Why I Dont Trust Any Matrimonial Websites Anymore

Why I Dont Trust Any Matrimonial Websites

I have never been a big fan of the online matrimony websites - a fact I communicate assiduously to all my unmarried friends too. The reason is because you can never really believe what strangers you meet on the Internet say- They may be lying out of their teeth all the time in the belief that you will never find out. After a few such enlightening experiences I am a strict believer in the theory that paying any money for these matrimonial website services is a waste of both money and time and I will share one example with you on why.

Once upon a time i had gone to see a girl for an arranged marriage. These "girl-viewings" as they are called are part of every arranged wedding and a chance for the girl and boy to come face to face and assess each other preliminarily before proceeding any further to joining in wedded bliss. Or that’s the theory behind it. In practice it varies greatly. As usual in such cases both families had talked with each other previously and done much of the preliminary work like exchanging bio-data, horoscopes and photos much prior (at least a few weeks ago)to the face to face meeting of the two to marry.

This girl I had gone to see was a medical graduate but her bio-data stated that she wasn’t practicing as a doctor because she or more probably her parents had felt that after graduation marriage was next on the list and had made her sit home till the wedding. I was mildly curious about this decision of her and had it on top of my list to discuss with her on why she was wasting her education (becoming a doc is tough right?) and not practicing- even though i knew that there was the chance of the question being misunderstood as being asked from a mercenary motive coming from me - for they might think i was intent on marrying the girl only to put her to work immediately and make her earn for me. Touchy subject to tread, isn’t it?.

Anyway there we were bright and early on a Sunday morning (well at least as early as a drive from Anna Nagar to Indira Nagar allows) and once we had entered the house the bride’s father took us into a long drawing room- and by long I mean really really long drawing room built like a metro rail tunnel and they made us sit on the far end of the room. The bride’s father drew a chair and placing it halfway down the room sat facing us. And as if to make sure that I wouldn’t get up from the deeply cushioned sofa he had placed me in to move to one of the chairs doted around the room a big, black dog (like something from the Hound of Baskerville) was brought in by the bride’s father and made to lie down between him and me - discouraging me from any thoughts of getting up in a hurry. He introduced the dog to us all and started explaining in great (unwanted) detail about its pedigree, its provenance its feeding habits and how much it cost for its upkeep.

As the elders kept talking about dogs in general (beating around the bush) i got bored and started fidgeting. I kept glancing at my watch and looked pointedly at my mom to get the main program started that is to bring the girl in to the room so we could get on with what we had come for. But the bride’s father must have caught my signaling to my mother for suddenly he jumped up and in a not-to-be denied voice, he suggested we follow him upstairs to the second floor- I assumed straight to the girls room. This was a pretty new experience for me to go up to a girl’s room to see her- the usual procedure is for her to be brought forward to where everyone waited. Anyway out of politeness we filed up behind him as he took us up an interior staircase all over his house until we reached the second floor and went inside a spotlessly gleaming (and pretty new)large sized apartment.

The brides dad gave us the highlight of the tour "a three bedroom flat above 2,000 sqft of carpet area- all for my daughter- so if you get married this is for you too. See this - all granite, see this - all marble, see this - all venetian glass, see this woodwork- made specially by Rajasthani craftsmen" and so on and so on he droned- while all the while i felt like screaming but where is the girl? The entire point of the visit was to see the girl, but till now I had been shown the house in great detail, heard all about the dog but not had a single glimpse of the girl i had come to see. Sensing my mounting impatience my mother tried to play mediator by suggesting it was getting late and time for us to get on with the program before we had to leave. Without much ado I started down the stairs leaving the brides dad to follow us down or not.

By the time we came back down the stairs to the drawing room on the ground floor the girl’s mother and sister-in-law had brought the girl out from an inner room and had seated her on a chair at the far end of where we sat - with a window behind her so the sun was fully in my eye while the girl was in the shadow. Also, do you remember how I had mentioned earlier that the drawing room was a long rectangle? Well i was at one end of the room and right at the furthermost end- at the edge of my vision there sat the girl. All I could see from where i sat was a vague hazy figure- but even from the distance I could make out that it was a large figure, a very large figure in silhouette- larger than what the photograph had shown to me. And then I understood why they made the girl sit on one end of the room but brought the dog to sit close to me- it was a subtle reminder to keep my mouth shut. 

 I tried my last gamble to see the girl up close and indicated to my mother that i wanted to talk to the girl- preferably alone. But as my mom started asking the girls father abruptly said in a false-apologist tone "My daughter is very shy, she doesnt like to speak alone with anyone". Well that screwed it, I thought but maybe if I break the ice with one or two soft questions, let’s see what happens and so I asked "Where did you study? Which college? When did you graduate" all easy stuff like that. But the girl at the other end of the room kept resolutely silent while her dad answered me back immediately - he mentioned a college called Ramachandra college and then the year immediately after my graduation as the year she studied which was interesting as it meant she was an immediate junior and as i knew someone in Ramachandra too i could maybe ask him about her. Anyway the girl’s father was droning on about how she was a specialist in cooking French cuisine, Mexican cuisine and all that sort of exotic cooking styles as shown on master chef. Finally bored numb and having had enough we stood up to say our goodbyes. Immediately the girl seated at the other end of the room jumped up and went inside the nearest room at a run as if to avoid having to come any closer to say goodbye to me.

