Matrimonials

Damn those matrimonial ads! " God-fearing, ancient RC malayalee family hailing from central Travancore invites proposals from professional green-card or citizen men -doctors-engineers-computer-related anyone from RC families in the US, for their Fair & Lovely, US Educated, humble, independent (yet God and husband-fearing) smart, cooking skilled ("she slices, she dices"), old-fashioned (yet tech savvy), career-minded daughter (albeit FREAK of a daughter who gets drunk every chance she gets and parties til 5 in the morning). Sure, what more could you want.
Why do all matrimonials sound the same? Why can't they be truthful instead a jumble of cliches gleaned off of other ads. Why don't they just say, "As in the traditional manner of establishing marriage as the goal of human existence, I've got a daughter/son who is of marriagable age as society has deemed it. If you have one too, fabulous! I'm sure yours is wheat-complected and God-fearing too. How about you send me a picture. If your son/daughter is ugly or if our family-friends relate seeing him/her make out with some non-Desi, we shall politely refuse by saying he/she is too tall/short. It's the only decent way."
The sad thing is, if you are truthful in a matrimonial ad, it is so obvious that you must have written it yourself and not your parents. Parents include such attractive zingers such as "homely" to mean traditional and "God-fearing" to mean religious. These are catch-phrases that have proven their worth again and again. How can you beat that? You write something akin to "traditional and religious" and parents who read the ads will know something is up: "Ayyo, she is not God-fearing......her parents didn't write this ad! Oh goodness gracious, perhaps she is orphaned or perhaps she is a disappointment to her parents that she has to write her own ad. Ende devamay!!"
Another thing is that only parents read matrimonial ads and since they can tell which ones were written by their parental peers, they will point out the other ones as some sort of inticement. "See, this boy wrote himself. That means he is not being forced." Yeaaa right, like I'm not being forced when I'm given an ultimatum in the middle of a heated argument: "You write one or vee vill write for you!!" Yea, mom and dad, I have a lot of choice here, don't I?
I feel sorry most for those kids in my position who have to write an ad as their parents dictate it to them because supposedly the parents "don't speak English good, monay." And those poor unfortunates have to cringe as mom and dad analyze the range between "fair" and "wheat-complected," the validity of skin color as a religious and cultural indicator, and the modicum of difference between skin shades. Matrimonial ads are inherently racist, says I, especially when skin color is the basis of selection! Of course, people would be shocked to be accused of racism but in the same instant argue that somehow being "fair" makes for a "better" alliance. Yea, buddy, that makes a lot of sense: "I'm not racist but being white is prettier." What a load of crap.
Blah, so what's the point to my complaining? I'm still unhitched and not necessarily enjoying it. However, it's the principle of the matter, I say! My individuality has been distilled down to a description my parents pay per word to have some fish-wrap of a newspaper advertise me amongst a myriad of others. I don't stand out here. I sound just like the other ads around me, the others who have gone before, and the others who are yet to come.
How can you weed out a soulmate in all this verbose garbage? I advocate the use of a code word that only your soulmate would know. I think my code word would be synchronicity. Yea, so you have the typical matrimonial bs: "RC parents seek alliances....blah blah blah," and then all of a sudden the word "SYNCHRONICITY" would appear in all caps, for no rhyme or reason, right in the middle of the ad. Most people would be ignore it and silently blame the editor for being a lazy bum who can't even do his job. But, my soulmate, the bright, fantastic person that he is, would be, like, "hmmm" and would try to figure out this oddly positioned word and what it was doing there. And VOILA, we would meet, affirm that yes, it was indeed synchronicity, we would get married, live happily ever after, etc, etc, the end. La dee da.
Damn you. *L.J scowls and shakes an angry fist at the Malayalam newspaper sitting on the table* Where's my fennel? Ah, glorious fennel-induced sleep. Good night people!

Marriage

I really hate making decisions. It's so much easier to have someone tell me what to do and then blame them when things go wrong. I mean, to me, that would be the whole premise behind, oh lets say, arranged marriages? I mean, couldn't you possibly see someone saying "WEllll, gollllyy mom and dad, thanks for setting me up with whats-his-face. He's so ME" Of course that would be said with much evident saracasm as that same someone signs the divorce papers. That would be much easier though. To blame someone else. I go around pushing off marriage like Mr Perfect is just around the corner. I don't want to marry just because I think it's the right thing to do. Or marry someone just because I'm afraid I won't get anyone better. And then when I do marry and it turns out like hell, I have no one to blame but myself. Of course, half the fault would be his but I'm a perfectionist and if it went wrong it's because I didn't choose better. Of course the ABCD in me is like 'oh screw that indian b.s; i'll just date until i find mr perfect. so it might take me until i'm thirty. so i might never get married..so? so ? so??'. The FOB in me is like 'ayyo, ur parents know better and u can blame them in the end. at least, molay, you'll have a fantabulous wedding with all your relatives very much approving the boy because ur loving parents approve, na?' Marriage sucks. Of course I want a companion but, hell, why do I HAVE to get married? There's so much I want to do before that and I'm sure I couldn't possibly do all that with a whiny husband and a couple of young'uns. Mom is so like 'get married now before it's too late'. I swear, I'm starting to see marriage as death. Seems the end of the world. Why does Indian society seem to deem marriage, along with regeneration, as the goal of life?? Is the whole point in living to lose urself (your identity)to some weirdo who supposedly is your soul mate? And then eventually to some kids who won't appreciate you until you're dust. I've lived my whole life trying to figure out who I am and when I finally do, I have to share it with someone else??? Not fair, says I! Well, I'm still in my early 20s. No matter what anyone says, I still say I have time to be selfish. Yeah, selfish selfish selfish!