, sometimes with us too. One of my friends used to joke saying the lover
birds were always in search of some dark corners where they could realize their
love to sublime perfection.
They managed to get married through love alone in due course. By that
time we got scattered with jobs in different places. But we used to meet once
in a while.
Maybe two years after the love marriage I met few of my old friends. What
I heard paralyzed me with shock. I looked on disbelievingly. There were reports
that the lover boy started beating his eternal love up now and then, and sometimes
violently. Both of them were employed as lecturers in different colleges and
the news spread fast through their colleagues. I felt relieved that the girl
could at least be independent if needed.
One year later they started living separately despite having a house
owned jointly out of love, and then the divorce came inevitably. Their two
children got divided between them.
Was it love in the love marriage? Certainly not. Was it love in the
arranged marriage? Certainly yes! What stands out basically is love! In its
truest form, of course. If that ‘love’ happens you hardly need to adjust or
compromise or manage or arrange or derange! If you can find happiness and bliss
with your companion after even the most bitterest of all quarrels, it is love.
Love could be cunning and selfish too, and in those cases it does not last
whether you arrange it or love to love it.
Love marriage or arranged marriage? None of the two is either better or
worse. Any of the two can be heavenly if love is there. And love just happens.
If you are not convinced at all, which is only natural, brainstorm more here!
Just love!
