Journey of a Lifetime

Betrothal time is here...it's time to get things formalized

 

4th May 2003



Once it was decided that families liked each other, most importantly the boy and girl had a fancy for the other, and it was time to formalize the same.

 

It’s quite typical like a corporate merger. Everything needs to be spelt out in black and white terms, agreed upon and move forward. That’s the reason why we have a betrothal function as a customary thing in typical Hindu Brahmin culture.

 

The day was fixed on 4th May 2003 (Sunday evening at around 5.00 PM).

 

At that time I was working with Carborundum Universal (part of the Murugappa group of companies). I had resigned and was expecting to be relieved by 14th of May since I had to join Cognizant by 15th. All was not well since I had run into issues with my boss at Carborundum. Board meeting was scheduled on 14th May and I was involved in preparation of financial statements and presentation material for the board. I had many a sleepless nights. I told my boss that my betrothal was fixed on 4th and that I would not come to work on 4th. He was none too favorable for that but had no other option and could not openly say so. Nevertheless, committed that I was to my work, I worked through the night of 3rd and kept all the financial statements for his review. I was the only soul in the Caroborundum / Tiruvottiyur Accounts building working throughout the night of 3rd and left to home at 4.00 AM on 4th morning.

 

I slept through the day and was ready for the evening. It was a day when two souls were to take oath to get married and live a life of fullness in its entirety.

 

Betrothal function, in our culture is arranged by the girl’s family. Her second sister stayed in Nanganallur and the function was arranged in a small hall associated with a temple.

 

Her brother and one of her uncle came in a Maruti Omni and picked us up on Sunday evening from our house to go to Nanganallur.

 

As a groom, you become the privileged one. Vidya keeps telling me that in our rebirth (We have this concept or belief that a soul is regenerated 9 times before it merges with the ultimate one) I would be born as a boy and you as a girl. So, in essence it means that you end up doing all the things what she is obliged to do now. Do you believe that girls are subjugated to undue pressures? Well at least I believe that I don’t do that in my household. I don’t argue though, with women and especially with Vidya, I can never expect to win one.

 

Moving on, we reached the venue by about 5.00 PM I guess. Elders and relatives of both families reached there.

 

As I understand, briefly, the function is arranged to announce that this boy would marry this girl on the specified day and that the elders should come and bless the couple. In the olden days, typically in small villages everyone almost knew everyone in the village. When such functions are held announcing the association and marriage it helps everyone to know and also inform before the marriage is held if there are any problems in either of the families or with the boy or the girl. That, I guess is the concept behind such functions inviting the near and dear ones.

 

Once everyone is assembled, at the strike of the sacred hour (we also have the ideology of checking which time is the best time in a day to embark upon new ventures) the Vedic scholars began reading out the arrangement that was to take place between the two families and when the marriage would take place.

 

It would take a separate website to write about Hindu customs and I may have to spend an entire life understanding the logics of it. Perhaps, I will take this opportunity to understand some of them and share in a simplistic manner to the benefit of all.

 

I need to write a separate note on what I felt and thought about my lovely lady, who looked simply supernal on that day. Isn’t she always so…