Whats the right age?

Into the third hour of my; hmmm let me say 17^th birth day (:D), I suddenly realize how almost everyone around me expects me to get married now. Or at least expects me to start getting acquainted with the idea of marriage (actually it was an SMS wishing me happy born day and also jokingly asking me to get married this year, that made me realize it). However I do not really understand why they expect this out of me. Honestly speaking I have not changed much (read at all) from what I was, say when I was; hmmm 12 years old. So does that mean that the people around me have changed?

Unfortunately the answer is no they have not. It’s in fact this age old, never changing mentality of linking marriage to the age of a person rather than to his state of mind that makes them expect every 27 year old to start looking for a spouse and get married soon, if he is already not married. I always thought that being ready for marriage was related to your state of mind. Or as some hopeless romantics will say with blinking eyelashes, it’s related to your state of heart. But in either case, it is definitely not related to age.  Well it is related to age as per some biological studies but the appropriate minimum age for marriage has been defined on the basis of those studies and the required laws have also been made. However, an unwritten law (defining the maximum age for marriage) exists in our society which says a person should, no, a person must get married by a certain age. There are very few logic behind this unwritten law and the most famous amongst them is “well it’s the right age or else it will get too late”.

Right age? It again kind of puzzles me as to how do people decide what the right age is. 25 years ago 20 was considered the right age, 50 years ago 15 was considered the right age and probably a 100 years ago as soon as a child started walking and talking, he was considered suitable for marriage. So how can something which has not been constant over a period of time, considered a parameter to decide the right time for such an important event in your life? Again there are several theories behind this and I am sure all of you are aware of them. After all a lot of you believe in them, a lot of you have been made to believe in them and rest of you keep hearing them all the time from your parents, buas, mausis, and even from the friendly neighborhood aunties.  The most famous and most common amongst those theories is “umar nikal gayi toh achchi ladki nahi milegi”.

That sounded familiar right? Of course it did. Like I said you guys hear it all the time. It just raises a question in my mind, exactly what is an “achchi ladki”. Since we are talking about the “right age” for marriage, does a good girl only mean a young girl in her early or mid-twenties? I said so because even a girl in her late twenties and thirties can be educated, beautiful, smart, caring, understanding and all the other things that one looks for in a wife. Then why do people expect guys to get married much before thirty so that they can get a girl in her early twenties? Is it about marrying the right person or about marrying the person of right age? I firmly believe that as long as you yourself have everything that a person looks for in a spouse, you will find the right person irrespective of your age. However not many people think this way. In fact a lot of my friends also believe in the “right age for marriage” theory. Well there is nothing wrong in wanting to marry a young girl or not too old man. But then again I wonder should one get married, in spite of not being mentally ready for it, just because he is approaching that dreaded age?  I mean this theory of marry now because you won’t get “acchi ladki” later is like eat now even if you are not hungry because the food will get cold later. Will you do that? Will you really forcefully stuff your stomach just because the food is hot right now and later it will get cold? I know the idea of comparing a person with food is not the best in the world but then I am not the one who believes that a person gets stale (lesser a marriage material) with increasing age.

Well I cannot control how people think, neither do I want to. I know they have their reasons to believe in something and it does not matter what I feel about those reasons. But for me, marriage is a huge step which changes your life completely. So I am not going to bring such a drastic change in my life until I am 100 percent sure that it will make my life better and happier. To me that assurance does not come from social laws or experiences of our parents and grandparents. It comes from my own experiences and from my own logic developed on the basis of those experiences. And my logic says, don’t just wait till the right age, wait till the right time and till you get the right person. Unless of course your life is such a mess that it can only get better no matter whom you marry. In that case marrying anyone at any age will do. But my life is not such a mess right now and I hope it never gets.  I just turned; hmmm let me say 17 (:D), I have an awesome family and great friends and I just don’t feel the need of going on a search for a girl who will supposedly make my life wonderful. My life is already wonderful. 

