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Marriage and all that

When quizzed by her friends, my sister once admitted to her friends in an all casual manner that she might one day enter into an arranged marriage. Her friends, predominantly Chinese, was revolted by this idea to the extent that information about any passing Indian guy who came on their radar was immediately relayed to her. Of course, when friends arrange it, it is all right.
My dear non-Indian friends, before I proceed, let me clear one misconception. Arranged marriage is not forced marriage. In arranged marriage, you have a choice (and sadly so does the opposite number). What makes it particularly distinct are parents play matchmaker and decisions have to be made faster. Which means you don't play base. You just go straight to the home run. 

Personally, I was not in favour of it, though that was 4 years ago, when I came into university expecting life to be like American Pie. But God had other plans for me. Not satisfied of putting me through an all male secondary school education and 2 years of NS where the prettiest girl you came across was the 40 year old aunty serving food in camp, he thought he would carry on having a laugh. And so he sent me to engineering. Now girls in engineering, they are like viral videos. If you think you were the first to see and like it, check the number of views and likes. 

Yeap, thats right. Get in line. 

Therefore nearing the end of 4 years, I was actually thankful that I have arranged marriage to fall back on while my single chinese and malay guy friends started to hit the panic button. Then I came across another fellow Indian, who despite a similar turbulent 3 years in Mathematics (where the story is no better), continued to see arranged marriage as a cardinal sin. In the name of charity, me and another like minded friend spent a good two and a half hours trying to explain to him that where he was, he did not have what we call, a choice. 

However, eventually we realised that it was impossible to convince him, fudamentally because he was a mathematician, a mathematician who dealt with proof and certainty. For him the uncertainty of living with someone he did not know that well was a no-go. Here was a guy who thrived on proving 2+2=4 (by basically proving 2+2 couldn't be anything else. Well, you don't say!). The statistics and odds did not matter to him. As far as he was concerned, he had to spend at least a year getting to understand the girl before he decided to marry her.

I had no answer against this argument. Though my dear mathematical friend, while what I say may no matter to you, when the advice comes from a married man, with a touch of sarcasm and truth to it, I say you take it with a pinch of salt. To you he says,


"Tell him you can spend a year, ten years or a lifetime. But you will never understand a woman".

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