The problem is how love marriages (which fail) happen in India. This is not due to any western influence but due to Indian movies and mentality. Indians are too parochial when it comes to accept changes, rather they are influenced easily, but not influenced completely. Things get messed up only because the crux of the change is never complete in their minds. They do it only because his/her friend has done it. Love or arrange marriage, it’s the marriage which has its own identity and the two partners need to understand this building their identity as one. Marriage is certainly beyond the discussion Love vs. Arranged!!!
In Indian Movies, Love is depicted in a totally misleading and wrong way. Kids see this and get mislead by it. They think that they live happily after marriage and everything is lovey-dovey. Also they get the idea that infatuation or lust is Love.
Love marriages happen due to the decision taken by 2 people and if the people who are taking the decision are immature then the marriage is destined to fail.
Love marriages happening between two 18 year olds is a disaster waiting to happen. Also love marriages between a rich girl and a Driver/Rickshawwallah is also a disaster. Whereas a love marriage between 2 doctors, 2 SEs, 2 bank employees, 2 teachers is a perfect way as both understand each other and profession very well. This is not mandatory, but if partner understands each other and respect for what they are, love marriages never fail. Few lucky people get the chance to marry with the person they love, and this relation should never be taken for granted.
Every marriage whether Love or arranged has to be worked upon. Both require equal amount of work. But in love marriage some work has already happened before marriage(and not entire work) while in arranged you have to start from beginning. But in arranged marriage you don’t have any choice to abandon the work.
I have always shown support for love marriage, not because it gives me liberty to chose my partner, but because in India the best and only way casteism can be abolished or become less relevant is by having love marriages. Else I am sure even after 50 years we will still be seeing people talking about their castes.
Even after getting so much evolved, exposed we today want to believe in casteism. Do we make enough individual choices to be happy? Or are we forced to makes these choices based on circumstances which are temporary? (And don’t worry about the religion of your child…would you ever feel bad if your parent have had an inter religion/caste marriage?). An individual can be only as broad minded as his society is. And society talks about culture, but when I dig a bit in our own mythology, few facts astonish me completely. Like I am stating few examples of love marriages; Not even going too far in past, just some examples from Mahabharata
Nal Damyanti->Love Marriage
LordSiva & DeviParvati-> Love Marriage
Arjun Draupadi-> love Marriage ( Draupadi chose Arjun in the Swayambar and she fell in Love with him since the first moment)
Arjun Subhadra-> Love marriage that involved elopement with the help of Lord Krishna
Arjun Ulupi-> love marriage
Arjun Chitrangada->. Love marriage
Bhim Hirimba-> Love Marriage between a Human Male and a Monster Female Surprisingly with the consent of parents, guess parents then din’t care about religion, caste even species diff et al when it came to happiness of their children. May be they were wrong , Right?)
Dushmanta Shakuntala-. Love marriage
And please don’t question on the future of Dushmanta Shakuntala marriage, especially if you worship Lord Krishna(Remember Radha-krishna? Am not going into any debate or details here)
I am somehow very happy for Arjun…lucky chap!! But was there no casteism at that time? What is more important, is life after marriage and not the casteism, religion etc. For 2 people to be happy, reverence for oneself and for each other is very important. Marry to be together in love and not to promote casteism. We have got a lot from the society, and now it’s our turn to help society on casteism. I am not a great person, but it does not require any greatness to stand for good and for me casteism is not good; casteism can only help to divide.
© Vinay Vernekar
Disclaimer: These are purely my opinions and not at all intended to hurt anyone or any sentiments. I am just writing what I feel is right!
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