Tempting FATE

                I just turned 25 this year. It's an important milestone in one's life. It's when a sense of maturity hits you (or at least the world expects it). It's that time in life when you start wondering "What Next?" Generally the thoughts would be “Either I need to do my Masters so that it helps my career or I jump to a high(er) paying job so that I can be financially stable by the time I turn 27-28”.

These thoughts still persist in my mind and believe me thinking about these for a long duration can drive you nuts. Higher education’s damn too costly and I am not the greatest fan of taking loans. Add to that the pressure of constructing a house in the next year or 2, it just doesn’t make sense. Having already jumped twice in my career in 3 years, jumping to a new company might hurt me in the long run. I’m enjoying the responsibility at my current job, but the hikes the current job promises scares me. I work for a small start-up who pays salaries from revenues earned and right now our revenues don’t make for a good figure.

Too much running in my mind, you think?? I wish these were the only worries; I could manage them any day. But there’s a bigger, sillier yet scarier nightmare in my head driving me and few others like me nuts. Wanna know what it is? Read on..

I come from a semi-orthodox Brahmin family. Growing up, I had few elder cousins whose marriage alliances weren’t going as expected. In both cases, the girls ditched my brothers for their lovers; this after committing to the marriage. Naturally, aunts and grandmothers were always saying to our ears – don’t believe girls of your generation; stay away from girls from your class; they’ll fool you; they’ll spin a web around you and trap you and many more such concocted stories would be fed to me. I grew up to become an obedient son/grandson/nephew and kept girls at a safe distance. But the world around has changed so much over these past few years!! Inter-caste marriages, love marriages and live-in relationships are the norm. I’ve had loads of marriages to attend this season and it’s all love marriages.. Guys getting married at 25! Really feel happy for friends that they are getting to choose their partners and are not being forced to go through the interviews of arranged marriages ;-)

But where does all this leave me? Having told myself that i’ll go for the traditional arranged marriage, I see nightmares now – no girls around to marry: D. I’ve always wanted to marry a girl from our community, which is pretty small. I have a cousin, 3 years elder to me, whose mom is finding it really tough to find decent girls around. The decent ones don’t have the jataka/kundli matching. My parents have already relaxed their conditions – “if you really want to go out there and find yourself a girl, make sure she’s a Brahmin”, they say.. It’s much easier said than done. Inter-caste marriages have their own problems, even if it’s Shivites v/s Vaishnavites. I’ve seen an ex-colleague have problems with in-laws even before her marriage. And with my less than average looks(it’s debatable) , I feel I have a better shot at an arranged marriage.

Ideally at 25, I shouldn’t even be thinking about this. I am supposed to have a good 2 years of independent life J . But sometimes, when I’m lonely I just can’t stop thinking about this stuff. The only thing that I can do is earn some good money in the meanwhile and tempt fate expecting it to be good to me..