A Not so "Arranged" Note

This was provoked by one of the discussions I had recently with a close friend of mine combined with a late night movie that I decided to watch tonight. 

The name of the movie - 'Tere ghar ke samane', starring the late Dev Anand and Nutan. The story of an architect who is caught between 2 neighbors who are rivals, both want our man to build a superior house for them than their neighbors. The catch is one of these guys is our heros dad and the other his lady love's. The two old men cant stand each other and our brave young protagonists, the architect and his love are supposed to brave their parents rivalry and make them agree to their marriage. 

But i did not attract your attention towards the movie to discuss the plot. The reason i mention this movie is because around the climax when our lovers are trying to talk sense to their fathers and asking them to forgive and forget their meaningless feud for the sake of their children and their future. The hero argues with his dad saying, it is the 20th century and the new India is moving in a new direction and that such so called "jhoothi shaan" should not be put before the children's life and future. They should be allowed to live their life and marry whomever they are in love with. 

This is a 1963 movie. I presume it was a hit if not a super hit. I am sure the cinema goers must have clapped and the front seaters must have whistled when in the end the 2 oldies do agree to the love match. A movie made 50 years ago. 50 years ago we celebrated a love marriage on the celluloid... amazing... 

And this made me wonder, if those people loved this movie what happened outside the dark cinema halls?

Today we are in the 21st century, but believe me i havent seen India move into any direction when it comes to love matches. People still kill in the name of love, people still threaten their sons and daughters of dire emotional or physical consequences if they even propose a love marriage. 

The main arguments being, what will the extended family say or we will be shamed in our locality. Shamed? For what? For giving your child the freedom to choose their life partner? Ashamed for believing in their ability to choose a suitable spouse of themselves? Ashamed for letting him/her take a major step forward in their lives?

I have seen some of my friends stand up to the decisions of their parents, some took some dire steps that they shouldn't have been forced to take, while most gave up and gave in. But not to completely incriminate our parents some of them did have pretty good legitimate reasons to refuse the match, which is fine by the way if the spouse is of dubious and questionable intensions. And thats why even if it is a love match we should always perhaps ask of their opinions, chances are they might be a better judge of character after all they have that thing called experience. So in this article i am merely talking of irrational fears of our parents regarding our better halves not the well-meaning good ones.

Believe me, i have nothing against arranged marriages, i have seen wonderfully happy and beautiful arranged marriages, but if your child is in love then why should you, being his parent, not support it? Why do things as primitive as honor killing exist? Why is falling in love considered the ultimate treason against family? And what is surprising is sometimes it is not even done because the boy or the girl is of a different caste or religion, but just because he/she was not chosen by the elders. 

But i am not here to judge our older generation. I am not here to question them, they were a different blood, their world was much different from ours and they are not the ones reading this blog.

My question is to the ones who would be reading this blog, who belong to this generation, my 21st century generation, the so-called SMS generation, most of whom are fighting for their freedom to choose their spouse, and even if not that then at least have come across the feeling of love and elation that comes along with it. Would we become judgmental and angry like our older generations. Will in 2035 my daughter/son propose a love match of herself/himself and i will refuse because the person in question is not of the proper social standing, or is of a different caste/race/religion/country? Will we as a generation judge our children based on the fact if they married according to their parent's wishes or not, or are we going to try an change this criteria a bit? 

Will we, who currently feel burdened by the values of our elders try to avenge it on our next generation or will we give them one less thing to fight about? After all i feel their are much more pressing issues than love vs. arranged marriage that our society and specially the young mid-20s society should be fighting for right now. But they cant simply because they are fighting that loosing battle of love, respect and the so called honor, for and against their own parents. Will we do this to our children too? Will we let someone else repeat a similar blog entry in 50 years? (I sure will have a deja vu :-/)

Its time India starts thinking and since we are the new avant garde its time we start thinking... about love, about respect, and about honor...