An arranged marriage is arranged madness

I can't believe my post is motivated by a no-brainer romcom, but it is. "Ek me aur ek tu" released last week and I was listening to Imran Khan's promotional interview on the radio and he was saying the story starts off with them getting married after an alcohol fueled night in Vegas and over time they get to know each other better. I realized that's what arranged marriages are. They are no better than an alcohol fueled bad decision to get married in Vegas. Its a gamble and the risk is the same. Now isn't that a sobering thought.

Lets see, two strangers meet, their cognitive powers hampered by powerful substances (alcohol in one case, maa ka pyaar in the other) and each person lies to a certain extent about his/her own qualities and the intensity with which he/she likes the other persons'. In both cases the decision is based on too little knowledge and too little reliance on the most important thing - the way it feels to be in love. So both situations are pretty much the same. Getting arrange-married to someone is the same as getting drunk and mistake-marrying in Vegas! How are you supposed to love someone and his/her parents, have children with them, clean after them, see them brush teeth, puke, have diarrhea, find their sleepy head look cute and do all this till the end of time if you are not in love with that person?!. You can grow to love a person over time, like you would with a friend or a pet or a house, but to truly be partners, man & wife, the halves, you need to be "in love" to start with. And it is the most beautiful feeling the world. Its not only when you can't live without them, its when you can but you don't want to. Love is not out of a compulsion you have no control over, its a choice. You are completely secure knowing that you are completely vulnerable,that's love that stays forever and that's the kind you need.

For the record, I didn't watch Ek me aur ek tu, but I have to admit I kinda wanted to.

The relationship equation

A relationship works when,

 x - y >= 0

 where,

x = The happiness, support , motivation & inspiration given by the relationship

y =  The tears, worry, self-loathing & doubting and helplessness caused by the relationship

As it can be seen from the equation, when the relationship gives you more than it takes away, i.e. the net is more than zero, its worth it. Otherwise all you get is a negative number which will always subtract something from you and will drain you over time. A special mention for"drama" based relations. Now some people like it hot! What i mean is, the peaceful routine existence gets too boring to keep their interest alive. A fight, a scare an ultimatum fires up the engine. But please note that the equation holds for them too. Because mostly the drama has only short term consequences and not sustained sadness. The small episodes of friction are like the sparks given by a spark plug. They ignite the passion.

Now what if the net is zero, nothing lost but nothing gained. Well then its a false positive. Because this zero doesn't account for the opportunity cost of having lost out on the potential of meeting someone who can tilt the balance of the equation. To slightly modify an analogy from the movie life in a metro - if someone's car is already parked in your garage, you cant let out your garage to someone new.

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about what makes a relationship work or not work. Its different for each couple. I reproduce here some wise words from "sex and the city" - "No one can possibly know what actually goes on between two people except for those two people".


This post is dedicated to my dear friend R. You deserve the world.