So anyhow we came back home and seriously puzzled by this display of house and dog but not girl i called up my friend Pradeep who had studied in that same Ramachandra College and enquired casually about the girl. He hmmm'd for some time and then with a confused tone asked me "You say she is a junior to us? But i dont remember anyone with that name in my junior batch" Let me take a moment here to explain that in all matters involving girls you can count on Pradeep to give authentic information- he was an expert in girl's biodata and had a rock solid memory about all the girls he ever heard/saw/knew of. So I wasn’t surprised when he finally placed the girl I had just seen "Yes, yes, yes I got her at last" he screamed "I remember that girl but boss she was not a junior she was far, far senior to me even when I joined, but she kept failing and failing till she must have finally became a junior (additional batch) after i passed out of college. Has she finally finished the course now after all these years? But why do you want to marry her? She must be at least three or four years older to us at the minimum". I hastened to explain to him what had occurred this morning.

And so I finally understood why they made the girl sit far off and the dog sit near to me. The girl was far older than me and trusting to the anonymity of matrimonial websites they had lied that she was younger- it was the lie which bothered me and not the age. In fact even the photograph they had given as a profile picture must have been an old, old one taken long ago when she had been young. And this wasn’t an isolated incident - for wiser after this experience- I started investigating the claims of others who contacted me through the matrimonial websites and nine out of ten times- they were all lying and had something to hide. Which is why I have avoided searching for a bride through these websites and don’t trust them anymore.  And stick to searching for a girl in the real world and not through the internet.

Festival Blues..&....Happy Diwali To All..

The festival of Diwali is almost upon us. I am sure everyone would have heard of a peculiar south Indian custom of newly married guys spending the festival at their in-laws place. This is looked forward to by the newlyweds, I guess. But it makes life hell for the single people like me. Like when my mom does her pre-Diwali routine of staring at me in great sorrow and saying with a sigh “hmm!! this year too, you will be here. When will you go to your in-laws place?” Now this innocent question usually drives me to rage and foam at the mouth. But not this year for I had thought up an appropriate answer to her question. Read on to the end to see what I said. But this post is about more than just a rant on the festival blues which strike single people. And i will explain why now.

The other tradition seen during all these festivals is the crawling out of the woodwork of these peculiar pests known as the match-makers. Nowadays most everyone is a matchmaker and cannot bear to see someone being single (and happy) without volunteering to find the perfect match for him or her. You run into them in even totally unexpected places, like for example, an alumni meeting. There you are leaning against a table in a corner and looking at the worn out aunties who were once the dream girls on campus, looking at them and exulting in escaping their clutches in days gone by; say at such a moment of profound relief you run into some random junior you don’t even remember and who goes onto announce the birth of a child to him, but immediately switches track to ask why you, the esteemed senior from college is still single, while juniors like him are busy producing their own juniors. At such times if you feel a firm need to remind them why you were the most esteemed senior in college by putting a leg up their backside, you need to control that immediate urge to kick somebody/anybody.

Most men friends are like that. Whenever I get together with my much married men friends they immediately start their matchmaking spiel to me. “my wife has soo many nice suitable girls in her friends circle” starts the conversation “these girls are all rich, good-looking, intelligent, warm, friendly and humorous” and add in an undertone “everything my wife is not” before continuing to say “so what do you say? Shall I ask my wife to set up someone for you from her friends circle?” you politely demur and as its best to nip such a thing in the bud you add your reasons “thanks but no thanks, err..i have met your wife and god help me if I end up with someone like that too. You better tie a rope around my neck and push me down a well rather than do something like this to me after calling yourself my friend” so the friend looks crestfallen and then asks plaintively “at least you will tell the wife that you declined, no? I will call her in now and you tell her something to show her that I did talk with you on this subject and it was you who refused. She has been pestering me for quite some time to talk to you and if she thinks I did not ask you I will have no horse-riding, uh, again tonight” So to assuage the strained marital relationships of your friend like every good buddy should do, you greet his wife when she comes in and asks in a oh, so innocently phrased question about your marital search (as if she hadn't whispered in her husband's ears for a whole week about it),and then you lie to her that you are in the midst of a relationship with a wonderful girl (who only exists in your imagination- a part which you neglect to mention) and with a sigh the friends wife gives up her new found hobby of matchmaking and goes back to her favorite pastime of bullying her husband.

