Matrimaami.com

My son just got married. A blissful event for us though not quite a typical big fat Indian wedding. It was of average bigness and fatness, maybe marginally overweight in parts, given we got over-enthu now and then, but generally, as I said, a happy occasion. Even as we’re suffused with the warm afterglow, I cannot but help reflect on some key learnings that I want to share for those who sit on the threshold of embarking on a similar endeavour. Actually, make that one key learning…

 

Before I just throw it out there, here’s some context. It was a hybridized arranged marriage in the sense that my wife initially spent some time looking for profiles on a matrimonial site online. You could say this is where the story begins… 

 

When the topic of enrolling in the matrimonial site came up I, as is my wont, did a quick scoot and it fell on my wife to take charge of proceedings, which she did with some initial grumbling. The process seemed quite tedious and the grumbling progressively gathered intensity to the point that on certain days, the entire household was on orange alert. Surprisingly at some point, the decibel levels of the complaints reduced and soon altogether stopped. Very curious. Assuming it was one of life’s harmless mysteries that one should not prod and poke much, I moved on with life.

 

One of the following evenings, when we had a vigorous ideological collision on the subject of disposal of some furniture, I sharply asked her to not raise her voice and in the heat of the moment she retorted that the gentleman she spoke with earlier that evening had just complimented her on her sweet voice, so I apparently needed to get my ears tested…

 

That stopped me in my tracks. Which gentleman? That evening she was home, the doorbell hadn’t rung even once, so if gentlemen were complimenting her it could only have been someone serenading from the balcony or something…

 

The alarm bells were ringing. Promptly and on a suo moto basis, constituting a high powered one-man SIT, I got to work. Turned out that it was some Maama who had called for a potential alliance for his daughter and they had ended up spending half an hour exchanging origin stories of their ancestral villages. And finally, after delivering the “what a sweet voice you have, Madam” compliment, had promised to call again after matching horoscopes.

 

Digging relentlessly further, I started unearthing further case facts. It turned out that there was a veritable truck load of Maamas who had been calling ostensibly for a marriage alliance, but ended up chatting about everything from Chennai weather to the latest Vijay movie. My wife, a conversation junkie, was clearly captivated by the sheer variety of conversations she was having with all kinds of Maamas who, while quite diverse in all respects and backgrounds, seemed to be unanimous about one thing – my wife had a sweet voice and they liked talking to her!

 

It got to a head when one day her phone rang and I attended it as she was otherwise occupied. It was some random Maama on the other end who had called to follow up on a previous conversation with my wife. Despite my constant assertions that I was the potential groom’s father and as such, was duly authorized to speak on his behalf, the Maama was indignant and demanded to speak only to my wife. It felt like one of those days when the client refused to talk to me while asking for my boss to avoid wasting any more time…

 

I further ascertained that my wife had signed up with multiple matrimonial sites over the process. While she steadfastly maintained that it was to cast the bridal net wider, the upshot of it was that she was getting acquainted with a growing number of sundry Maamas. Frequently I would overhear vibrant conversations from “which is the most powerful Hanuman temple” to “the most effective and bio-available form of vitamin D3” to “the likelihood of a cyclone forming over the Bay of Bengal the coming week”. Yes, now and then, also some horoscopes and stuff…

 

It’s always a trifle unsettling when a horde of smooth talking Maamas, equipped with a lot of free time and infinite perseverance keep hitting on your wife. I must admit the green-eyed monster was beginning to rear its ugly head. Nothing very serious, not a vivid, intense green, rather a mild, marginal, you could say a light pastel green eyed one, but still, I was a little torn. Should I intervene actively (empirically a bad choice) or just let things play out in the hope that compliments about her voice and way of speaking will eventually start wearing thin? 

 

Ultimately, lessons learnt during management school were hard to shake and I decided to adopt a wait and watch strategy. The fact is, I was noticing that the process was slowly but surely beginning to tell on my wife’s patience. She’s a busy lady who, when she feels the weight of idle time, would manufacture some pointless work to keep herself occupied. Leisure as a concept, she abhors. It was dawning on her that all these Maamas were generously endowed with free time and possessed excessive knowledge on a wide swathe of topics, which they were keen to share with her. And their inclination to chat interminably was starting to impact her work productivity…

 

During all this while, I found myself ruminating over a puzzling fact. Most men I know would delegate the task of handling this process to their wives. Before you take umbrage, I am not being sexist. We men are just not equal to the rigors and the socialization quotient demanded by this exercise. For instance, my son’s father in law, I subsequently learnt, had delegated this task to his wife with even more alacrity than I! So how is it that so many Maamas were calling? Why didn’t they delegate to their wives? Are they genuinely on the website for a matrimonial alliance or are they just looking to have general chats with random Maamis in the hope that, if they cast the net wide enough, chances are that one thing would lead to another?

 

If so, I must grudgingly concede that it’s a pretty smart scheme; a very disarming way to reach out to Maamis of all hues with an iron clad alibi. And going by any law of probability, if you have sufficient patience to make an infinite number of phone calls, at the very least you’ll have an impressive digital rolodex of phone pal Maamis…

 

Anyway, finally for us, all is good. My son’s wedding went well. My wife and I stay happily married, I guess none of the Maamas had it in them to create disruption in the nest. 

 

Though, I have to confess that I have silently taken note of this genius strategy.  From my vantage point, my son’s wedding has been a huge missed opportunity. At some point, when it is time for my daughter, assuming she assigns the task of looking for a groom to us, don’t be surprised if I leap at the task and take full ownership of the process...   

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