The One

When I tell my friends of my parents actively searching for a guy for me, they seem confused. “But how do you know that he will be the one?” You don’t. You make him the one for you.

Arranged marriage is a weird concept to white people. Dating is frowned upon in my culture(Bollywood creates false image of acceptance of love.Those aunties that click their tongues when they see you talking to the opposite gender don’t make the movies.It’s the desi uncle who love masala and spice)and forbidden in my religion. It is hard when you have clash of cultures, religions and people in a group. One of my non-desi non-muslim friend has a boyfriend, one of them is a muslim desi engaged to be married and I am the single muslim desi. So while both of them are busy texting their significant others, I am deciding on what snacks will be awaiting me when I reach home from uni. Not that I am complaining coz hey, the sight of food pleases me just as much. I get all mushy too when I see steaming pizza and we never fight like ever. Food and I are just meant to be.

These days all I hear about are proposals and marriage and my friends getting engaged, my cousins getting engaged, when the marriage date is getting fixed and which aunty is searching for a boy for their girl or a girl for their boy. Maybe I grew up and that is why these topics seem more pronounced to me because all of a sudden the theme changed from career to husbands. And I wasn’t prepared. I am still in the career mode. And while marriage won’t put a full stop to that dream of mine, it will most definitely be a life-changing experience. And I hate changes. Well, changes are good or I would get bored of routine. But not my life change changes. The plaza gets renovated, the apps get updated and my house gets repainted, that’s all cool. But changing house, families, living with new people, it will take ages getting used to it. Even though it has been 5 years since I moved to Aus, I still wake up in the morning and wonder where am I? for a few seconds. If 16 years of living in Dubai did that to me, you can only imagine my reaction 22 years living with my family will have on me. I shall wake up and scream at my husband and ask “Who are youuu??”

My parents will celebrate their 27 years of marriage in October. When white people reach such jubilees in their time of spending together, they get asked what is the secret? Desi people have unlocked the secret ages ago. The secret is live together,STAY together (no matter what, even if the husband is ugly). I can’t say for desi people my generation now though. Divorces are getting common in my area too unfortunately. And as cliché  as that sounds, I feel social media is partly to blame. Wives are in competition of which husband gave the best present and who is more romantic and where did which couple celebrate their getaway.You know, that competitive desi mentality lol. Its ruining marriages now.But that is just the tip of the iceberg.Other factors account too.

Now, when I am at that age of what is supposedly every girl’s dream of meeting the one, it doesn’t seem all rosy. Books and movies don’t offer step by step manual.Even if they did, chuck it away and create your own.That doesn’t mean it will be a fairytale story. You got to prepare yourself for the bumpy ride.And I guarantee it will be smooth sailing after for a long long time. The magic word is compromise.

***All opinions stated are mine (ok some might be the influence of a couple of aunties and grandmothers’ advice. I went to a party recently and got heaps and loads of advice on how to handle marriage so yeah.They told me to compromise I replied yolo (not really)).

***All images and gif via Google Images.