Again a variation of this occurs sometimes when your friends without any prompting from their wives try to pass on their near and dear relatives to you in the guise of matchmaking. It starts something like this “How goes your girl search? Still not found anyone good looking, hey? Have you seen my sister-in law? Don’t you remember her from when you came to our house for my baby's naming ceremony? No? Ha that day you must have seen her only in a salwar kurta dress. You should see her in a jeans and white t-shirt. Or better yet when she is wearing a half-sari. Ah!!! That is a sight for sore eyes. Heavenly she is in a half sari and even in a short skirt which she wears sometimes to college. She has such a fine, nice, rounded, ass that every time you see it you feel like reaching out and..err...if you like I will arrange for you to come see my sister-in-law, do you want to?” he asks in a sad, everything is lost to me and my life is already over, tone. The gracious thing to do then is to refuse politely and point out that if the sister-in-law is as glorious as described than there must already be a long queue behind her with even one very close relative of hers standing in front of the queue trying to gain her affections and I couldn't afford wasting time to gatecrash the queue and being rebuffed.

While I have mentioned all my men friends on trying to play matchmakers for me, I have deliberately not mentioned any of my women friends as having played matchmaker. The reason for it is pretty obvious. They have not. And no self respecting women would ever will. Ask anyone around. Any guy around. If ever they had any women friend try to set them up with any other friend of hers. The answer would be in the negative. The reason lies in their overwhelming kindness. Knowing their friends intimately, as they do, no women would wish to saddle another woman, even her best friend, on a helpless, innocent male friend. They are actually doing us a good turn by not indulging in matchmaking because they know both sides intimately and out of pity for the guy they let him enjoy his carefree bachelor life a little more time. Plus as the great Tolkien says in LOTR, women are like dragons, they love to keep their riches to themselves and not share it around, even if they have no particular use for those riches. Actually Tolkien doesn’t say that about women, he only says it about dragons. But would I call my women friends selfish? (and hope to escape unscathed?). So it’s better to blame it off on someone dead like Tolkien, who cannot be got at that easily...

And finally we come to the relatives. These are a peculiar species who hang around places like wedding halls trying to smell out who is married and who is still single to practice their matchmaking skills on. After having conducted one or two marriages in their own immediate families they believe they have become experts in making matches. And to prove it they are ever vigilant in smoking out unmarried people and outing them in front of everyone assembled at the wedding. However much you try to escape their eagle eyes, sometime over the course of the wedding they will end up spotting you and hail you over in a booming voice which can be heard all over the wedding hall, waking up even the groom sitting on the dais day-dreaming on his upcoming activities. To prevent any public damage to image, you hurry over to where they are seated amidst a group of their cronies from the village and then the uncle would start of like this “what happened to your marriage?” “We are still looking” you reply half-insolently hoping to get off with that, but the uncle has other ideas. He will go on to say “still looking uh? How long? I know one fine girl in our village, very good worker. She will get up at 5 in the morning, wash half a dozen buffaloes, milk them, put coffee for everyone and then go on to cook food for twenty people at a time – all before noon. And without taking any break. Very hard Worker. Always busy, always cleaning the house. Always cooking something. Very, very hard worker. Shall I fix her up for you?” You are not impressed by the offer but mention something in an undertone like “looking for an educated” but that’s all you are allowed to say before the uncle rudely interrupts in his loudspeaker voice to shout at half the hall “educated? What are you going to do with education? As long as she sleeps beside you and gives you children what more you want? Education it seems, education. Hmmph. These modern boys. You go. I will talk to your father”. Shaken beyond endurance you disappear from there in an instant and wonder about the uncle’s wife who must have been selected only on the basis of lying beside him as he recommends to everyone else.

If uncles are like that, the aunties take on a different track. Most of these idle aunties go around visiting assorted god-men, astrologers and people like that and after mugging up half a dozen trashy astrology magazines; they end up thinking they are specialists in horoscope matching’s. They sidle up to you and suddenly throw questions at you which you cannot understand the reason for “what time were you born?” if out of politeness, you respond candidly “morning time” they are still not satisfied with the reply but impatiently go on interrogating “arre baba, time? time and day? Tell me. So I can check if you were born on a Rahu Kalam or a Yama Kandam” As you stare at them wondering if they are joking they go on to ask “what is your date of birth? Nakshatram? Raasi? Your birth star? There is one girl among my relatives who has remained unmarried for a long time, I think we can fix you up with her. I say, do you know if your mother has any copies of your horoscope with her now?” and the only thing to do to duck such rapid fire questions is to point the way up to the parents and escape.

And finally we come to the greatest match maker of them all- time. We go around with the hope that when the right time arrives the perfect match would drop right into the lap provided by that ultimate matchmaker. And oh, if you are wondering, what I told my mother off this year it was “mom, I have half a dozen girlfriends who are waiting for me to come celebrate Diwali at their house. Shall I go?” and that shut her up. So who wants me to come to their place this year, uh, who, who,? Just kidding…

And Wishing A HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL of you….single or married..have fun.