Arranged .. What??!!

One nice way to talk to people here is to tell them
about your homeland and any system that exists there.
Almost all the time you say something people are just
fascinated by it and all of a sudden you feel a rush
of patriotism flowing inside. One such incident that
did not very much turn out the same way was when I
told my friend how people get married in India. The
Arranged marriage.
People here have such a funny expression when they
even hear it. It as if they are hearing these two
words together for the first time and they have no
clue as to
what it means. For some people to understand this is
as tough as rocket science. I have people shoot so
many questions even before I finish telling them how
it works. The Most frequent questions being:
1. Arranged .. What?? what do u arrange.. do u mean
the food and party??
(you dont want to listen to the answer buddy.. u
may faint)
2. What.. do your parents really go in search of a
girl for u? wow....
3. So you marry a girl who you have never dated
before?
(we work so hard to get an "intro" .. dating is too
far fetched..)
4. And you just nod your head to what your parents
say?
(do i ve an option.. if its not this stranger.. its
gonna be someone else..)
5. Are things changing in your generation??
(Oh yeah.. things have changed a lot.. believe me
its totally different.. My grandfather did not meet my
grandma till the day of marriage.. my dad met my mom
once.. and I (The generation today) have been given
the right to talk to the girl before marriage. See we
are changing fast...)

The list goes on.. and by the time I try to answer
these questions I feel so stupid.

The only question that I can answer well is when I
show them that marriages like that also work (with
some statistical divorce rate that i google out..).
The
funniest part is that they are more shocked at the
fact that it works..

Explaining "the searching process by parents" makes
you feel a little better when I show websites like
bharathmatrimony.com / shaadi.com. The whole
innovative concept was developed and deployed in
India( I would say there are no equivalent websites in
any other part of the world.) Everyone looks at it
amazed. They think of it as a "marriage that's click
away" kinds and feel that we are way advanced in the
marriage technology.

Apart from all that when I sit back and think how it
works.. I have no idea.. I am not able to figure out
even the probabilty of such marriages working.. but it

works.. its an unexplained phenomenon just like love..
now i dont want to dive into love marriages..

Cheers!!

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