Happy Born Day to me!!!

PS : I am not 17 years old but is that not pretty obvious? ;)

Pride in being silently proud

After a relatively warm reaction to my first blog, in fact better than I expected (thanks to my constant nagging which forced at least my friends to read it: D), I was in a dilemma as to what to write about next. Not because I could not find anything cool to write about (seriously; I never think about writing cool), but because lately so many thoughts have been fighting with each other in my mind that I just kept sitting and waiting for one thought to emerge as a winner so that I can pen it down. Or rather type it down.  Unexpectedly, it was one thought that never occurred in my mind in its entirety. It just kept springing up here and there and lately it was very much buried under the thoughts of recent events; Anna’s fight and Indian team’s plight. Thus I never imagined it to take over cricket, movies, religion and politics (my favorites) to become the topic of my second blog post. But Speedy Singh’s song “shera di kaum” featuring Ludacris made it happen.

Before I move ahead let me tell you something else. Not many know but I am still pretty much active in Orkut communities, especially cricket community. It is a group of passionate and knowledgeable cricket lovers, mainly from India and Pakistan who discuss each and every thing related to cricket, on and off the field. Not surprisingly they are mostly fighting with each other trying to prove that their team is better than others.  At times the fights turn ugly. The whole of last year, it were the Indians who were  badly bashing Pakistanis on their team’s miserable performances and this year it’s their turn, thanks to our team’s superlative show in England. However one thing happened amidst these cricket fights that led to this blog post. It was South African cricketer Wayne Parnell converting to Islam. It caused some really unexpected celebrations by the Muslim members of the community (mainly Pakistanis), as if his turning into a Muslim was a big achievement for them. It also started a series of threads (an Orkut term) by certain Pakistanis, glorifying Islam and requesting and welcoming every non-Muslim to join this great religion. Anyways, the moderators soon came into action and warned all such members, as due to the diversity of members, discussing any religious or political issue is not allowed there. But all those events did make me think; what made those guys do all that. I mean everyone loves their parents but who would want someone to ditch his own parents and join theirs? What made them so happy?

Now back to shera di kaum. Lovely track right? Well I do not find it too great but that’s not the point. Point is, in a year how many Punjabi songs (with repetitive lyrics about jigra of lions and lassi da glass) will come out in the market glorifying Punjabi culture. How many times will we see Punjabis claiming to be a proud of being a Punjabi in situations where such claims are neither required nor do they make any sense.  I remember in college one Punjabi friend of mine will keep reminding us of him being Punjabi (o hum Punjabi hai ye ni kerte, o hum Punjabi hai wo ker dete hai, o hum Punjabi hai aise ni kerte, o hum Punjabi hai waise ni kerte) time and time again. One day he acted so surprised and even looked down upon me for not knowing Punjabi. For a second I was like, man Hindi is our national language right? All these experiences always made me think what makes Punjabis do all this? Why do they have to keep bringing out how great they think their culture is?

Today while listening to the shera di kaum track, this thought again came in my mind and I concluded that Punjabis and Muslims unnecessarily flaunt their culture and religion respectively. I am sure everyone is proud of themselves, their culture, their practices and their beliefs but you won’t see as many proud displays by other groups of people as you would see by Punjabis and Muslims. I know that what I am conveying here is very strong but it is an honest opinion without any ill feelings or intentions. I am not criticizing them for this but just putting forward an observation.  I trust my friends to understand my intentions here and even invite my Punjabis and Muslim friends to prove me wrong. I will be more than glad to be proved otherwise. I sincerely want to know is it a superiority complex that makes them keep telling others that they are better off than them or an inferiority complex that makes them declare and prove time and again that their culture/religion is best and no matter what others might think of it, they are proud to be what they are? I hope it’s neither of them and it just be a non-intentional, motive less, innocent cultural and religious characteristic.

PS: I apologize if I have offended anyone. However I believe in what I have said and won’t take it back unless proved otherwise.